Tag » vehicles

Pontiac commercial

Super slick black and white Pontiac Commercial. I love the transitions.

On a related note, it seems that American car manufacturers are finally starting to get a grip on design again. The Chrysler 300 may be brutish, but it has a really distinctive “tough guy” look to it. The Pontiac Solstice has a certain classic charm.

And I recently saw the new Cadillac XLR on the street, and it looks like an angular version of a Mercedes S500… in a good way!

A car made to be scratched

A car made to be scratched

Driving a manual on the steep hills of San Francisco, I find Uros Pavasovic’s Fiat Scratch particularly appealing:

The Fiat Scratch comes pre-equipped with scratches and quirky lights that vaguely resemble freckles. The aim is to make drivers less protective of their cars and more able to lighten up and behave with tolerance on the road.

A concept design for a competition, the Fiat Scratch comes with a “scratch-happy” bumper that is explicitly designed to be more beautiful as it gets dented and nicked. You can find Uros’ competition entry at the Michelin site.

Two related concepts:

  • Wabi-Sabi, the Japanese philosophy that embraces a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. (more)
  • Beausage, the beauty that comes with using something.
My ideal car

I’ve found my ideal car: the new BMW 3-Series hard-top convertible. What a beautiful design. Interestingly, the M3 might still come with a soft-top because of weight considerations. Of course, they’re both out of my price range for now, but I can still dream.

Jaguar Design

This post about Jaguar’s new Concept XF is a good example of why I love car design — so much thought has to go into every little detail. Next time you’re driving at night, try to recognize cars from the shape of their headlights. You’ll be surprised at how easy many brands are to spot.

In other news, the new Jaguar XK is stunningly beautiful.

Old Street

Old Street

A nice yellow car on Old Street, in St Maarten. Unedited version.

Gyrobike, take 2

Remember the Gyrobike I blogged about a few months back? Well I happened to meet Nathan Sigworth, one of the designers, while recruiting at Dartmouth. Turns out they’ve just won a Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award! Sweet.

Ford F450 bed extender

The new Ford F450 comes with a very clever bed extender. Unbelievably, the Ford F-series is currently the best selling car in the world — even though its only sold in the US. More about the world’s best selling cars.

Bose Suspension

Did you know that Bose, the speaker company, was working on fascinating new suspension technology? Now you do. Bose has more information.

GM Highwire

The GM Highwire is an amazing hydrogen-powered, telematics-maneuvered, styling-changeable marvel of a car.

Honda commercials

For a Honda showroom, Dutch artist Paul Veroude disassembled and suspended an F1 car. The Design Weblog gives us some prior art for this idea. Speaking of Honda, here is a video of the making of the Cog commercial I posted about a while back.