Re: The 2011 Frankfurt Forecaster

News from Frankfurt 2011:

As a cost-cutting excercise, Audi management give the entire design team an extended holiday. A source from Ingolstadt announces, 'The interns can cope in the meantime‘.
VW’s senior management considered asking Porsche design staff to follow suit only to discover they actually have none, merely a gigantic Cray supercomputer called ‘FERD-I’ which flatly refuses to allow anyone into the design studio or co-operate in any way with the ‘Carbon units’.

Bentley introduces a concept displaying the latest iteration of it’s new design ethos. In a further development of the large headlamp motif, forthcoming new models will feature only one single, centrally mounted headlight. We call it ‘Blind Vision‘, claims Dirk van Braeckel, Bentley’s Design Director. We feel this will further differentiate us from Rolls Royce. Our research shows Bentley owners want the emotion of being barely able to see at night’.

During a press conference, Fiat senior management are embarrassed when it is accidentally revealed that Sergio Marchionne is in fact not human, but a cyborg sent from the future to destroy all humanity. This news arouses some consternation, but the fact that Arnie has a bit more time on his hands these days causes some relief in some quarters.

Lexus chief designer, under relentless pressure from an over-excited Chris Bangle, tearfully admits on camera they really haven’t got a clue what they’re doing. ‘We just copy everyone else he weeps. But at least we’re not as crap as Infiniti‘.

Adrian van Hoydoonk falls victim to a bizarre hairdressing tragedy and his fringe/comb-over is accidentally shorn. He spends the entire motor show press day wearing a fedora. In a strange case of synchronicity, BMW’s designs show radical improvement. The errant fringe is placed in a secret sealed vault, in case Van Hoydoonk gets any ideas about reattaching it.

Skoda unveil a new top of the range model based on the VW Phaeton. The Czech’s imaginatively call it the Skoda Fabulous. Sadly, it isn’t.

Mercedes chiefs finally realise that Gorden Wagener is rubbish and sack him. They replace him with… Chris Bangle who hopes we’ll never notice his influence over forthcoming models.

Re: The 2011 Frankfurt Forecaster

I'd like to think they'd call it the Skoda Absolutely Fabulous :)

In a story reminiscent (hmmm reMINIscent - has a whiff of a name for a Mini concept car, or perhaps a good name for the whole brand) of the hit TV show Ashes to Ashes, Bertone goes into bankruptcy again, and the whole staff wakes to find themselves back in 1970 at the Turin Autoshow. They don't make them like that anymore, and the car is quite nice too. In the next episode, they go back to 1966 to find out who really designed the Miura.

Re: The 2011 Frankfurt Forecaster

Kubrick: You're absolutely correct and most welcome...

AReader: In actual fact the Absolutely Fabulous is the long wheelbase version for the Chinese market.

Joe: Agreed. More Bangle please!

Re: The 2011 Frankfurt Forecaster

Joe - thanks for the Car Design News video tip. I watched Bangle's Angle on the Saab PheoniX and another clip featuring C.B. on Supercars. He was in feisty form. Can't help thinking he had the BMW i8 on his mind during both interviews. When he asked Castriota "why is this a Saab?" I had a feeling that he really wanted to say "you have ripped off the Vision Efficient Dynamics". Castriota even gets a bit defensive saying "I've been doing stuff like this for a while" - which he has, think Bertone Mantide which was displayed in China in 2009 - same year as the VED at Frankfurt. It would be interesting to understand the tension between them. In the other vid, the supercar one, Bangle says that a lot of supercar ideas date back to the 917/GT40 - 40 plus years ago. He then goes on to say he'd "like to see some design innovation come through". Wonder if he was referring again to the i8?

Saab PheoniX  +  BMW i8   comparison pics

(note the grille and slim headlights, and floating buttresses on both cars. Rear pics of both cars have some similarity too - large vents on the back of the car behind the rear wheels)

Re: The 2011 Frankfurt Forecaster

bertandnairobi said:

Dieter Rams is a mine of quotes: "The best design is the least design." This is a debatable, isn´t it? After a lifetime of turning out immaculate Scandinavian shapes, Arne Jacobsen said "I´m tired of good taste, I´m choking on it." Sometimes minimalism is another name for banality. Look at Danish architecture, for example. Perhaps for many practical jobbing designers Rams "least design" is a good motto but sometimes you need to do something that has some creative extra element. Take the Bangle BMW 5 series - is that the least design? No, but it´s brilliant and still fresh.  Is the iPod really "the least design"? Isn´t it actually highly contrived? Dieter Rams perhaps may be taken to mean that the consumer shouldn´t notice too much design work just as a reader will never see the edits and changes made before a text is published. That doesn´t mean a huge amount of design work isn´t done. It takes alot of effort to reduce something to a meaningful minumum.

 

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I couldn't agree more Bert and wonderfully put. I think that this is where Audi were a while ago as well. The A2 was brilliant and the TT nice in its own way and the A6 of (now) two generations ago still makes me look twice at just how well resolved it is. But I bemoan the aggressive face of the new Audis and how similar they all look. The designers seem afraid, which is understandable I suppose. When they were trying to catch up to MB and BMW they could afford to take a risk to try and get a conquest sale, but now they risk alienating their new clients by changing too much. That is why I respect BMW's bravery when they allowed Bangle to take such a strong direction. I think it was a major reason why they are so competitive currently.

But then it is possible to be interesting and tasteful- I think Volvo manage to do it rather well as does Lincoln (gasp) in the US landscape.