Car Design

Since I was four years old, I knew every car on the road. Since that age, I have been drawing cars. Probably, on average about three cars per day. When I came to University age, there was something about the world of car design that was turing me off. Every 'Automotive Design' course I looked at seemed suspiciously superficial. As I got closer into the words and sounds of the car design world, I was scared. I probably started to read 'Test Drive' magazine since my Dad bought that Vectra in 2005, I moved onto TopGear magazine after that. And I was 'passionate' about car design.

After being absorbed into the world of Product Design, now, I feel like car design just isn't proper. After seeing Marc Newson's ford concept, and hearing Dieter Rams talk about 'Honest Design' I became objected to the direction that car design was taking. The whole industry seems like the greatest act of manipulative marketing ever pulled off by a group of companies. Why aren't consumers delivered real change? How come some weeny one-off-chair designer can completely, and convincingly, twist an entire archetype, settled on for 40 years,  in one move? It seems so simple to deliver just some improvement, seems so easy: just make the doors understandable; just make the lights visible; make the styling less manipulative and more ... true.

Take Peter Schreyer for example, his work for audi in the 90's was inspirational, pragmatic, utopian. He had brought what Dieter Rams had (temporarily) done for product design, and taken it into the far mists of car design. Clearly, the climate was right at VAG for such an attitude, his hand has since gone towards the kind of design (for Kia/Hyundai) that Chris Bangle himself would have authorised. The design at Audi had some sense of a self-refferential, holier-than-thou-ness, but it achieved car design that seemed to be about purity, simplicity, honesty. The original TT,  from 1998, looks fresher and more relevant today than it's 2006 replacement.

The design by Audi in the 90's, and by Volkswagen before that, and by others before that, has attempted to manifest as helpful, sensible design, but every time such a movement gets washed away by another wave of mindless emotionalism. Why is it car design that suffers this fate? The world of Product Design, now lead by Mr. Ive, seems gradually to be accepting that we don't have to out-manoeuvre consumers in order for them to buy our products; just work out what they need and give it to them. The world of Car Design seems so out of touch with the ebbs and flows of contemporary theory, we have all accepted the same phone, why do we need thousands of types of car?

Surely it is now, and not in 20 years time, when Car Designers get back over the distraction that is 'flame surfacing', that car companies need to focus on the real issues. Any product that deviates slightly from the projected outcome (which usually seems to be to 'make it just like a Golf, but less... boring'), gets canned instantly. A realistic and achievable better world can only exist when everybody is on the side of real change. I get that BMW and others seem to be making efforts in the sphere of tackling the worlds problems, but why are they so certain that everyone needs to be convinced by the look of the product? Aesthetic design in the Automotive industry seems, to me, to be abhorrently underhand and the kind of egoism that represents the negative side of human actions. Surely a company can be successful by allowing itself to communicate with it's consumers honestly.

 To me, a large issue for the car industry is that, in it's current form, it is ecologically unviable. And Apple have proved that real, dedicated, consumer-focused attitudes can galvanise an actual audience. The issue is money, no-one (except probably Apple) has the ability to introduce a competitive car, or transport solution. These things take hundreds of millions of investment dollars. But perhaps it is the car companies themselves who are best positioned to take on the climate, take on the real issues, and deliver to consumers the solution, not some overweight QuashQuai competitor. Otherwise it won't be a matter of time until someone else does.