2014 Volkswagen XL Sport Concept Is A Right Animal

FOUR WHEELS good; two wheels bad: in the Animal Farm of vehicle design, little stirs my interest less than motorbikes. I would rather pore over a Daewoo Matiz than survey a Harley. Maybe it’s a volume thing. I like shapes and curves, not bent pipes. It’s a pity really, because in absolute terms, nothing gets closer to perfect transport than a bike. I am afraid it really is a matter of aesthetics, and though I realize I am the loser in this argument, even this fails to shift my perception. 

My experience of bikes can be counted on one hand: one extraordinary journey on the back of a Royal Enfield, traveling though Rajasthan, and a trip through Tokyo on a Yamaha R1, memorable if only for the pain of trying to hang on. I'll be honest, the journey in India was incredible, but that was as much the astonishing environment and companions, as it was the bike. Put me on a donkey and I would still cherish the memory.

Still, that hasn't stopped less prejudiced types from marrying cars and bikes. Caterham has tried it a few times using Honda engines, starting in 2000 with the Blackbird. But it seems like transplanting the heart of a pig with one from a sparrow. Technically, it may be possible, but it doesn't quite fit the animal, no matter how much flapping it does.

But the surgeons in Wolfsburg may have at last found the right donor for the right patient: a Ducati twin for a carbon tub known as the XL1. My intrigue deepened with reading a brisk-but-not-spectacular 5.7s time from 0-60mph. This number has a bit of resonance with me. It is the time achieved by Fast Lane magazine in testing the R129 500SL 25 years ago. That was a 5-litre quad-cam V8. Ten years ago, the BMW Z4 did the same with 60% of the Merc's capacity. Today, it is what a diesel BMW 3-series can manage. If the engine of the future needs to prove itself, then 5.7 is the number to do it with.

The main difference between the Caterham and the VW is that while the Caterham is minimalist, the VW reductionist. The Brit leaves all the essentials in the pit-lane; the German takes a little bit of everything. It is the more complete car, so it feels more of the achievement that it can still produce excellent performance. A part of me loves the fact that they haven't gone over-board on power, too. 200PS already makes it the most powerful twin-engined car on the track, so 5.7s mean so much more. 

I suppose the one area where the concept starts to stall is its brand positioning. Didn't Audi technically buy Ducati? So why are we seeing the same badge on the XL as on a camper? Sporty, advanced genes surely befit four rings. One can only imagine that politics played a part. Volkswagen is the brand closer to the heart of chairman Ferdinand Piech, who commissioned the original 1-litre car that finally became the XL1. Though logic dictates Audi, those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.

2015 BMW i8 Articulates Innovation

THERE ARE common virtues we all seek in a car. Safety. Comfort. Reliability. Pride. Cars subtly express these traits, and because we all prize at least all of these traits, so at least almost all cars will have some visual similarities. But what happens when we start wanting more from the car? What happens when the car starts wanting more from us?

Iconic change is a powerful statement. It represents innovation and revolution against stagnation. It says that in at least one significant way that this product is better. So how do we recognize change when we see it? And how do we design it in? It is an important question. Fortunately, the rise of electric cars gives some clues as to how and how not to do this.

Electric cars are in their infancy, which means imperfect technology inferior in many respects to their brilliantly matured petrol driven counterparts. Part of the attraction is newness, and newness can only be recognized as such when made distinct. The BMW i3 and i8 offer something completely different. Profoundly different. Under the skin different. How can you tell? Because it looks different. How can you remember? Because these changes are easy to articulate. Black bonnet. Blue stripe. Glass hatch. All easy to see, easy to say features.

In design, symbolism is substantiation, and each of these features would be superficial were they not representative of a defining characteristic of the car. The black bonnet lessens the visual weight of the car, reflecting the cars actual lower weight. The blue stripe represents electricity. The glass hatch mimics touch screen interfaces, suggestion a change in how you operate the car.

Yet the change articulated by the i3 and i8 goes beyond electricity. Having battery power is the consequence in the drive for greater sustainability. Question: how do I know this car is sustainable. Answer: the eucalyptus wood in the interior requires no varnish and no chemical treatment. It is completely natural. The leather has been dyed using olive leaves. The dashboard is visibly recycled material reconstituted.

                                                                                                            
 

Compare this to how we might read a 5-series. The 5-series has barely a feature that we haven’t seen before, yet it is sublime. All character and differentiation oozes from the sculpture, the long, languid yet poised shoulder line and the full surfaces around the wheels. It looks extremely expensive. It is perhaps the most perfect design on the road, and the most evolved saloon styling in the world. But hide the picture and describe the car definitively: it is hard to do. No feature that belongs to the 5 does not belong to another car, the attractiveness of the product base solely on sculpture and resolution. But the 5 doesn’t have to be easy to describe as it doesn’t spearhead a change in concept.

The difference between the 5-series and the i3 is that their attractiveness is achieved in two different ways, one through form, the other through feature. Homogeneity in car design means that while brands are still distinct, the features are universal. Now take a look at the rear buttresses of the i8. With one feature we understand lightness, aerodynamic sensibility and newness. All together they define iconic change.  This is no whim of the designer, this is an acute understanding of how to stand out without being shouted down. Being different is easy. Being different and being better is exceptionally hard.

2015 VW Passat Goes To Infinity And Beyond On A Single Tank

YOU CAN brand anything these days: the latest packaging of Marlboros proves it. No longer content with claiming each pack contains a score of fags, twenty has been rebranded as 19+1. I saw the same quirk in a toy store where a quartet of balls was described 3+1. If the Volkswagen Passat were accurately named, you might want to call it the Volkswagen Diesel. Every model bar the R will need filling at black pumps. Not that that would be very often, with over 1000 miles available on a tank. How long before cars are brimmed only during their annual service?

There is a strong sense of advancement with this model, not just stylized futurism. Volkswagen went down that path with the Eighties B3 Passat: no grille, badge flush within a painted snout denoting an obvious aero-advancement that was bang on trend courtesy of the Ford Sierra. At the rear, horizontally banded lamps made everything chic and wide, and to cap it off the name ‘Passat’ was stamped into the body, no additional badges here. That was a feature filled past, when you could point at a detail and say ‘Ah. That represents such-and-such.’ You might struggle to find any one feature on the new Passat that stands out, yet the overall impression is as strong at the B3 was.

Nowadays it all comes down to form and proportions, and here the Passat is meticulous and striking respectively. Width and wheels maketh a car’s desirability, and VW has taken a chest-pull and stretched it right across the front end. I don’t like the latest theme of the lamps floating above the base of the overall graphic, but there’s no doubting the impression of superb ground-to-body relationship. Low roof-line and fast screen angle reinforces that sense of confident advancement.

The bodyside should be the cars trump car, and it certainly one VW is making good use of on the perfect (except for the headlamps) Golf SV. I was quite curious at first to see VW do emotion. You don’t expect to see a judge smile. Here they seem to have tentatively felt their way from a conventional all-positive section, before taking a rake and hollowing the shoulder. The result is fast and taut, and just enough to lighten the cars sobriety in the company of increasingly gestural rivals without losing the holier-than-thou perception of quality.

The Passat is an impressive design no doubt that will fend off the Koreans and makes the Ford Mondeo seem tall and under-wheeled, but it misses the dynamism of BMW and the status of Mercedes. Perhaps rebranding it as an Audi will help.

2013 Volkswagen Golf Files For Divorce

DESIGNERS, I bet you don’t drive a Volkswagen Golf. You should, of course, because when you look at it you will reflect admiringly at all its virtues and how it doesn’t put a foot wrong. We recognize the thought of the line and the feat of the quality. It is a superb, clear, timeless design.

More likely you will have something secondhand; a manual, rear wheel drive and preferably rear engine. It might have a large engine, it might even have space for more that two people. Chances are there will be something odd-ball about it. A character superseded or something that represents an impossibility in today’s designs. ‘Of course, you couldn’t do that now’ you say, as you point out the pop-up headlamps et al.

Point at aspects of the Golf, and there are parts you are told you cannot do today, yet somehow the Golf does. How does it achieve that crisp cant-rail, look at that knife-point tail-lamp dart towards the wheel-arch. Parallel cut-lines and doors that open to any point. That was on the BMW 7-series a scant generation ago! Make no mistake, the Golf is everything you need, and possibly most of what you want.

If you’re a single young professional male, that is. If you have offspring, then that marks you out as a family man, and you might find more to quibble about. I won’t go into features and usability, but the intent of an object ought to be visible in its aesthetic. Those lean, fat free-surfaces might represent urban gym-going ambitions, but they do not represent the fulsome nourishment of a young family, or the selfless generosity one realizes with the onset of offspring. 

That bodyside marks an obsessive pursuit of a super-lean ideal, to the point where it becomes slightly detached from the familial objective. Yes, all designs are at some point an indulgence for the designer, and perhaps the solution the Mk7 Golf is the most modern appropriate solution, but there is a neat fullness achieved by the Mark 6 that is not here. A car once classless and sexless has compromised maternity for masculinity. The family car just got divorced.