I was scoping the junkyard for interesting stuff when I spotted this '87 Nissan Maxima. I figured I'd check for a Voice Annunciator Phonograph Unit within.

It appears that Nissan had gone solid-state for their "talking car" feature by 1987, so no tiny phonograph. Disappointing. But then a row of dash controls caught my eye.

You can tell that engineers came up with this arrangement, not a bunch of Apple-worshiping designers and their focus-group-wrangling marketing overlords. No doubt the Japanese version of the "SECU- RITY" light (which I assume has something to do with a primitive mid-80s alarm system) sports a graceful kanji character, and when the engineers got their English translation it just made sense to hyphenate the word to make it fit. What the hell, right? You can still understand it! We gotta move these Maximas out the door, ASAP!

The Skydeck's obviously a hybrid. We mean, come on, this is a concept car at the Tokyo Motor Show. But the story's not in the powertrain or the exterior design — this is a people moving concept car after all. No, the interior's the thing here. So pull off those sliding and scissoring doors and let's look at a passenger cabin that looks like what would happen if Ikea designed a car interior entirely out of balsa wood and pieces of ASIMO. Still, there's a certain beauty to the uber-minimalist interior and its center-mounted stackable floating seats for easier access to the third row. Passengers can then soak up the sun through the breathtaking all-glass roof, or just sit back and relax.

Designed by Holger Schubert, this carport is about as dissimilar from the ones you'll find scattered throughout upscale trailer parks as catfish and ahi tuna. For starters, it's attached via a driveway/bridge to a 1953 Ranch-style modernist home overlooking western Los Angeles instead of West Virginia. The 1,200 square foot space includes an 8x12' designated parking spot for the vehicle, leaving the rest free for a couch and a hide-away flatscreen. While that sounds far from our ideal garage space (where isthe kegerator supposed to go?) it does function as a car pr0n gallery with recessed LED lights intended to create reflections of the car on the white walls at night.

Of course, no snobby carport would be complete without greenwashing, so there's solar panels on the roof that power the under floor heating and the home attached to the garage. Conveniently, there's also a ramp that raises up when the car is ready to exit the garage, ensuring exhaust fumes don't mar the white paint. [DesignDriven via CoolHunting]

Jazz and Audi simply belong together. Jazz captivates large audiences: since 2001, more than 37,000 people have attended some 270 jazz concerts at the Audi Forum Ingolstadt. The Ray Brown Trio, Paul Kuhn and Freddy Hubbard are just a few of the performers that have appeared there. As a further sign of its close links with jazz, Audi decided to create its own concert grand piano at its concept design studio in Munich. The Audi Design grand piano is built by the celebrated Bösendorfer company of Vienna.

"A large number of jazz pianists favour the Bösendorfer sound. Our grand pianos produce a wide variety of timbres and have a broad range of dynamic elements. The firm, singing sound and warmth of tone are specific Bösendorfer features that suit jazz pianists extremely well," says Ferdinand Bräu, Bösendorfer's Technical Director. "Oscar Peterson, one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time, chose to play exclusively on Bösendorfer grand pianos. He once said that only with these instruments could he truly reproduce his music and fully express his feelings."

In the words of Rupert Stadler, Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG: "This unique concert grand piano perfectly embodies the Audi design philosophy and our dedication to high quality. It enriches our cultural commitment in a very special way."

The Audi Design grand piano can be heard and seen very soon at a series of jazz events at the Audi Forum Ingolstadt, with the Birdland Jazz Club of Neuburg, one of Europe's oldest and best-known jazz clubs. One of these instruments will have its permanent home at the Audi Forum – but others may soon be found at many other locations all over the world, as it can be ordered at audi@bosendorfer.com starting on July 16.

Reader bzr had this to say about my virulent dislike of the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione:

I still believe the 8C is the most beautiful car ever built, period. Not most beautiful NEW car, but the most beautiful in all 120 years of motoring. You can show me a picture of a Miura and try to make me eat my words, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Here's one that'll make you ready your cutlery as I tell you how I popped my Miura cherry.

I was deathly afraid as I approached the car on a muggy April day in Italy. I had been a car nerd for years. I had just seen Ralph Lauren’s Mercedes-Benz “Count Trossi” SSK the previous day. And a Ferrari 121 LM Scaglietti Spyder race car parked casually in front of a general store, the very car Eugenio Castellotti had raced in 1955 in Le Mans. Yet the Miura remained my Eldorado, the lynchpin of my geeky heart, and I bet Captain Ahab was in no hurry to meet Moby Dick either. Obsessions are best left for the mind.

What if I see it and it proves to be just another old sports car? I already knew about its deep flaws. Hot, noisy and uncomfortable, with the fuel tank sitting above the front axle so steering precision went out the door as you used up the gas. The racing Weber carburetors mounted on the V12 had a tendency to catch fire. And so on.

I inch my way toward a wall with the Miura’s butt sticking out from the other side and my friend Larry says: “There’s your Miura.”

You all know how this car came to be. How a spited tractormaker set up shop near Enzo Ferrari’s factory. How he hired the engineers Ferrari had fired and how Giotto Bizzarrini, one of those engineers, designed the Lamborghini V12 still in use today. Ferruccio Lamborghini paid him by the horsepower, gently scolding him when his first engine prototype produced all of those HP at a dentist’s drill of 11,000 RPM. He was not out to make a racing car.

What made the Miura revolutionary was, of course, its mid-engined layout, which was finally becoming standard on racing cars. But apart from Alejandro de Tomaso’s cute fiberglass Vallelunga, no one had attempted to use the design on a road car.

The advantages of the layout on a racetrack result from classical mechanics. Watch what happens when you sling a front-engined car into a corner too fast!

Why is the bunny in peril? The speed and ease with which a car can change direction while moving in a curve is related to its moment of inertia. Having weighty components on the extremities, like a heavy engine up front, will increase that value.

What this means is that a car built like that will try to exit the curve along a tangent, as that Ferrari 250 GTO did in the video. Let’s freeze a frame to see its intended versus its actual motion:

If you want track bunnies to survive, you want to place the engine as close as possible to the axis of the car around which it turns. This will lessen its moment of inertia. A field of happy bunnies will greet your design:

In the hands of a skilled driver, a front-engined car will also stay on the road, but its cornering speed will be lower than that of a mid-engined car with similar power and similar weight. This is why all major races from Formula 1 through the Indianapolis 500 to Le Mans have been won by mid-engined cars since the mid-60s.

Why does all this apply to the Miura, a road car? On the road, a mid-engined design offers no distinct advantages. For one, you don’t really come into close contact with your car’s moment of inertia in city traffic. Having the engine behind the driver’s compartment also comes with a number of issues: it kills passenger and trunk space, introduces cooling problems, and makes engine access a major pain.

But the most baffling aspect is that mid-engined cars are not very pretty. Your classic front-engined coupé is the body type most pleasing to the human eye when it comes to interpreting automobile shapes. The Pagani Zonda is certainly a gorgeous fighter jet with magnesium wheels, but understanding its beauty requires careful study and a lot of effort. The pulchritude of a Ferrari 250 GTO, on the other hand, is well within the congitive range of the Jerusalem artichoke, a species of sunflower not known for its mental acumen.

Even though Lamborghini had set out to create a road car which was faster through curves than other cars, he must have been fully aware that he was in the supercar business. And in the supercar business, you sell sex appeal. Your customers will like knowing about your advanced design but they will never use it to its full potential. What they will use is the looks.

I mull over all this with trepidation as I finally round the wall and come face to face with the Lamborghini Miura for the first time. And boy, does it have the looks! Expecting disappointment and a major dose of post-rapture alienation, I fall instead in love for real. It is very pretty in a wholly automotive way.

But how can it be mid-engined and pretty at the same time?

The Miura is a big car, much bigger than you’d expect from photos, and that hood which houses nothing but a spare tire goes on for miles. It sits impossibly low and very wide. When you peek inside, you get the same sense of exhilirating discomfort as you get with the 33 Stradale. Only this time, there are 12 instead of 8 velocity stacks to chomp on loose hair and babies. And then the car ends in a swift swoop.

Parked in front of the Miura is a Ferrari 599 GTB. It is the bigger car and it sits higher too, an exceptionally well-proportioned grand tourer. And as I look at the Ferrari and look back at the Miura, it dawns on me: these two are the same car.

The Miura deceives you to think it’s front-engined!

It shares with the 599 the same profile, the same curves, the same sense of harmony. The Miura is beautiful because it is disguised as a front-engined berlinetta. The incredibly long nose, the transversely mounted V12? They are there to tug you gently into the future of supercar design. Remember, this is 1965. Humans have yet to see the dark side of the Moon.

The Miura has to work very hard for its beauty. It needs to deceive the eye from every angle. One wrong curve and the suspension of disbelief is gone. But no matter where you look, it never is.

Beauty, indeed, in the eye of the deceived beholder.

Photo Credit for Ferrari 250 GTO: exfordy

Springtime created this for a design competition part of the festival, titled Duepercinque. Meaning “two by five”, it refers to the dimensions in meters of a parking spot (6.5'×16.4'). The idea is to reclaim the area of the spot and “return it to the public domain in a "positive way." Yes, come the Mediterranean summer and you will positively fry your ass on that duepercinque patch of blacktop.

Via Yanko Design.

There's always the infamous Wankel-powered Citroën GX Birotor (rotary + Citroën= boiling brain), but Novaload has found us something even better: Trevor Fiore's 1980 Karin concept car. Fiore seems to have approved of the 3-seater concept, but didn't want to emulate the boring three-abreast seating of the Matra Bagheera. On the Karin, the driver sits in the middle and the two passengers sit slightly behind and to the sides. Since it's a Citroën, the steering wheel and instruments were taken from the fevered brain of a surrealist science-fiction paperback cover artist. This car so gets the Jalopnik Stamp-O-Approval™!
[Citroenet]

For someone untrained in the language of vehicular design, it’s not easy to describe what makes a car particularly Pininfarina or Bertone—but suffice to say that once you’ve seen examples of both, you will be able to tell them apart at the blink of an eye. An easy metaphor would make Pininfarina the designer of jet planes with Bertone in the business of sci-fi spaceships.

Think Bertone and you think Marcello Gandini, the man whose forehead the Lamborghini Miura sprang from like Pallas at the incredible age of 27. Gandini joined Bertone in 1965 and—following the Miura and the wonderful Espada—he went on to design cars which crave, simply crave ion drives and proton cannons, first amongst them the Lamborghini Countach.

The news last fall that Pininfarina’s Jason Castriota was to leave his employer of many years to follow in Gandini’s footsteps at Stile Bertone was quite a shocker. Pininfarinas and Bertones just don’t mix. Add to this that the cars Castriota had worked on at Pininfarina—the Maseratis Birdcage 75th and GranTurismo, the Ferraris 599 GTB and P4/5—are very Pininfarina, their aggression expressed not by sharp angles but flowing lines that hit you like an aikido throw.

Yet six months later, Castriota unveiled the Mantide, a car Bertone to its core. And while it has not become easier in the past three paragraphs for someone untrained in the language of product design to describe what that precisely is, there is one design element very easy to pinpoint: the angular rear wheelarches.

Like most things Bertone, this is from Gandini. As far as I know, he first used it on the Lamborghini Countach LP500, the prototype which served as the basis for the first production Countach, the LP400. Over subsequent iterations, the Countach lost the angularity, but the motif cropped up in later Gandini designs like the Maserati Shamal—and this Quattroporte IV that was parked the other day on the very street I live on:

By Gandini’s outrageous standards, this car is a subdued Q-ship, especially in the neutral Germanic silver this example—one of only 1,138—was painted in. The Quattroporte IV was produced at the tail end of Maserati’s doldrums, before the company was acquired by Ferrari, and this is their last car that was built in the old Maserati factory, before the Ferrari people threw out all the old machinery. There was a lull of four Quattroporte-less years at the reborn Maserati until they began building the Pininfarina-designed Quattroporte V—the latest version of which we recently drove in Italy.

It’s comforting to see how quickly Castriota has grokked the essentials of Bertone design, as evidenced by this reference to Gandini’s last car for Bertone. I can’t wait to see how he will manage over the years to balance on the shoulders of the giants he’s standing on—and what he’ll add to the Bertone canon. Based on his work at Pininfarina, one is compelled to think he will do just fine.

Photo Credit: Lamborghini, Cartype, 25ora.ro, Stile Bertone and the author

A few hours after we published our in-depth interview with Stile Bertone’s new design director Jason Castriota, I was standing by Lake Como with him showing me the secrets of his first Bertone design, the Mantide.

The front fenders melt into wings behind the front wheels then draw up into a single taut bunch—reminiscent of a calf muscle—which in turn passes under an archway similar to Castriota’s famous C-pillar for the Ferrari 599 GTB. The confluence of curves and LED’s in the back is, when viewed from a step back, a classic Kamm tail. While retaining the tried-and-true shape of the fastback, the Mantide is boldly futuristic.

But will anyone be able to drive it? There are plans to make two more examples, Castriota says, in white and green, to create an Italian flag with the addition of the first car. Then, in an email to the New York Times, he said: “We would not rule out producing as many as 10.” A price has also been quoted: €1,500,000

That's close to two million US dollars at the current exchange rate—almost two Veyrons worth of cold, hard cash. Not insignificant for a car built on a Corvette ZR1, which retails for 5% of the Mantide’s asking price. Let’s examine what you get for that kind of money, apart from the warm feeling of contributing to a company’s survival which has given us the Miura, the Countach and the Lancia Stratos.

Interior

While Jeremy Clarkson has named the Corvette ZR1 his car of the year for 2008 and our own road test editor Wes Siler called it “the best car ever made,” the fact remains: on the inside, it's all Corvette.

To whit, from our first drive:

In fact, the only thing detracting from the ZR1’s grand touring credentials is the interior. The only options on the $103,300 car are an awful set of chrome wheels and the 3ZR upgraded interior package, which succeeds in moving the interior from cheap and nasty into luxurious bass boat territory with more embroidered ZR1 and Corvette logos than my fragile mind could comprehend. We have a hard time accepting the “value” excuse; for this kind of money we’d no longer like to feel like a Jeff Foxworthy punchline. An automatic transmission is, thankfully, not an option.

Let’s see what the Mantide has to offer:

As you can see, it’s a modern European alcantara-carbon-fiber-leather affair, with the car’s hexagonal theme continuing as cutouts on the racing seats, themselves thin carbon shells. The instrument screen is the one used in the Ferrari FXX, the gearshift is a nice aluminum knob and it’s certainly got a snug racer feel to it. But it’s perhaps not as remarkable as the car’s exterior.

Certainly a major upgrade on the Corvette, though, but then that’s not saying much when you’re considering this is a two million dollar Italian super car.

Exterior

Here in Europe, the current Corvette is not liked much. It’s a big, brash American design, a brute amongst small European cars, but while it’s unarguably alien to these shores, I rather fancy its low, wide, flowing looks. In ZR1 trim, it’s a proper menace, with all the right vents, wings and scoops.

The Mantide gets rid of that all. Aside from the front-engined layout and the fastback silhouette, you would be hard pressed to tell there’s a Corvette underneath. And there is: the Mantide is not like the Italian-American cars from the 60s like the Iso Grifo or the De Tomaso Mangusta which paired an Italian chassis with an American V8. Beneath the red carbon fiber is a Corvette ZR1: LS9 engine, aluminum chassis, the works.

But what carbon fiber! It’s all sharp Bertone creases which turn into subtle arcs as you examine them up close, dihedral Enzo doors, smatterings of hexagons everywhere. The angular rear wheelarches—straight off the M577A armoured personnel carrier which transported the space marines into the doomed reactor core in Aliens—frame black Transformer wheels.

It’s dramatically new, so shockingly new that it’s actively disconcerting to take a few steps back and see its classic berlinetta profile. In person, it creates the sort of time warp the iPhone did when it first went on sale in the summer of 2007. You felt as though you were holding a sliver of 2011 in your hands.

The Mantide? I’d say it’s from 2017. Similar vehicles are on their way to leave the inner Solar System.

But then is it worth the price of 20 ZR1’s? There is, of course, no rational answer to such a question, as even the ZR1 is not an entirely rational purchase, being, as Dan Neil put it in his article The rapture of the hypercar, a big needle to deliver the combustible heroin of petroleum.

If you have space-faring ambitions on the public road, set to the soundtrack of a pushrod V8 with titanium bits, then by all means get in touch with Stile Bertone and put down whatever deposit they ask. The car geeks of the world need you to enable them to carry on the traditions of coachbuilding.

And then I saved the best part for the end. If you open the gigantic hood and peer inside, what you’ll see is exactly what you'll see when you open the hood of the ZR1 — a grinning, black Corvette Racing skull named Jake.

So even though this is not a race car, your Le Mans ass-kicking heritage is right there. And who could ask for more.

Photo Credit: Alex Conley (Corvette ZR1), Natalie Polgar and the author (Stile Bertone Mantide)

"Yeah Billy, go play in the busy street. Daddy's gonna sit here and watch with his beer. But hey, listen, I might fall asleep so whatever you do, don't talk to strangers...unless they have candy."

Seriously, what the hell happened to parenting? The most humorous thing is that rubber padding is installed under the swing for safety—like that's going to somehow stop a Buick from slamming into your kid. Thankfully, this is only a concept. [Maandag via The Design Blog]

The Porsche Cayenne GTS Design Edition 3 comes matched with a powerful 405 horsepower 4.8-liter V8 paired to a six-speed Tiptronic S transmission, helping to launch the sporty SUV to 60 mph in just 6.5 seconds with a top speed of 156 MPH. To help fly under the radar the Cayenne has been dipped in a satin-like finish called Lava Grey Metallic, adorned with triple racing stripes down the center, a matching door stripe on the side with Porsche Design script and 21-inch SportPlus color-matched wheels. This Cayenne definitely looks the part.

As with past Porsche Design models, Porsche is offering a special, limited edition Type P'6612 chronograph watch and a matching set of luggage. Following the Cayman S Porsche Design Edition 1 and the Boxster S Porsche Design Edition 2, the Cayenne GTS Porsche Design Edition 3 will be limited to 1000 units worldwide and will be available for order in May for roughly $94,694.

[via Porsche]

The people at Peugeot have lions on the brain. This is perfectly understandable in that their use of the animal as a company mascot dates back to the time of the American Civil War, back when the company was making crinoline dresses instead of motorcars. It’s just that they have taken their feline fetish just a bit too far these past few years.

The front ends of modern Peugeots—which you cannot see in the US as the company withdrew from the North American market in 1991—are all shaped like various cats. This sounds like a recipe for a line of exciting cars, right? Unfortunately, most of them are incredibly bland. Save for the 908 Le Mans racer, which is awesome. And the Pininfarina-designed 406 coupé. As for the rest? You’re not missing out on much.

And they all have their tongues sticking out! If you look at a Peugeot, the front bumper is a tongue extending from the black mouth formed by the grille. As you can see on this picture taken at the launch of the Peugeot 207 supermini back in 2006:

I have spent years trying to get inside the head of Peugeot Design Chief Gérard Welter’s head to no avail. Until I read South African motoring journalist Peta Lee’s review of the Peugeot 308 wagon: Peugeots look like lions to make passage among tough African game safe if they threaten your progress!

Witness Lee’s description of an encounter on a dirt road at the KwaZulu Natal Game reserve, close to the coastal city of Durban:

The rhino mom and her calf gave us curious looks as we passed within a metre of them. We'd had to swerve because they were slap bang in the middle of the road and didn’t seem at all inclined to move, even though we’d sat motionless for about 10 minutes.

I was hoping the distinctive red of the Peugeot 308 SW wouldn’t evoke the same reaction from them as a red rag or a matador's cloak…

Fortunately, they were more interested in browsing the succulent grass than in charging us as we (cautiously) made our way to the exit of Karkloof Spa, passing, uneventfully, a herd of wildebeest, a dozen zebra and a family of warthogs en-routeThe rhino were were more interested in browsing the succulent grass.

See? And as for why the rhinos didn’t scatter in mortal fear: the extended lion tongue is toned way back on the 308. Peta Lee would have sent them charging all the way to the Congo in a 207.

We're behind you and your desire to have a HURL (Hip URban Lifestyle), that's why we're showing you this awesome fold-out camper that you can tow with your Mini Cooper, while listening to the Pterodactyl, on your iPhone, while drinking a mocha-frapa-chino-PBR-latté from that kitschy little coffee shop over in SoHo. This loft-on-wheels has everything you'll ever need including a bathroom, living room, bedroom, kitchen and an office so you can work on your Macbook Air while Tweeting and blogging (wait, that last one's us, s#!t).

After you've found the perfect spot with plenty of free WiFi and a newsstand with an abundance of gossip tabloids, the whole shebang pops out into a fanned 252° radius with mobile walls and floors that can slide on rails. While this mobile-loft is completely open to the elements so everyone can see how cool you are, there's a sliding screen that encapsulates everything to you won't get any pesky bugs landing in the orange-themed food that you just made for brunch.

As you can probably tell, this writer does not approve of the Playskool-themed hipster mobile-loft and would much rather live like a quasi-hobo in something like THIS. Imagine pumping Wolf In A Spacesuit in that thing.

[via Yanko]

As purely bullying as they can be in person, Lamborghinis are easy cars to like. Four decades ago, having achieved automotive perfection with the Miura, designer Marcello Gandini decided to leave cars behind and design a proper space vehicle for an age when men were regularly sent to the Moon. Ever since his Countach LP500 concept had its first outing at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show, Lamborghinis have looked exactly the same. Company owners and aerodynamic bits have come and gone but the essential shape is still the unbroken Countach wedge. Show your mom a Countach and the Murciélago LP670-4 SuperVeloce introduced 38 years later at the same show yesterday and she will nod in comfort and recognition.

Ferrari doesn't do that. Which is remarkable when you consider that if there was one company which could actually afford to sink into stylistic complacence and keep rehashing its old models, Ferrari would be it. Would someone complain if you could, akin to a Se7en, buy yourself a brand new retro 250 GT SWB with working brakes?

New Ferraris almost always clearly break with their predecessors. All they retain are subtle touches, like the tiny circular rear lights or the hood scoops. This design language has the effect of making new Ferraris frequently appear particularly alienating. Can you still remember the shock of first seeing the Enzo in 2002? Instead of the curvaceous, understated design of its contemporaries, the car was a dramatic jet fighter of sharp angles. People actively hated it: yet has it not become one of the icons of the decade? The same happened again three years ago when the 599 GTB replaced the aging 575 Maranello.

The 599 is a classic berlinetta in silhouette, yes, but the details were alien, jarring. All it took, of course, was some getting used to, and the car made everything else look dated, and that was even before you heard that front-mid-mounted V12 scream bloody murder and break all your ribs at the slightest blip of the throttle.

But the most graceful detail of the 599 was not up front with the engine but back above the rear haunches. It took quite a while to spot the incredible fact that the C-pillars were not mere pillars but flying buttresses more common on Gothic cathedrals than supercars. This solution created an elegant yet perfectly serviceable way to apply downforce on the rear wheels without tacking a rear wing on the trunk and breaking up the lines. It's hard to appreciate the sheer beauty of the arch on pictures. It's really something you have to see in person, because, although it's concealed on most photographs, Black Francis of the Pixies often makes his home beneath a 599's C-pillar.

So take another look. I think you may be able to spot Mr. Francis singing the chorus of Alec Eiffel, the third song on the band's fourth and final studio album, Trompe le Monde:

Now look again at the 599XX and the 599 GTB Fiorano HGTE and rejoice. The 70s may have had disco science and Daytonas but we also live in interesting times.

Photo Credit: Balázs Fenyő (Ferrari 599 GTB gallery), freschwill (Black Francis)

Peter Orosz, the editor of Hyperleggera, a website he fervently claims is not a car blog (although it really is, we don't care what he says - Ed.), pens Jalopnik's newest feature dubbed "Crazy Euro Car Boy." It's a series all about one Hungarian sometimes-motoring journalist's obsession with the cult of cars.

The 1955 Citroën DS took the lead vote by a 20-strong panel of judges comprised of the most influential people in the automotive industry including Giorgetto Giugaro, Ian Callum, Paul Bracq, Marcell Gandini and Gordon Murray. The DS narrowly beat out Ferrari as there were just too many beautiful cars to choose from, proving once again that the French really know how to stick it to the Italians.

The only thing we're sad about is that we wish that Citroën's designers would have taken this into account before mucking up the Geneva-bound Citroën DS Inside Concept.

Press Release:

What's the most beautiful car of all time? A multi-million pound Ferrari or the curvy Jaguar E-type perhaps? No, it is now officially Citroën's humble DS, the car most famous for saving President De Gaulle from assassination.

That was the verdict when Classic & Sports Car magazine polled a jury of the world's leading car designers to nominate the most gorgeous cars ever.

The 20-strong panel ranged from Car designer of the Century Giorgetto Giugiaro – the man behind the Maserati Bora, VW Golf, Fiat Panda and Lotus Esprit – to current Jaguar director of design Ian Callum, and each picked their top three beauties.

Although Ferrari secured the most votes as a marque, they were spread across nine different models, leaving the Citroën to scoop the honours as the single most beautiful classic.
Citroen DSThe top 10

1. Citroën DS
2. Jaguar XK120
3. Ferrari 275GTB
4. Cord 810/812
5. Ferrari 250GT Lusso
6. Ferrari 250GT Short-wheelbase
7. Jaguar E-type
8. Lamborghini Miura
9. Lotus Elan
10. Lotus Elite (1957)

James Elliott, editor of Classic & Sports Car, said: "The Citroën is a benchmark design, but we were still astonished that it came out on top when you look at the sexiness – and values – of some of its rivals.

"Apart from the Mini, it's by far the most affordable car to get any nominations at all, which probably means it's a great investment!

Citroen DS"Petrolheads everywhere are forever arguing about the most beautiful cars and we hope that this will put an end to the debate once and for all, though we suspect that it might just be lighting a rocket under it. I don't think anyone has ever asked this many great designers what their views are, so who better to pick the official winner… even if they all missed my favourite, the Alfa Romeo T33 Stradale?"

"It's great to see the iconic DS getting such recognition amongst such an august group of car designers , and with the amazing news that a new DS range from Citroën will appear over the next few years, it's clear we have lost none of our styling panache or instinct for innovation," commented Citroën spokesperson Marc Raven on hearing the news.
What they said about the Citroën DS

* Giorgetto Giugiaro: "The only example of a car really conceived ‘outside the box'. It is just impossible to imitate."
* Leonardo Fioravanti (former Pininfarina design chief and the man behind Ferrari's Daytona, Dino and 308GTB): "A real road car that, at its time and perhaps still now, has represented the ‘dream' in its extreme progress."
* Citroen DSPeter Stevens (British great responsible for the McLaren F1 and second-generation Lotus Esprit): "I have always considered the fact that this car was first drawn in 1955 to be extraordinary."
* Marcello Gandini (Bertone stalwart responsible for Lancia Stratos and Lamborghini Countach among many others): "At the time I think it was complete folly, madness from a business and industrial point of view… but it was a really innovative car in 1955. A few people may have thought of all those beautiful ideas, but it was real bravery to implement all of them in one car."

About the Citroën DS

Citroen DSWith its name derived from Déesse (French for Goddess), this innovative design was styled by Italian sculptor Flaminio Bertoni and launched in 1955.

The futuristic shape was an instant design classic and over the next 20 years more than 1.5 million cars were sold in a range of specifications.

But it wasn't just the shape that revolutionised automotive design: the complex self-levelling suspension, plus powered steering, clutch and brakes were otherwordly compared to rival cars of the era.

While regarded today as a technical masterpiece – and a potential nightmare for the home mechanic – it was of pioneering construction for its day with unitary ‘tub', bolt on panels and a plastic roof.

Citroen DSBut the appeal of the DS is as much as a cultural icon as a car with a long list of celebrity owners and fans (Alec Guinness, Peter Cook and Will Self among them), plus regular appearances on film and in design museums and art galleries.
About Classic & Sports Car

Founded in 1982, Classic & Sports Car is the UK's market-leading classic car magazine and Britain's third best-selling motoring monthly.

The "most beautiful classics" feature coincides with an extensive redesign of the magazine and is accompanied by a free A2 poster featuring Lamborghini Miura and Jaguar E-type, plus the definitive buyers' guide to the Citroën DS.
About the panel of designers
On their own designs:

* Peter Stevens (McLaren F1): "I always intended that the design should be timeless rather than ‘of the minute', and that is something that I would use as a measure of other designs."
* Ian Callum (Jaguar XF): "It is the biggest challenge I've faced, but I think we pulled it off. I don't think people appreciate how well proportioned it is, given that it's a five-seater."
* Gordon Murray (McLaren F1): "Designed as a road car, but went on to win Le Mans, which in my opinion is more difficult than F1."
* John Heffernan (Aston Martin Vantage): "When I borrowed one, it was much appreciated by 'bikers of the Hells Angels persuasion, which I liked."
* Patrick Le Quément (Renault Twingo): "Some love it, some hated it. I wrote to the president of Renault and said: ‘I think you have to vote for instinctive design rather than extinctive marketing.' He wrote back: ‘I agree.'"

And on other peoples' cars:

* Steve Crijns of Lotus on the Ford GT40: "It's so sexy and has so much presence without really being aggressive."
* Paul Bracq, former head of design for both Mercedes and BMW, on the Aston Martin DB9: "It's more beautiful than the current Ferraris. I don't understand modern Ferrari design: the new California looks like a big VW Karmann-Ghia."
* Julian Thomson of Jaguar on the Lamborghini Gallardo: "I love the proportions… It's a tiny modern interpretation of a supercar: things like the Bugatti Veyron are totally irrelevant to me."
* Martin Smith, executive design director of Ford of Europe on the Lamborghini Countach: "It was like a spaceship, something totally new combining smooth curves with geometric forms. I remember thinking ‘I'll never be able to do something as good as that!'"
* Ian Callum, Jaguar director of design, on the Ferrari 250GT Short-wheelbase: "A blend of beauty and aggression… I just drool over them, and I can draw them with my eyes closed."
* Marcello Gandini on the Cord 810/812: "It was an impressive design for the 1930s, with solutions that could be seen in cars of 20 years later."
* Tom Tjaarda, former head of Ghia's studios, on the Jaguar E-type: "A gorgeous car. It looks narrow, like a woman in high heels. It doesn't have the stance that cars have today."

The jury

* Citroen DS - Inteiror Adams, Dennis
* Axe, Roy
* Bracq, Paul
* Callum, Ian
* Carr, Russell
* Crijns, Steve
* Fioravanti, Leonardo
* Gandini, Marcello
* Giugiaro, Giorgetto
* Heffernan, John
* Karen, Tom
* Le Quément, Patrick
* Martin, Paulo
* Murray, Gordon
* Okuyama, Ken
* Smith, Martin
* Stevens, Peter
* Thomson, Julian
* Tjaarda, Tom
* Winterbottom, Oliver

All the cars that received votes

Citroen DS

* Alfa Romeo Canguro
* Aston Martin DB9
* Audi A6
* Bentley Continental GT
* Bentley R-Type Continental
* Bertone BAT 5
* Bertone Marzal
* BMW 328 Mille Miglia
* Bugatti T41 Royale Coupé Napoleon
* Bugatti T57SC Atlantic
* Buick Riviera (1963-'65)
* "Cadzilla"
* Citroën ID/DS
* Cord 810/812
* Delage D8-120S
* Ferrari 166 Barchetta
* Ferrari 250GT Lusso
* Ferrari 250GT swb
* Ferrari 250GTO
* Ferrari 275GTB
* Ferrari 330 P3/4
* Ferrari Dino 206S
* Citroen DSFerrari Dino 246GT
* Ferrari P6
* Ford GT40
* Hispano-Suiza H6 (Tulip Wood)
* Jaguar E-type
* Jaguar XJ6 S1
* Jaguar XK120
* Jaguar XKSS
* Lagonda Rapide
* Lamborghini Countach
* Lamborghini Gallardo
* Lamborghini Miura
* Lancia Stratos
* Lincoln Continental (1961)
* Lotus Elan +2
* Lotus Elan S3
* Lotus Elite (1957)
* Maserati Boomerang
* Maserati Khamsin
* Mercedes-Benz 500K
* Mercedes-Benz Gullwing 300SL
* Mini
* Pagaso Z102 ‘Thrill'
* Phantom Corsair
* Triumph TR4

[via carbodydesign]

This move will likely result in a freshening of the brand and a further refinement of the current BMW flame surfacing. Below are galleries of some of the designs that van Hooydonk oversaw in his previous position as Design Director, BMW Cars.

Official BMW Press Release:

According to BMW, Adrian van Hooydonk - "a man who shares Bangle's fascination for technology and aesthetics, tradition and innovation" - will continue to build on a design philosophy, which extends across the BMW Group's brands.

Bangle described van Hooydonk as "truly a top professional in our business," adding, "I am sure that the many strong design strategies he has helped us create for the BMW Group will continue to develop and evolve."

"I am honoured and extremely excited to take on this new responsibility", says van Hooydonk.

"BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce produce the best cars and motorcycles in their segment, and I am really looking forward to being able to contribute to the future development of these brands."

Speaking of his hopes for the years to come, van Hooydonk added: "I have no doubt that there are challenges ahead, but BMW's depth in engineering and the passion of its talented design team are as strong as ever. Together I am sure we will be able to create some very sophisticated and extremely attractive concepts."
About Adrian van Hooydonk

Born in the Netherlands, Adrian van Hooydonk studied at Delft Polytechnic University in Holland and later at the Art Center Europe in Vevey, Switzerland, until 1992.

From there he came to Munich, where he joined BMW as a designer. In the year 2000 he went to California to work for the BMW Group subsidiary Designworks USA. He was Director of the internationally renowned design agency from 2001 to 2004.

Then, under Bangle as the BMW Group's Head of Design, he became Head of the Brand Design Studio for BMW Automobiles.

The BMW 6 Series and 7 Series lines clearly bear the hallmark of van Hooydonk's design influence, as do the Z9 Concept Car, the BMW Concept CS (unveiled in 2007) and the M1 Hommage Study.

In 1997 van Hooydonk created the ACV 30 Show Car for MINI and more recently he and his team have developed the designs for the new BMW 7 Series and Z4 as well as for the Concept Progressive Activity Sedan, which celebrates its premiere at the Geneva Auto Show in early March 2009.

Adrian van Hooydonk's Timeline

* 21.06.1964- Born in Echt, Limburg (Netherlands)
* 1970 – 1976 -Basis School, Echt (Netherlands)
* 1976 – 1982 -Middelbare School, Echt (Netherlands)
* 1982 – 1988 -Delft Polytechnic University, Delft (Netherlands), Masters Degree in Industrial Design
* 1988 – 1989 - Free-Lance Industrial Designer (Netherlands)
* 1989 – 1990 -General Electric Plastics Europe, Bergen op Zoom (Netherlands); Product designer
* 1991 – 1992 - Art Center Europe, Vevey (Switzerland); Degree in Automotive Design
* 1992 – 2000 -BMW AG, Munich (Germany); Automotive exterior designer
* 2000 – 2001 - BMW Group DesignworksUSA, Newbury Park (USA); Head of automotive design department
* 2001 – 2004 - BMW Group DesignworksUSA, Newbury Park (USA); President
* 2004 – 2009 - BMW AG, Munich (Germany); Director of Design, BMW Cars
* February 2009 - Director of Design, BMW Group

[via BMW]

The chair was chosen as tops in the Sustainable Design category, and one look at the clever design tells you why. It combines a shape taken from the tail light cluster of the Volvo C30 and laminated cardboard for a modern seating design. The block design pulls apart to reveal an included ottoman and a side table, perfect for what looks like a cherrytini.

Very clever, yes, and green, which is in-vogue with the design community these days, but we're not sure we'd be interested in furniture that would turn into a sloppy pile of brown paper if it gets left out in the rain. [Behance]

The survey of 4,000 people in eight countries, primarily in Europe, but also including the U.S., China and Japan, by consultant Bain & Co., claims high-income buyers are ready to buy all-electric vehicles as a second vehicle for short trips. “Consumers would be buying now if there were products,” says Gregor Matthies, a Munich-based partner at Bain specializing in the auto industry.

Of course, as you'd expect, demand is highest among people who already own luxury cars, but feel guilty and want to show the world they really, really, really do care about the environment. Actually, not the world so much. Really they only want to show the people who live on their street and anyone they happen across in their travels.

What the survey also found was customers are eager to buy an electric car from familiar names such as Toyota, Daimler, Volkswagen or BMW. (Respondents weren’t asked about the U.S. carmakers.) “The consumers are expecting trusted brands to deliver these products,” says Matthies.

But, there's another challenge for carmakers — differentiating their products from the competition. Electric motors are much less complicated to build than internal combustion engines and don't use the same gearboxes, have the same engine noises and torque curves that have sold BMWs, Lexus and Mercedes as unique.

So design may be the key competitive factor. As we're already seeing with the Volt, Prius and new Insight, there's little you can do with the exterior of a car on a hybrid when you're attempting to minimize wind resistance to maximize fuel economy. Luckily, electrics aren't truly in a real-world competition mode yet. They don't need to maximize wind resistance because the desire with an electric is not to truly maximize fuel economy, it's to look green and look good doing it. Thus, the Tesla Roadster and Fisker Karma can look fast and cool because they're not designed to be appliances like the Prius, Volt and Insight.

Some automakers may decide to form partnerships with companies known for superb product design. Thus, the reason the Bain survey asked people whether they would buy a car from Apple (also, Thomas Friedman, but he can suck it). Only 21% of Europeans asked said they would, vs. 48% who said they'd be willing to buy an electric car from BMW. Still, Apple’s score was surprisingly high considering they've never made a motor vehicle.

Despite the response rate, they shouldn't be designing an electric car exterior, or even partnering with an automaker on one. Here's why. As the market for electric cars matures, design may be the key competitive factor. And since the exterior of most "appliance" electric cars will eventually mature to take advantage of wind resistance needs, there won't but much room for toying with design. But the interior? That'd be a place to play around with.

Apple has long been known for producing some of the most popular and user friendly gadgets and computers on the planet and they’ve excelled in creating a usable human machine interface (HMI) with the iPod scroll wheel. They’ve also gotten pretty close to perfection with the iPod Touch and iPhone touch-screen interface that would surely do a lot of good if their methods replaced the crappy touch screen navigation systems installed in most cars today. BMW, Audi and Mercedes have all tried their hands at creating their own HMI experience with their wheeled control devices, but we all know how that’s panned out.

If Apple were to give Jonathon Ive and his design team the task to design the interior of an electric car, how could they really make it better? For starters, they would likely integrate all HVAC, navigation and media control functions into one simple, usable interface not unlike the iPod scroll wheel. Haptic touch would be a necessity to allow the driver to concentrate on driving the car while interfacing with the secondary controls, but how would this information get transmitted? It’s likely that a large 7-8” infotainment screen would remain, but the current gauge cluster of today’s cars would go the way of the dodo, instead, it would be replaced by a large format LCD display that would match the center stack’s infotainment display. A simple icon-based navigation layout would be likely a.k.a. the Apple OS dock, but would be simplified for use while driving. These are just a few of the obvious ways that Apple could improve on the interior of electric cars and would hopefully trickle down to more mainstream cars.

There’s no lying when we say Apple knows how to build a consumer product but they should never even think of building an electric car. However the interior? Well, quite simply put, Apple could potentially revolutionize the way we see interiors, much the same as they’ve done for computers, mp3 players and cell phones. We just hope that doesn’t mean gloss white plastic everywhere we look.

[via BusinessWeek, Bain & Co.]