Posts Tagged "paris auto show"

While so many manufacturers are following a trend of busy detailing and extraneous graphics, there is one stand in Paris that’s flying under the radar with its consistently honest and cohesive design language—Dacia. While certainly not the stars of the show, we find the honesty and cleanliness of the Dacia range (now complete with the refreshed Sandero/Logan) to be a perfect antidote to the gratuitous surfacing and fussy DRGs that now dominate the stands from nearly every other manufacturer.

The simple creased lines and subtle-yet-full surfaces of the entire Dacia lineup have a solid assuredness that seems poised to take the place of Skoda in the marketplace as VW move that brand upmarket and more in line with the corporate style.

The new Sandero itself is a chunky 5-door car with a proportion reminiscent of the beloved but utilitarian Renault 4, and the Duster is consistently named among the favorites of designers show after show. They aren’t premium and don’t pretend to be, which leads to the obvious question in this economic climate—isn’t there space for honest, utilitarian cars with an unassuming but confident style?

We think there is.

By Drew Meehan

The new, 4th generation Range Rover unveiled in Paris is quite exceptional in many regards. We know it will perform peerlessly and it has to work in new markets, for customers who demand an ever greater level of luxury and refinement. We know it will do all of these things with aplomb. And generally, this is a very well executed piece of design. The detailing, for instance, instantly links it with Evoque and also brings the car up to date. The old car was looking a little tired in this respect. Meanwhile, the belt line has remained mercifully flat, the face is softer, yet still well-resolved and recognisably Range Rover. While the lower feature line gives the car a degree of balance and harmony – even if we aren’t fans, taste-wise of the chrome highlight it creates – which is particularly apparent on the darker-hued cars.

Yet there’s a fundamental proportional change here. The car is sportier. It ‘leans back’ further. The rear overhang is much more obvious. And you sit ever-so-slightly lower – that classic low belt line, relative to your body in the car, is less apparent. To us, that up-rightness, the last vestiges of utilitarianism in the design and the beltline relationship were core to what made Range Rover. They may be tiny things and they may have only been reduced slightly, but we’ve a nagging sense that the regal, really overt British-ness of the last car, has got slightly lost. Blame the Range Rover’s status as a massive export vehicle – one that will sell in greater abundance in Shanghai and LA, than it will in its home market. It’s still a good piece of design, but make no mistake, there’s more than a subtle-shift to this Range Rover’s design than the pictures might first suggest.

By Joe Simpson

This morning, Wolfgang Egger unveiled the VW Group’s only concept for the Paris show, the Crosslane Coupe. The compact 2-door SUV concept is clearly a preview for an upcoming Q2, but, more importantly, it showcases a new design language and DRG for Audi SUVs to come.

According to Egger, the current Audi style, which has been honed for several generations of vehicles now and has become ubiquitous on the roads the world over, needed a change. That change has come in the form of a new “sculpted” approach which Egger claims is the logical next step in Audi’s design evolution. The headlamps and DRG are chiseled out of a solid form rather than being graphics laid over a smooth volume, and results in an aggressive, chunky, almost brutalist front end.

The car as a whole is an exercise in precision however. Not a single line or surface is out of place or unresolved, and the concept feels production ready. According to Egger, this DRG, with massive integrated polished grill surround, bold logo surround, and new vertical LED lamps, will become the face of Audi’s “sports SUVs”, with a different variation used for each of the A, S, and family Q lines.

On the interior, brightly colored leather and integrated structural components complete the look and also indicate a willingness by Audi to change the game, just as others finally threaten to catch up.

While we’re still digesting the new look, it’s good to see Audi moving their design forward and not resting on their laurels. It may be an angry new face for Audi, but at least it’s not a tired one.

Drew Meehan

At first sight, the Paris show appears  to be about studied evolution and new production cars – it’s not every day you get a new generation Golf, Clio, Mondeo and Range Rover all at the same show.

Unveiled at its traditional group ‘preview night’ here on Paris’s left bank, the day before the show, VW has played it safe with the Golf VII, but in a very good way. We wouldn’t expect anything else, given the Golf’s evolutionary design history and the fact the model line exists in its own design right, rather than belonging to a wider VW picture. As Walter da ‘Silva said at its unveiling; “There are a handful of cars with a design that, like the Golf’s, has been refined, tweaked and enhanced down the decades and thus become timeless.”

But the big story here is that it builds not on Golf VI, or even V, but that it returns to the some of the values of the Golf IV, which so many designers admire. Mk IV’s influence is most apparent in the rear fender and C-pillar treatment. Unlike Mks V and VI, the side feature line doesn’t run through the rear fender into the rear lamp cluster, instead fading out before the rear door shutline. That leaves the C-pillar to run down in one continuous surface into the wheel arch, as it did on the IV, which re-endows the Golf with so much of its visual strength and classless-ness.

Also banished are the last vestiges of the round theme that gave the Golf V, in particular, its slightly ‘blobby’ appearance. It’s most apparent in the lamp cans – the internals at the front feature square-edged chrome bezels – and remind us somewhat of the way BMW’s signature four-rings have progressed into more of a squircle. Meanwhile, at the back there’s a much more wide-rather-than-deep can, which is visually reminiscent of Audi, until you catch sight of the signature VW hockey stick motif when they’re illuminated.

The biggest shift though, is a very subtle yet important proportional one. The new MQB platform allows Golf VII to swim against the C-mainstream trend. The proportion is ‘cab backward’ (rather than forward) – the A-pillar indexing with the front wheel centre line and the front overhang reduced. It positions the Golf towards the C-premium A3 and 1-Series and puts clear air between it and cars such the Focus, C’eed and Astra. There numerous interesting surface and detail finishes which we’ll come back to in a blog on the show floor tomorrow.

But for now, because it’s longer, lower, wider and crucially lighter, one can’t help but compare the Golf VII to the recently unveiled iPhone 5. It’s the obvious choice in its segment, it will be bought by many people who would never consider anything else and – while visually very similar to the model that went before it – it manages to come across as simply 15% better than its predecessor all round. And while its design evolution might be obvious or even seem unimaginative, considered in isolation it is still peerless in its class. There won’t quite be queues at VW dealerships, but expect it to sell like the proverbial hot cake.

by Joe Simpson