Innehållsförteckning för No. 252 från AUTO & DESIGN

“I believe every new car should be its own little revolution,” says Gilles Vidal, Renault’s chief designer. “The world is moving too fast today, and the new normal is to have new things all the time.” Inside and out, the new Renault Mégane E-Tech Electric follows this dictate. The compact EV revises the codes of the popular segment long dominated by the Volkswagen Golf, enabled by a new Renault-Nissan Alliance platform. Even Renault’s existing Mégane has been left behind, Vidal says. A Google-based multimedia system, accessed through screens arranged in a reverse “L” shape around the driver, also marks a departure for Renault. Large, 20-inch wheels are pushed to the very edge of the vehicle envelope, with minimal overhangs. That results in a wheelbase of 2.7 meters, nearly the same…

“We wanted to create an art object, not just a car, starting from our style codes and projecting them into the future". This is how Flavio Manzoni, Ferrari Chief Design Officer, presents the Ferrari Daytona SP3, the new collector's jewel that joins the Ferrari Monza SP1 and SP2 in the “Icon" segment, that the Prancing Horse brand dedicates to special series evocative of its history. A project in which design literally dictates the approach, with a stylistic freedom rarely granted in the case of a supercar. If for the Monza the historical reference were the "barchettas" of the 1950s, for the Daytona SP3 the inspiration came from the legendary victories of the Maranello Sport Prototypes of the following decade, in particu-lar the 330 P3/4, the 330 P4 and the 412…

A concept car rooted in mythology as a world ambassador for Chinese culture. When the Saic design team led by Shao Jing Feng set to work on the Kun, the original idea was to create a car that would stand as a bridge between China and the rest of the world. That's why the Shanghai and London Saic style centres collaborated on it, adopting cutting-edge technological content and traditional Chinese features to showcase during the Dubai Expo 2020 exhibition. According to Chinese mythology, the Kun was a large fish inhabiting the North Sea, but its shapeshifting nature enabled it to turn into a bird with coloured wings. In the same way, the Kun concept is capable of travelling by road, sea or air, and provide a high level of comfort…

"The Experience" has won the "Dress Your Vision - Alcantara is on board" online competition organised and promoted by Auto&Design and Alcantara, and open to transportation design students and strictly non-professional car design enthusiasts. The project - conceived by Milton Royan Gabriel, an Indian with a background in architecture and a passion for car design that led him to specialise in this field at the Milan Polytechnic Design School - is a study for a modular interior environment dedicated to the vehicles of the future, proposing a seat that is adaptable to the needs of the user. It can be a more traditional type of seat, or it can be transformed into a hammock to maximise comfort during long journeys when the autonomous driving mode comes into play. Alcantara is…

Autostyle, the design event promoted by Roberto Artioli of Berman, has reached edition number 18 and for the second consecutive year has been transformed into a Digital Edition, with weekly videos from 7 October to 9 December 2021, due to the Covid emergency. A formula which, after last year's positive test, has allowed the event to continue, until 2019 implemented in person in Mantua, now instead meeting designers in their workplaces, often inaccessible to most people. The 2021 edition introduced new themes regarding design in a rapidly changing automotive and technological world. Moderating the workshops was Alessio Tommasetti, Ambassador of Wacom, main partner of Autostyle. There was a wide range of projects presented, very different in type, from the Volvo Concept Recharge by Robin Page's team, a preview of the…

The offbeat, modular shapes of the Canoo Pick-up EV, the futuristic interpretation of a legend like the Land Rover Defender 90 and the change in the Peugeot look wrought by the company’s design team in recent years all took home the Car Design Award 2021, the Oscar of car styling instituted in 1984 on the initiative of our magazine. The winners were selected by a jury of experts, journalists from prestigious international motor magazines, in the categories of Concept Cars, Production Cars and Brand Design Language. The 2021 edition took place digitally at the Mauto - the National Car Museum in Turin - and was broadcast on the Car Design Award YouTube channel. The trophies received by the winners were once again made by Brembo, an established partner of the…

Manufacturers all now seem to be busy exploring the nuances of reinventing themselves as "mobility providers", distancing from the confines of mere vehicle producers. At times this process might generate particularly interesting spin-offs, such as a strengthening of brand philosophy or the ability to tap into this philosophy’s roots. Pierre Leclercq, the Citroën's design chief, explains: "This project (evocatively named Urban Collectif, editor's note) takes us back to our grassroots in the truest sense of the word, because we are aiming for a mode of transport that is innovative and accessible to all… very much like the 1948 2CV". Underlying it is the idea that fully autonomous driving is so costly that cars will have to be shared, rather than privately owned, with occupants engaging in useful or leisurely activities…

Sixty-seven years after the birth of the iconic “Gullwing” 300 SL, Mercedes has introduced the fifth series of its super sports car with a very important novelty: the return to some of the original racing characteristics through the fusion of Sensual Purity, the philosophy of design that for some years has dominated the work of Gorden Wagener and his collaborators, and the distinctly sporty genes of AMG. Starting from the name of the new car and up to the most intimate style features, both for the exterior and for the interior. “In its history the SL - explains Wagener, head of design for the entire Daimler group - has gone from racing to a luxury sports car. With the Mercedes-AMG SL we combined the best of both worlds. There is…

There is a very special energy in that area of Italy known as Motor Valley, a compendium of passion, enthusiasm, innovation and design expressed at the very highest levels. This is where Ferrari, Lamborghini, Dallara, Pagani and Ducati, among others, are based, and it is within this ecosystem that Moto Parilla, a manufacturer of exclusive and original e-bikes, set up its business in Reggio Emilia in 2017. A second life for the historic motorbike brand that had its heyday between the 1940s and 1960s, thanks to the initiative and commitment of Filippo Beltrami, founder and CEO of Moto Parilla, assisted by a team of young engineers and creatives who are no less passionate than he is about bikes and the desire to innovate. Their flagship product is the Carbon, a…

Breaking the mould, starting from the idea that the current automotive panorama is hardly diversified, and that cars are increasingly similar to each other, differing only because they are in different segments. This is how the students on the three-year Transportation Design course at the IED in Turin took up the challenge launched by Pininfarina, a partner in this year's thesis projects. So, sparked by this provocation, they tried to reverse the trend by devising concepts that, as required by the briefing, were iconic and unique and represented the canons of purity, beauty and innovation typical of the Turin coachbuilder. The research behind the development of the projects had to focus not only on expressive languages with a strong identity, but also on layouts, engines and technologies suitable for their…

“A new vehicle needs a new design," says John Sodano, manager, exterior design at Nikola Corporation, introducing the concept underlying the design of the Nikola Tre battery-electric vehicle (BEV), produced by the U.S. manufacturer in partnership with Iveco that will be sold in both the U.S. and Europe. The two companies' design teams worked together on the development of this zero-emission heavy-duty vehicle, based on the Iveco S-Way truck platform. The electric axle was co-designed and manufactured by FPT Industrial and features Nikola's cuttingedge electric technology, along with key components supplied by Bosch. "It all started with the prototype that Nikola had created independently to research the styling for a cabover vehicle, with forms and proportions similar to our S-Way," explains Marco Armigliato, chief designer for Iveco Brands at CNH…

Rarely does Ingolstadt's caution generate prototypes that are markedly forward looking, imaginative, far removed from the tried and tested perfection of the production lines: in the face of the fervour that imbibes every branch of the automotive industry, the last few years of the Four Rings seem punctuated only by timid examples of this (including the 2017 Aicon and Elaine, the 2019 AI:ME and AI:TRAIL). This time, however, things are different. «I've never seen so much interest in our futuristic proposals, both from industry insiders and within the company», Marc Lichte, head of design, reveals enthusiastically. «We’ve nailed it». The essence of the two concepts - Skysphere and Grandsphere, to which a third will be added next spring - revolves entirely around the relationship between autonomous driving and unprecedented on-board…

«Mobilize is a radical paradigm shift in the world of mobility as we have known it until now». Patrick Lecharpy, head of design at Mobilize, a Renault Group company dedicated to the electric, shared and connected mobility of the future, explains the role of the designer in shaping a service where the keyword has switched from ownership to use. «We don't simply design vehicles or create a specific style project. It's more about drawing the lines of a new mobility experience with an extended, longterm, all-round approach: from brand positioning to the logo, from the fleet of vehicles to the service management app». The designers' approach is therefore linked to both the product and the experience they want to offer their customers, while the playing field is the urban one.…

A car designed for track and road expressing the signature values of the Italian sports cars of yesteryear, with the focus on lightness and functionality. The elements that led Camal Studio, a style centre set up in Turin in 2008, to develop the forms and proportions of the GT-Pista, the first car from the Italian manufacturer Bermat founded by Matteo Bertezzolo, were few but clear. "The aim was to create an ultra-high-performance sports car from scratch. It would have a strong personality and its forms would communicate all the aerodynamics research that had gone into them. Something that looked like a road-going spaceship", says Alessandro Camorali, founder and CEO of Camal Studio. The project saw the light just before the outbreak of the pandemic. "We started working on the styling…

The constant growth of the nautical sector is accompanied by a new stylistic orientation which, going beyond the classic approach of naval architecture, introduces technical and design solutions borrowed from the car design world. The analysis of these new dynamics has led IED of Turin to define a new training programme, based on the growing process of osmosis between the yacht and automotive worlds. The new Master in Yacht Design, starting in January 2022 in English and lasting 11 months, is aimed at graduates in Architecture, Engineering and in Design - Transportation, Product, Interior - as well as professionals who want to implement their skills in this specific area. With the scientific coordination of Federica Bertolini, Style Manager of the Azimut Benetti Group, and the supervision of Michele Albera, Course…