Driven by design

It is true that the rave factor of a car lies beneath the bonnet. The oomph factor, however, is still design. But while a fantasy vehicle like the Batmobile can multitask and save the day, in real life, cars with the X factor don't lag behind when it comes to eating up the miles as they go from 100mph to 315 mph. GN Focus looks at some leading car designers who remain style icons even if they veered off the track over the years into new ventures. In no particular order.

 Ken Okuyama: The prizewinning car designer has shaped models for General Motors, Porsche and Italy's famed Pininfarina, where, as Creative Director he oversaw projects including the Ferrari 599, Mitsubishi Colt CZC, Maserati Birdcage 75th and Ferrari P4/5. He left Pininfarina in 2006 and established Ken Okuyama Design (KOD) within the next year. His current work includes everything from humanoid robots to modern furniture to eyewear. He is also known for the design of a small robot called Nuvo.

In 2010, KOD announced the opening of its Japanese KOD Yamagata Studio, that will offer design and prototyping services for worldwide customers on the automobile, motorcycle, and other industrial fields. Claimed to be the first Japanese ‘carrozzeria', the KOD Studio has a facility to create full-size clay models and to build custom-made one-off vehicles provided with design, planning, development and sales to customers all over the world. Its first one-off vehicle is already on its way to be completed fall next year. The k.o.7 Spider production version is also being assembled at the facility.

 Ercole Spada: The legendary automotive design engineer has worked with world-renowned design firms including Zagato and Ghia. His designs include models for Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Lamborghini, Ford, BMW, Fiat and the I.DE.A. Institute. He designed some of the most iconic cars of the 20th century including the Aston Martin DB4 GTZ, the Alfa Romeo Giulietta and the Giulietta Coda Tronca, and the BMW 7 and 5 Series.

In 2006, he established Spadaconcept, a design studio in Turin, Italy with Domiziano Boschi, Wojtek Sokolowski and his son Paolo Spada.

This year, he unveiled the breathtaking Codatronca Monza, an extreme Barchetta built by SpadaVettureSport s.r.l , and commissioned by a private client who wanted a totally customised version of the Codatronca (coda tronca means truncated tail in Italian). From this one-off, SpadaVettureSport is planning to produce a limited series that will extend the Codatronca range, following the TS model.

 Chris Bangle: He was the first American to head design at BMW. Apart from the 7 Series, Bangle and his teams have designed the 3 and 5 Series, as well as the Z3, the Z4, the X5 and the X6, and other vehicles. He was also in charge of designing for Mini and Rolls-Royce, and helped grow BMW Designworks in the US into a global consulting and design force. He left BMW in 2009 and went on to set up Chris Bangle Associates in Italy.

Today, he is working with Samsung, among other clients, but has refused to reveal the current nature of his contract with the Korean tech giant.

Design critics have said that compared to MP3 players and table lamps, cars are apparently not impactful enough on society to rate discussion, Bangle notes. "I would suggest the viewer to browse the contents of books purporting to summarise the last century of ‘good design' and search for evidence that beyond the evergreen originals VW Beetle, Jeep and Mini (with perhaps Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion perversely included), cars have even existed at all. I imagine, we, in car design, are guilty of having too much fun without paying the price of thinking about it enough," says Bangle, in an interview with GN Focus. "But the nature of art and cars is a good place to begin asking questions. Perhaps, with enough dialogue, we will all conclude that cars are indeed art, and a fine one at that."

He expanded on these thoughts at the Scuola Politecnico di Design of Milano and the IED (Instituto Europeo di Design) of Torino. "There has been little true progress in car design but much ballyhoo about the most insignificant manipulations of the ‘cake icing'. However, time does not stand still for car design. New materials, new processes, and most importantly, new customer needs and desires are waxing stronger even as car design becomes more dogmatic," he said.

He also sees many advantages to be discovered by abandoning surface continuity in cars. "The automotive painting process geared to give us shiny reflectivity is the most energy-intensive part of car assembly," he said. Could that change, he asks. Perhaps a complex-surfaced car that looks ‘Wow!' when it is dirty would save us all some energy? And ‘asymmetry'? Could a car look different from one side than it does from another? "There is no hard and fast rule that prohibits asymmetry," he said. "Aerodynamic balance is important, but there are new dynamic ways to handle that. In any case, we should be developing a look for cars that we can enjoy because it must go slower."

He also decries the fact that car design has developed what he calls ‘business-English' efficiency combined with brand envy, which has defeated new design possibilities. >

"This efficiency has stopped any emerging cultures from using their own heritage and giving us their own interpretations of the automobile. What exactly is a Chinese car, an Indian or Israeli or Iranian or Russian car? Non-continuity is a way to get young car designers to think outside of the restrictions of the ‘business-English' shape dogmas of today. We need their courage; we are running out of DNA for car design," he warned. "The gene pool of ‘aesthetic DNA' is too small."

But his thoughts on the car of the future will make one step back. "As a ‘studio master' for their ICSID World Design Congress of November of that year, I was first asked by Dr Milton Tan of the SDC to consider the ‘Car of the Future'. We looked at the concept of Car-Avatar. These would be highly complex, mechatronic-transforming machines formed as sculptural art-objects that would perform many functions of real service in the future (notice we avoided the term robot as well)," he said. "Instead of sitting down parked on the street doing nothing but depreciating all day your future Car-Avatar might be upstairs serving you in your office at your job — or maybe even saving your life."

"In our vision of tomorrow when you tell your Car-Avatar to ‘Go get the car' it would literally assemble it from roving components, 2, 4, or 6 wheel-battery units as needed. The wheel-battery units would be shared-rented and when not in use trundle off by themselves for a recharge — eliminating the need to run power-charging cables to every parking spot in the world," he says.

 Gordon Murray: Murray is best known as one of the founding partners of McLaren Cars, which under his technical direction won eight Constructors Championships in Formula One. Within the automotive design community, he is even better known for the McLaren F1 supercar of 1994, which he conceived and developed with, amongst others, designer Peter Stevens. He has now turned his talents toward super-frugal electric city transportation.

In September, Gordon Murray Design Limited and Toray Industries Inc announced a prototype electric sports car named Teewave AR.1.

The Teewave AR.1 utilises many of Toray's advanced automotive materials in order to achieve the company's basic concept of an attractive vehicle for everyone. The two-seater has a remarkably low weight of just 850kg (including the 240kg battery) putting the car firmly in Lotus Elise territory and some 400kg lighter than a Tesla, say media reports.

 Luc Donckerwolke: He won the red dot award in 2003 for his Lamborghini models Gallardo and Murciélago. In September 2005, he was appointed Seat Design Director. In 2009, he picked up another Red Dot ‘best of best' award for the Seat. At the 2010 Paris Motor Show, he unveiled the Seat Ibe, a "super-compact sports coupé for urban mobility in the near future." In July this year, he was appointed as head of advanced design at the Volkswagen Group.