Car Design today is at the beginning of a very exciting new era. We are living in a moment where design really begins to matter again.
Car design today is at the beginning of a very exciting new era. We are living in a moment where design really begins to matter again, just as it did back in the heydays of the 60s. The consumer is ready for innovative, inspiring design and it is up to today’s designers to respond to this and take the opportunity to give the world some memorable products.
It has always been the philosophy of Bertone to give the world dynamic, trend setting designs to shake up what is a very conservative industry and signpost the future. As a designer, I’ve always felt that cars should have a strong character and be attractive in a way that makes you really want to own and drive them. They should make you smile and feel happy! Most of all when you walk away from your car you should be able to remember the experience.
Here is an example of one such project, which is based on the very functional Panda city car also designed by Stile Bertone. This is a car which tries to incorporate the ideas expressed above. Designed and built for the Geneva 2007 motor show, a design, which brings Bertone back to its roots! It is a passionate 2-seater Barchetta, inspired by the same type of vehicle that a young Nuccio built and raced 60 years ago. Then he built his car on the base of a Fiat Topolino. For those of you who have not had the chance to see this car, it is very appropriate to our theme, as it is a nice balance of automotive, historical car design cues mixed with modern, contemporary surface treatment and detailing that come from outside the automotive world. The exterior is like an armour shell “hand beaten” in aluminium surrounding a composite inner structure pushing from within. The armour is floating off the surface, which had three reasons to be:
1. Offset surfaces are often used in design to convey space and light.
2. This Offset surface treatment along with the material and colour choice breakup an otherwise heavy
bodyside driven by the Panda package.
3. This offset is put to use to run the guides for the rotating slide butterfly doors.
The hand beaten panels are very much a Bertone tradition. I felt it would be a sin to cover up what is such a special craft by painting it.
To come up with fresh, new ideas and concepts, we often take inspiration from outside the automotive world. In the case of our Barchetta concept, we were inspired by the feeling of protection in our tough world given by a warrior’s armour. Along with this, the beautiful aeronautical hand crafted look of the Lockheed lounge was a real influence. Other influences for our concept must of course come from the wonderful designs of Bertone’s history; for example the series of “B.A.T.s” (Berlina, Aerodinamica, Tecnica).
As a design student at school I had many influences. The Italian Studios were churning out their best work back then. I remember watching a red Countach pass below from the 4th floor windows of the RCA in London. Wow what a sight! It was moments like these that drove us to become car designers and come to work in Italy. Apart from being influenced by car designs, my design training opened my eyes to the other design disciplines. My brother was probably the first to blame. Along with being the reason that I went to study at Glasgow School of Art, (he convinced me that it was a good idea), he is also now the Executive Design Director of Lano carpets in Belgium. He keeps me up to date with life in the carpet and textile world. This is probably what gave me the inspiration to incorporate a Bespoke Carpet into the Bertone Villa concept. That whole interior is very much inspired by a world outside the car industry. The Instrument panel is replaced by a theatrical backdrop veneered in a beautiful silver birch wood coming from the Italian furniture region near Lake Como.
Mood Lighting is incorporated which is certainly one of the Automobile industry’s latest trends but has actually been around for years in Aircraft and Interior design.
We must try to use these conceptual ideas to influence the everyday production vehicles that we design. This is not an easy job! Once we get into the real world, we find all sorts of problems - severe cost targets, feasibility and complex product strategies - all tend to complicate a Designer’s life and make his job seem more like 15 rounds.
With Mike Tyson than the artist at his drawing board, the designer continuously has to defend his artistic inspiration from the constraints of the project in hand. During the process of the project there are various inputs which can create problems to the purity of design. The designer must comply to the demands of the engineering departments and also adhere to homologation and safety regulations, production feasibility issues and the project must also comply to the plans of the marketing department. And at the same time the components are subject to stringent cost targets. A good designer is one who can still pursue his design and turn all these constraints into positive opportunities. A designer also has to continually search for stimulation. Together with outside inspiration, mixing different design areas is, I believe, a very good way to stimulate new ideas.
Often designers can become stagnant when given the same kind of project day in, day out. We have put this to good use in our work on sailing yachts, which we have designed using our learning in the automotive sector, to give added quality and style. I was influenced by Ross Lovegrove, while working on a Yamaha motorcycle project at the Royal College or Art (RCA) in London . I learned the art of colouring from Dick Powell of Seymourpowell Ltd. when I worked for him at weekends to get experience while at the RCA. Things that have influenced me lately. First is fashion and how important it is in our society. A car is very much like the clothes we wear. It says a lot about us, about our personality. There are so many similarities in fashion and cars. For example the importance of “Brand”.
Second is the alarming rate at which technology is overtaking us. I’m not a tech guy but when I have to battle day by day to find space for a “double Din” unit, which tends to be somewhere inside the heater box, then I guess Jonathan Ive’s my New Hero! Coming back to fashion and communication, it is a recent thing for me as I grew up as a car guy. I never used to care about the exterior. Slowly, I started to take interest in car interiors. The job was very boring as the colour used was either shades of grey or all black, and red if you’re feeling sporty.
Surely, the person who considers buying a cool suit or dress would appreciate a tasteful interior. Materials and colours are at least 70 percent of the overall effect. They are an important part of our business. Communicating the right image is all-important in design. Many new products use fashionable people to create the right link.
OEMs often use famous people to create a trend-setting image. For example Kylie Minogue was part of the launch of the Ford StreetKa concept. Today Hollywood films stars are seen to be driving hybrid vehicles as an environmental message which creates a trend.
At Bertone, we like to keep a strong Italian influence. We used leathers from the Italian fashion world to highlight our designs as illustrated in the Bertone Suagnà. Our Aston Martin Jet2 interior was influenced by a love of Riva classic powerboats, although treated in a very modern way: English traditional colours and materials but all very Italian!
Our latest outside influences though come from our young designers. I constantly ask them to cover the walls with images that inspire them in one way or another. Images, music “What’s in your iPod”, films. The result is a mix of images from their world of sport, music, films and fashion.
I need my young designers to surprise me and keep me “in Touch”. Our young designers do a lot to influence us on the latest trends. We often research into what they like and what’s “cool” at the moment. Cool at the moment are training shoes, China, furniture, ambient lighting, 70s revival music.
Another important area of inspiration for our designers is the incredible cultural differences between many of our clients from China, India, Korea, Russia, America and Europe Travelling and trying to understand those different cultural needs is an exciting and very important part of our work. For this reason we have a very international team of designers which certainly helps our design process.
Of course, there has always been the traditional ‘benchmarking’ of the competitor products. To sum up, many outside elements influence Bertone design along with competitor products. We use all this to enrich our design proposals that we present to our clients.
This is no supermarket design service giving cut price, low quality ideas. Stile Bertone has always been one of the world’s leading design houses, and through correct inspiration and quality designers we intend to stay that way!
