All Entries Tagged With: "jaguar design"
How To Be The Next Harley Earl or How To Design Cars Like A Pro
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: How To Design Cars Like A Pro
READING How to Design Cars Like A Pro. The title of this book is somewhat misleading. It isn’t so much a “how-to” as it is an overarching study on car design. It’s also written by two automotive scribes, Tony Lewin and Ryan Borroff who, according to the inside leaflet, have never actually penned a car.
So what makes How To Design Cars Like A Pro worth reading if it’s title is slightly misleading and its authors critique cars rather than create them? In a word: insight.
Scrapping the comical notion that in order to communicate a concept you have to be employed in the same field (how else would the world’s news get about?) the authors do a good job of giving us an almost up-to-the-minute account of the present industry and introduce us to the people, the process, and the art of conceptualization.
We also get an analytical look of history’s good and great – from icons in design like Harley Earl, Bruno Sacco, and, gulp, Chris Bangle to the legendary cars themselves – the Eldorado Biarritz, Ferrari 250 GTO, and Audi TT, to name a few.
There is one chapter titled, “Tutorials” that does go into the mechanics of actually, you know, drawing an automobile. But text is like reality, where 95% of the work is conceptual, the rest is CAD, clay models, and where humble pen meets paper.
Jaguar Design Director Ian Callum writes an optimistic forward that encapsulates the book’s bright tone about the future of automotive design.
“I really can’t imagine a more exciting time to become a car designer. New challenges and demands on the motor car are going to change the comfortable assumptions we have had for many years. “
On an interesting and aspirational note, Mr. Callum writes that Jaguar design in the 60s inspired him as a young boy and that at the tender age of 14 he sent his first application to the same car maker he would eventually lead.
Fuel for thought.
MotorBooks furnished ADLXa copy of How To Design Cars Like A Pro.
Jaguar Design: C-X75
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Jaguar ::: Jaguar C-X75
“JAGUAR’S always been about elegant engineering,” Jaguar Head of Advance Design Julian Thompson says about the C-X75, “and you can’t get much more elegant than a micro-turbine [engine].”
The ultra-modern C-X75 celebrate Jaguar’s 75 years and fills a 20 year halo void with an array of hyper technological, if not purely original, ideas about automotive propulsion.
To wit: electric motors at each wheel would be powered centrally by a mid-engine gas fed twin turbine engine that produces 708 hp and would propel the C-X75 to 62 mph in 3.4 seconds and from 50-90 mph in a scant 2.3 seconds. On paper, this represents an exciting prospect.
But Jaguar whose history is linked more to the organic passion of performance and sex appeal is, right or wrong, pitching technology and engineering as its platform for the future. A stretch considering that rival Mercedes-Benz has a $4 Billion annual R&D budget.
The design team supports this premise by penning sleek, sterile, curved metal forms accented with cool, cobalt blue lighting. We’ve seen this with the C-XF right on through to the C-X75. And there is a great sense of theater and drama and movement to their work.
In its time, the XJ220 wasn’t a beautiful car, per se, but it was as Jaguar’s Design Chief Ian Callum might say, “evocative.” The C-X75 for all its “muscled” arches and “crisp” lines is evocative. It’s striking even, though, a touch more reserved than Lamborghini’s latest works.
But the C-X75 is not beautiful. Not really. At least not as it appears in highly photo-shopped pictures. Beauty requires an organic element that Jaguar – indeed – much of the auto industry seems all too ready to forget.
Mr. Callum is right when he says that the C-X75 is a design statement about the future for Jaguar. The C-X75 is also as much a statement about the way the world sees contemporary design – which is to say dynamic, interesting, futuristic, and alien.
What Makes a Jaguar, “A Jag-u-ar”?
- The essential elements of Jaguar design
- Ian Callum’s team should avoid Germanification
- Keep the sex please, Jaguar’s British
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Jaguar Cars
NO, seriously.
What makes a Jaguar a “Jag-wharr” “Jag-u-ar” or a “Shagwharr, baby, yeah!” ?
Coming down from the summer’s high of witnessing the troubled Brit car maker launch something – anything – that could be considered exciting, fresh, and new, yours is compelled to pick up a fresh blogger’s grenade, pull the pin and…
Can’t throw it. Won’t.
The world needs Jaguar now more than ever. We need a car company that promises to deliver what we’ll call the “everyday exotic”.
“Everyday” meaning a car that’s produced in some volume with a wide range of engine and trim options that inevitably includes a low-spec variant that has a euro-zone friendly diesel engine and an interior trimmed in velour.
By “exotic”, I refer to an automobile that makes your hand stand on end or at least prompts a second, lasting glance.
Neither BMW, Mercedes, or Lexus are in the business of building everday head-turners.
The latest generation 5er, E-Class, and GS and their higher and lower stablemates are quite doomed to automotive anonymity thanks in large part to their ubiquity and that they share the same design elements from like-minded studios.
Jaguar’s team, led by the talented Ian Callum, is badly tempted to follow this terribly efficient Teutonic trend. They’re prepared to sacrifice the marque’s quintessentially British heritage by playing ze Germans’ game; borrowing heavily from Audi’s middle-of-the-road German aesthetic while pitching an emphasis on technology.
Technology isn’t sexy. Sleek, lean, power and grace is. Which brings us nicely back to our nugget: what makes a Jaguar, a Jaguar?
It’s sex appeal, ladies and gentlemen.
Time’s up. Throw the grenade!
Big Tease? 2010 Jaguar XJ
Coventry’s 2010 Jaguar XJ teasing us
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Jaguar.com
FROM the top things look promising.
But will Jaguar parlay the C-XF’s (cast your minds back to ’07) raw sex appeal into the 2010 XJ sedan?
Original Concept: Jaguar C-XF
Can they pull off a feat which would not only capture our imaginations but open the way for other marques to copy Jag’s new creative height making our streets hotter?
Or will Coventry’s cat cough up just another hairball as lumpy and gooey eyed as the XF?
Unoriginal Result: Jaguar XF
For all the technical – ahem - charm that the British car maker has spread into its bread ‘n butter, pray-this-works midsize executive carrier, the C-XF’s luv was gone by the time the – aaahhheeemmm- pragmatic production sedan merged into traffic.
Pardon…it’s dusty in this blogosphere.
Jag selling practical and techy like Ze Germans? C’mon.
Wisely, Coventry is promising Teutonic-grade power – enough to shift plate tectonics with a supercharged 510 hp V8 option.
But aside from being able to start and drive (fast) anytime and every time, the next XJ had better reintroduce sex into the relationship or Coventry’s cat has had it’s ninth.
