2016 Volvo S60 Cross Country Scores a Slammed Donk

THERE ARE numerous incidents of architectural variations in car design if one sifts through the annuls, but the BMW X Coupe is still a visceral milestone. It would be years before we understood quite how farsighted the 2001 concept would be. First came the coupe-isation of existing architecture. Every sedan lost its boxy profile; even Volvo streamlining the first S60. Now crossover-isation is at large; hatchbacks jacked-up, cabrios too. The Nissan Murano even managed to make a cabrio of a jacked up car. 

A recent fermentation of this symbolic pluralism (we live in a multi-cultural society after all) is the BMW X4, which is conceived thus: 3-series begets SUV begets coupe. Now Volvo is attempting to do one better. 


The coupe-ised S60 sedan has been given the donk treatment (I'll come to that in a moment) to create a peculiarly appealing concept, if only because chalk isn't usually served with cheese.

Ah yes, the donk. Americans might know the term, or fans of street culture. I'm not either, but I have in the past stumbled upon this odd bastardisation of Americana. In Tokyo, three-box Caddies put out to pasture are mounted on roller-skate wheels -the smaller the better -with blue underbody lighting. You probably know them as low-riders. Those Broughams which didn't find 10" wires fare rather differently. They are mounted on collosal cart-wheels, so that the bottom of the body is in line with the top of the wheels.



Okay, the Volvo S60 might be a little off this, but the principle remains. The only difference is approach. Marketing invariably guides the design department in voicing the views of the customers, so a sedan will become more coupe-like because customers say so. This feedback will take about four years to bake-in before the result is on the road. Add another four (the typical development time of a car) to work positive crossover feedback into the mix, and you can see why designers feel frustrated when concepts they sketch can take a decade to be vindicated. So who will produce the first two-door coupe-crossover 14 years after the X-Coupe? I wouldn't bet against Volvo.

2015 Mercedes-Benz F015 Luxury In Motion Concept Shows The Value Of Enterprise

AN INTERIOR where anyone can sit anywhere, and where anyone can drive: this is the potential of autonomous driving. The car avoids accidents, so one need not wear a seatbelt. If you do have an accident, intelligent airbags inflate where required. The steering wheel is detachable, and can be passed from person to person to take control. Dashboards become less complex, buttons are fewer and screens are irrelevant because we all carry on our own device. Materials and quality and customization become even more important. It is a relaxing, open place to spend time and enjoy the company of others or the peace of solitude.  Mercedes hasn't gone quite that far with their latest concept, but in producing the F015 they have made a memorable start. 


Here's the message in two steps: fat seats suggest luxury; seats facing each other implies autonomous driving. And now Mercedes owns the image of luxurious autonomous travel. Nevermind that the rest of the interior looks like a set from Star Trek (screens do not an interior make), in terms of communicating a message the Mercedes is faultless. 

Faults are saved for the exterior instead, and here one sees the challenge designers face in providing an attractive shape while providing head-room over rear-facing front seats. It would be unfair to criticise the exterior too harshly, though, as it was always the interior that we are meant to see, but it does point to an interesting communications strategy. You won't see many poorly resolved concept cars from BMW or Audi, but Mercedes is willing to compromise design to gain an edge for innovation, which begs the question Does design or concept do more to reinforce brand image? 


Cars are the ultimate industrial design overachievers: throw a new market at it, introduce new legislation, tighten emissions and threaten congestion charge: so far every obstacle has strengthened the breed and cars are more capable than ever. It proves the desirability of the concept of private transport, a demand that shows no signs of withering. Underlying the success of the car is its supreme adaptability: A thirty year old Peugeot will drive on a road built last year in Pakistan by someone who was not born when the car was designed using fuel bought today.

But autonomous driving is more than taking your hands off the wheel and turning the front seats around; it is an opportunity for designers to redefine the relationship between man and machine. Traditionally this was done mechanically, through the steering wheel and gearshift and ride quality. Now, in an electric age, everything is assisted, and what we feel is largely artificial. We are in a peculiar purgatory between old-world interaction and a future where the car is simply transport. 

This is an indisputable trend, and it is your fault. You liked it when in 1951 Chrysler introduced power steering on the Imperial. You raved when gears silently shifted, and rejoiced when windows wound themselves: autonomy and anaesthetised cars are the culmination of many years of smaller innovations. We kept buying them, and maybe we are the last generation to know that a car used to provide feel. 

1951 Chrysler Imperial

That’s why I drive an older Mercedes. I want to smell leather, to view the road through untinted glass, and hear those colossal doors slam. It is one of the ironies of electric cars that their success coincides with the sales increases of those soulful classics. In the past cars felt mechanical simply because no alternative existed; now, with so many options available to designers we must be careful to do what is right, and not just what is possible.

2013 Opel Monza Concept Is Brake Without Tradition

THANKFULLY THE Opel Monza concept has little to do with the bluff coupe made 30 years ago. Instead Opel has produced a sleek shooting-brake. Cleanliness is the key here: only one cutline visibly interrupts the shoulder; there are no seals, and the glass runs into the shoulder line. The careful positive door-section is inclined to reflect the ground to convey lightness, billowing out for the rear wheel, yet with a rocker that is teardrop in plan. Two chrome strips frame a single large door, the upper strip running the length of the cant-rail, featuring a neat scalloped section, before hooking into the tail-lamps. 

The rear is notable for the absence of any corner, with a high slim metal trunk face the rearmost surface, instilling lightness and newness despite the familiarity of the layout. The front eschews the rounded section of production models for a squared Y-zero (what hip designers call the centre-line). Anthropomorphic headlamps have been replaced by a more severe, less expressive face that focuses on the tight mesh texture, grille bar and running light. This is tone-on-tone and nuanced detail design used to excellent, if sober, effect.

The interior is a compelling example of how projectors can replace screens for an immersive interface experience, liberating flat screens into shapes that correlate with screen content. Next to the dancing displays, the seats seem a little static, though the door card captures that fleeting, wind-blown lightness of the bodyside with a white sail running beside the driver.

Like the Citroen C4 Cactus and Cadillac Elmiraj concept, the Monza first gets the dimensions right. After years of ever-growing cars, the reductionist result is startling: the product feel sustainable, personal and efficient. It is a year since we first saw the Monza (apologies for the wait. Ed); I hope we are a year closer to seeing similar on the links.

2013 Cadillac Elmiraj Concept At Home In the Desert

YOU HAVE to try harder when you play away from home: so seems to be the approach taken by Cadillac in creating the Elmiraj. Where European brands are cautiously  interpreting consumer trends (viz. the Citroen Cactus concept), Cadillac is sticking resolutely to building concepts from the vision of the designers. Despite sounding like a Dubaian hotel, the four-seat three-box package makes for  a striking first impression thanks to the classical proportions. But what makes it especially attractive is the scale: this is the first time down-sizing has been applied to the D-segment, and it leaves a lasting impression. Suddenly aggressive styling and in-your face grille with lashings of chrome do not seem so ostentatious. If there is a way to convert the currency of pre-crisis cars into more considerate propositions, size is surely it.

The result is a baby Cadillac Sixteen concept. The long nose, flat shoulder-line and vertical corners are all lifted from that seminal concept, while mixing in a mesh-derived grille and significant tuck in-front of the rear wheels. The tuck works well, lightening the flanks and emphasizing the rear track: this is clearly a rear-wheel drive car. The new grille is less convincing, the tooth-like mesh and re-proportioned Cadillac shield taking the face too close to Chevrolet. Pedestrians might have cause to complain too, with the snow-plough plan view.

The interior from Gael Buzyn is framed from the outside by a pillarless chrome trapezium, revealing an IP motif not seen before: a bold plenum within a shadow moat set inside leather. The shape itself is a distortion of the Cadillac shield, containing auxiliary controls, GUI and analogue clock behind the glass. It highlights both the uneasy rectangular touch-screen integration in production cars, plus how the impression of an interior is significantly formed by the air-vents. In dislodging them from their expected location, the Cadillac Elmiraj concept puts this high-value real estate to much better use. 

The Elmiraj will not reach Europe, or indeed production, but it is a sign that General Motors has not given up on the Continent. However, if the current economic stagnation continues, then the Middle East might not such a bad proposition.