No, no, no! A V10 does not an Esprit make!

Although it’s only a rumour promulgated by Evo magazine at this point, the very thought of Toyota lending it’s new Lexus V10 to a future Esprit is enough to make me seethe with vitriolic outrage.

Lest we forget, the original Esprit was the ultimate road-going expression of Colin “to add speed, add lightness” Chapman’s fanatical obsession with elegant efficiency. He was obsessed to a fault perhaps, as demonstrated by the time, when upon returning from a GP race and having demanded more weight be removed from the prototype Esprit’s rear transaxle, he sort of fell on his own sword . He took off for home in the amended mule making it a short distance before the new “added lightness” tore itself free from the car, leaving him stranded on the airport exit road.

If this little anecdote goes to show anything, it’s that Colin would be turning in his fibreglass grave at the thought of a stonking great ten-pot in the back of his little supercar that could, no matter how much Lexus green-washing it may have had or the fact that Lotus may also produce an “eco Esprit”. Why not make all Esprits eco?

I have long thought that the future of maximum driving enjoyment lies in super-lightweight, compact and fuel efficient cars that are unencumbered by concessions to overt luxury or pretensions to practicality, in essence the Lotus approach. The new Evora, by all accounts, stays as true to Colin’s edicts as much as a 2+2 Cayman competitor can, but the Esprit should be the very essence of the company’s fabled light-weight history, not an offensive repudiation.

P.S The sketch in the Evo article makes it look like Lotus has decided to throw the baby out with the bath water, do an Audi and put the V10 in front of the front axle line. Whatever will they think of next?

Filed under: Car, Design, Design Strategy, Eco, Lost in Translaton, Philosophy, Quotes, Sustainability, Things I Hate, Colin Chapman, Esprit, Evora, Lexus, Lotus, To add speed add lightness, V10

Awesome(ly) Small Target Market Alert: Japanese Rockers

Take a look at this film clip and tell me that a design project based around these guys wouldn’t be absurd fun.

They’re a little bit macho, a little bit fem, a little bit psycho and yet oddly controlled. Overlay this on Japanese car culture and I have a feeling that there’s creative space for some suitably bonkers vehicles.

Filed under: Car, Car Culture, Concept, Design, Design Strategy, Music, Things I like, Japan, Japanese, Mods and Rockers, Nothing To Worry About, Peter Bjorn and John, Rockers

Mornings Become Electric

If you happen to find yourself in any major urban centre from about 4am onwards, there’s one unifying feature no matter where you are in the world: vans.

Although the size and shape may vary – from the delightful but filthy Paggio Apes in Italy to the vast Ford Econolines found across the USA – every day, across the world hundreds of thousands of commercial vehicles ply the streets of cities and towns making hundreds of short-hop voyages as they make their rounds.

While their necessity is undoubted, the negative impact of these often diesel-powered vehicles on the urban environment is likewise indisputable. It was therefore heartening to hear of the Movement Design Bureau’s new project investigating the potential for electrification of urban delivery fleets.

As Joe and Vinay explain in the introductory video, the limited range, short-hop nature of a typical delivery van’s usage cycle makes it an ideal candidate for electrification using currently available technology. No finicky lithium ions or expensive fast charging required.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the positive impacts of a wide scale electrification of urban delivery vehicles could be huge and MBD, over the next few months, will be looking into how such a program could be implemented and, importantly, whether White Van Man is ready to ditch the dino-fuel.

Head over to Re*Move to watch the video and keep up to date with how the project is developing.

[Image: Wikimedia Commons, butchered by Andrew Philip Artois Smith]

Filed under: Car, Car Culture, Design, Design Strategy, Eco, Sustainability, Technology

E is for “Eh?”

There was a time when Mercedes-Benz built the ultimate premium (not luxury, old Mercs could never be considered luxurious) cars. They were engineered to a standard and the price was set accordingly.

My client’s neighbour is the proud owner of an early 90s 500E, a performance saloon (again, old Mercs, no matter how powerful, were never sports cars) produced at the peak in Mercedes’ unwavering dedication to excellence in the automotive art.

The price of entry was a staggering DM134,000, or around €100,000 today, taking into account inflation. Yet because of the design and engineering integrity that all that cash purchased , after more than 20 years and 300,000 kilometres the only major work that needs doing is a reconditioning of the gearbox.

That Mercedes’ determination to build the world’s best cars was so dogged that it lead them to the brink of bankruptcy cannot be ignored. Yet the subsequent, wholesale dilution of their core value of integrity in the chase for bigger margins exacted a heavy toll on their brand image.

Filed under: Car, Design, Design Strategy, Perceived Quality, Photography, Premium, 500E, Aigner CK65 RS Blanchimont, BlueTec, BMW 5 Series, Carlsson, E-Class, E220 CDI, Mercedes-Benz, Perceived Quality, Re*Move

Frank Llego Wright: Hell yes!

The first architect I fell in love with as a kid was Frank Lloyd Wright, shortly followed by his Australian-based understudy, the remarkable Walter Burley Griffin.

Growing up in the leafy, undulating suburbs of Sydney, where houses often perch on steep slopes or wrap themselves around sandstone outcrops, I had an instant affinity for houses like the seminal Falling Water and the Ennis-Brown house. Such was my love that I even designed and produced, in my final year of high-school, an FLW/WBG inspired garden lamp (the only – heavily cropped – pic I could find).

So imagine my surprise and delight at discovering that Lego, in collaboration with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and Brickstructures, Inc. to produce Lego sets of Falling Water and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum!

If anybody’s wondering, I have a birthday next week…

[Found via PSFK]

Filed under: Architecture, Design, Eye Candy, Things I like, Brickstructures Inc, Ennis-Brown House, Falling Water, Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Lego, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Walter Burley Griffin

Monday Morning Madness: Ferrari Modulo

As a kid the Paolo-Martin penned Modulo, though only ever seen in books, scared the living daylights out of me. It still does.

I simply couldn’t understand how it could look so otherworldly and still be a car. There is a latent, alien malevolence to it that continues to send chills up my spine. It’s hard to believe, slightly dated details aside, that this Ferrari 512 S-based monster slithered into the world at the 1970 Geneva show.

The question is, seeing as I don’t think there’s been a concept as outrageous since, who’s going to top it?

[Found via Jalopnik]

Filed under: Car, Car Culture, Design, Eye Candy, Film, Geneva, Motor Shows, Things I like, 512 S, Ferrari, Geneva Motorshow, Modulo, Paolo Martin, Pininfarina

Das (schönste) Auto

Last Friday I completed another photo shoot and of my three subjects, VWs Polo and Scirocco and Mercedes E-Class, it was, as it was in Geneva, the Polo that really took my breath away.

Here was a €12,000 car that made the object of every German middle-manager’s affections, the E-Class, look more than a little underdone.

The Polo is so good that two days later, reviewing the shoot, I’m still struggling to comprehend how VW has got their detailing so fine, their tolerances so tight yet still make money on the thing. Here is a “peoples” VW, as opposed to the superlative, but somewhat more haute bourgeoise Phaeton, that at long last takes over the flame of surprise and delight that was lit by the Mk IV Golf.

You may think it’s more than a trifle geeky that I get so turned on by these tiny details – or turned off, as was the case with the Aston Martin One-77-, but it’s these small things that can build brands up or let them down entirely when it comes to customer perception.

A good friend of mine, who works for Apple, once remarked that their products were the mass-produced equivalents of Bang & Olufsen products. Noting my slight incredulity, he reasoned that objects like the iPhone or a MacBook Pro were as close to the perceived quality of a Beosound 9000 as you could get while still churning items out by the million on a high-speed line, rather than the low thousands, or indeed hundreds, with a great deal of hand finishing. Turning my still-flawless, glossy black iPod in my hands, I have to agree.

And for sure, the miniscule panel gaps, thoughtful detailing and sense of integrity, let’s call it craftsmanship, are among the things that pull in buyers of Polo and iPod alike.

One only need to look at the level of detailing in the headlamps, something hithertofore seen only in Audis and… well, I can’t think of another brand that does lamps so well. At the rear, the gap betwixt lamp and quarter panel was so tight I couldn’t get a finger nail in. Really.

Just as a Skoda Octavia gives you a bit of VW Golf niceness at a lower price in a unique body, so the Polo packs a deft touch of Audi in the B Segment, at least until the A1 comes along.

Craftsmanship, be it industrial or imparted by loving, skilled hands, sends subtle messages about the depth of thought and engineering ingenuity that imbue these products. The Polo has it in spades.

[Images: Andrew Philip Artois Smith]

Filed under: Branding, Car, Design, Design Strategy, Perceived Quality, Premium, Things I like, Aston Martin, Craftsmanship, E-Class, Mercedes-Benz, One-77, Polo, VW