Does the Volkswagen XL1 stand a chance?

Volkswagen has presented the VW XL1, a car doing almost 100 km with 1 litre of diesel fuel. So yet another prototype. Let's turn the page. But stop, Volkswagen also announced that they will be producing this car in two years and everyone can buy one. Surprise! If Volkswagen really is able to produce this prototype style sports two seater then I will be putting it on my wish list. Honestly, it looks good and stylish, it has the gullwing doors I love and I can drive it to save the world. Great, isn't it? Of course it's a question of pricing too. I would not want to pay more than let's say 40'000 Euros for a car with the performance of an 80ies saloon car despite all the styling bells and wistles. But clearly this is the most advanced thing Volkswagen has presented in a decade and I will follow its progress closely

Has been here before - 4 door Coupés

Pininfarina designed this Lancia Florida Four Door Coupé in the mid fifties. It really looked sharp! So, what we see from Mercedes (CLS), Volkswagen (Passat CC) Aston-Martin (Rapide) or Porsche (Panamera) isn't really that innovative and new, isn't it? By the way, Rover and other brands continued this tradition of building 4 door coupés through the 60ies and 70ies, into the 80ies.

Picture of the Week - Abarth

Carlo Abarth built some of the best sportscars in the 60ies and early 70ies. Many won big races despite a engine size deficit. And many great driver was a works driver with the Abarth team. Many of the cars were beautifully shaped, but efficiency was more of a concern for Carlo Abarth than beauty. When he sold his company to Fiat the end was soon to come, too bad. Today you can again buy Abarth cars, but they are mostly tuned Fiat derivates. However there's a rumour that a new lightweight sportcar might be arriving!

German electrical car with a range of more than 600 km

It's not first of April, so maybe it's true. Apparently German companies (lekker engery, DBM energy) built an electrical car that can go more than 600 km (they did 605 km to prove this) and can be recharged within an hour (or in 5 minutes under optimal conditions). The technology used for the battery is new and is based on lithium metal polymer structures. The whole battery weighs only 100 kg. The car used is an almost vintage Audi A2 and still offers seats for 4 people and space for the luggage. This almost sounds like a miracle! Sadly enough the battery technology is not yet production ready and of course many questions can be raised. But if eventually something like this can be manufactured in large numbers then this provides interesting parameters for the design of future cars! Think about small electrical motors, relatively small and light batteries. Let's see!

Picture of the Week - Porsche 904 Signature

What you can see here are two things:
a) the "signature" on a Porsche 904 GTS with true patina
b) classic car design at its best
They don't do signatures and brand model like this anymore. And it looked so good. The car (or better part of it) pictured is probably one of the few unrestored Porsche 904 in existence. And it's good that something like this still lives!

Do all cars look alike? How car makers are giving up on individual characteristics and design attributes

What you see here are station wagons of two design brands that give quite a bit for their distinctive characteristics and design attributes. But you really have to look for the details to see the differences! The "man from the street" probably couldn't tell which car is coming from what brand, if you removed the batches. Don't understand me wrongly, both cars are pretty and certainly well shaped and designed, but they lack differentiation. And it's not just these two cars, it's the whole lot we can buy today. Aerodynamics, safety and apparently today's tate influence what the designers can do. Too sad!
By the way, if you haven't been able to identify the two cars: BMW 5 Series Touring 2010 and Citroen C5 Tourer 2010.

Volvo P1800 - a car, that almost looked like a Ferrari

Here's an ad from 1961 showing the Volvo P1800. It was a gorgeous sportscar that combined Swedish solidity with Italian design. The front almost looked like a Ferrari, the side and back was probably influenced by the Americans. It drove well, even if it was not that fast. Many people admired it, including Simon Templar in the so called TV series. When I was young I lost a tennis match against a P1800 driver, but the ride home was worth it.

New Volkswagen Passat looks a bit very much like expected

Could you trust a computer to design a new car? Well, hopefully not. But in this case it may have worked. This is the new Volkswagen Passat. It's quite pretty and much smoother than it's predecessor. It basically made the same transition than the Golf going from V to VI. So, if you had a good morphing software and you could instruct to do a similar evolution with the old Passat that was done with the Golf, you would pretty much get what you see here on the picture. That's not only bad news and it's certainly good for the business of the German car manufacturer. But it's a bit boring too.

Lancia Fulvia Zagato - neat coupé from the sixties

The Lancia Fulvia probably was one of the most successful Lancias over all. 320000 cars were built of which roughly 147000 were Coupés. The rarest of the breed is the Fulvia Sport with Zagato body, only 7120 cars were produced. It wasn't as successful in racing and rallyies as the Fulvia Coupé (HF and so on), but it certainly was a pretty car. Here's a picture from the sales leaflet, and it's really a wonderful foto, isn't it? Before the times of Photoshop the artist was able to capture the touch of history and tradition, combine it with a lifestyle ambiente and even include a bit of love and women's touch. Wonderful! They don't do pictures like this anymore, and they don't do cars like this anymore neither ...

Does time heal bad design?

When I recently was waiting for the bus (yes occasionally I do use public transport ...) the new Mercedes E Convertible in white drove by, just as pictured here. I thought, what an ugly car this is! Well, it's not really ugly, but it's not a beauty neither. I specifically dislike the back of the car. It just doesn't look right. Well, what I thought was, whether I will like this car maybe in 3, 5 or 20 years in the future. I must say, I can't remember a car design that I didn't like when it was new and appreciate now that it's old. I still don't like the Ford Scorpio and I still don't like most of the Peugeots of the 21th century. So, my answer to the question in the title is: No. But let's see what other people think ....

Do we still need something like "ueberhol-prestige"?

In German we have the word "Ueberhol-Prestige". Translated 1:1 this would mean "overtake prestige", it basically says that if you are driving a slow car on a highway and then a car approaches and you see it in the rear mirror, you move to the slower lane immediately to let the fast car, that comes with a lot of "ueberhol-prestige", pass you. In the 60ies this was quite important, because the standard car was able to get to 120 km per hour or so, while your Jaguar E-Type or Ferrari was able to go beyond 200 km/h. So it was much better if people that you wanted to overtake spotted early that you are driving a faster car. Today though everybody drives a fast car, even a family station wagon is able to get to a speed of 200 km/h or 250 km/h. If you really own a sportscar that is substantially faster you rarely can enjoy it, be it because of speeding limits or because of heavy traffic at all times. So, in that sense, "ueberhol-prestige" is something that was important in the past and that car designers tried to embed into the shape and face of the car.

Picture of the Week - Chevrolet Impala

There are cars I would never consider purchasing. Like this one, it's a Chevrolet Impala. It's huge, it's amazing. I do admire it and I can understand that many people fancy such cars. But it wouldn't fit my garage and neither my driving style. But that's the good thing about the oldtimer car scene, people with a variety of tastes and preferences own very different cars and if they bring them to a meeting you can see almost the whole tradition of car manufacturing. Great!

All cars are the same

The latest issue of Auto Motor und Sport makes the point again (unwillingly) - all cars are the same. Not overall of course. But whenever I read a comparison test of let's say three to five different cars, the differences are small, very small. It's almost arbitrary and down to the mounted tires or the accessories included. It was very different in the sixties and seventies. Some of the cars of that time were really flawed, you don't see that today. As more and more components (and platforms) are shared between car models and even brands, less and less differentiation on the technical level is possible. The pricing differences have more to do with marketing than with technology, value is relative. We never had so many different car models as today, I think. And we never had so many niches filled. But it's basically just always a variation of the same theme, with very little differentiation.

Are Audis a renaissance of the body in different sizes like Devins or Buchanans?

Yes, this is the brand new Audi A7. You wouldn't have noticed? It looks like all the other Audis, specifically the A5 Sportsback or the A4? No, it's really a different car, even if you don't notice. For example, it's longer than the other mentioned. But having been mistaken myself, I honestly must say, they really look alike a lot.
It's almost as if the successful practice of Bill Devin producing many different (fiberglass) bodies with the same shape fitting different chassis and sizes is coming back. You want an Audi? Do you want 4.2, 4.5, 4.7 or 4.9 meter length? Well, then take this one or that one, they all look the same basically. It's like buying jeans, you have picked the brand, now it's about size. I think this is the wrong strategy with cars, especially with such expensive cars. And it's a bit boring and lacks imagination and innovation as well. BMW does a bit the same, but at least the different cars have more unique design features, same with Mercedes. I prefer cars that look unique and special, that's probably the reason why I like older cars so much ....

Picture of the Week - TVR Griffith 500

The shape of the TVR Griffith 500 is a master piece. Few people however know that many of the design elements are caused by simple needs. As for example TVR knew that it would be difficult to create perfectly fitting doors, the designed the car in a way that you can't see whether the door really fits in size. Same thing for the bonnet. The result however is marvelous. It was strikingly modern when presented at the end of the 80ies and it still looks modern today.

Why the Jaguar XJS became important for the Classic Car world

When Jaguar introduced the Jaguar XJS 1975 to replace the E-Type, people cried as the car was so different than an E-Type and to be diplomatic it wasn't really a beauty. Jaguar though built the car for 21 years and actually made it prettier and prettier, especially when presenting the convertible versions. But, what made the car most important after all, is that it donated its chassis and engine to the Aston-Martin DB7, one of the best looking cars of the 90ies. When I see an XJS today, and they have become increasingly rare here in continental Europe, I actually start to like the car, even the coupé. It aged much better than many other cars and it has a certain elegance that makes it attractive and pretty slick. That doesn't mean that I will buy one, but that's good for the ones wanting to own one.

Using a Windschott with your Classic Car?

In 1989 Mercedes-Benz presented a real innovation with its new R129 convertible, the Windschott (German word for wind deflector). It's the thing behind the driver's and co-driver's seat that makes the air go over the heads of driver and co-driver. The accessory became very popular. Many R107 (that's the predecessor of the R129) was equipped with a Windschott and many other (modern) cars followed the trend.
One question though is whether it suits your classic car to be equipped with a modern windschott. I think it spoils the design lines of a car, if the car hasn't been made for being used with a Windschott. And it's clearly not a part that was available when the car was new, so it is as inappropriate as a subwoofer or wide wheels for your oldtimer car. Now, at least you can take off the Windschott, as you can remove the TomTom or the plugged in iPod, so that's not so bad. But for me it spoils the sensation of driving an old car and that's why I don't use a Windschott on my classic Mercedes. But who knows, maybe I will have to when I am getting older ...

Where has the bonnet gone?

When you drive an older car and watch through the wind screen you will most like see something you can't spot anymore when you drive a modern car - the bonnet. Modern aerodynamics and current design trends make them disappear from the driver's eye. Too bad, as seeing the bonnet makes a car easier to drive and park. The picture shows the bonnet of a Mercedes 300 SL (R107) but you can look at many older cars and you will spot the same. Today you need a park distance control system to "hear" the car, when you park it to compensate for you eye being able to actually see the dimensions of the car.

An argument for hard top convertible cars?

I have been arguing a lot against the current trend to build convertibles with hard tops for quite a number of reasons:
1) Heavy
2) Complex (just think about all the hydraulics)
3) Bad weight distribution (where does the top sit when it's folded down?)
4) Design/look - fat end cars
However when I looked at this picture I had to admit that there are some proper advantages too having a hard fold-able top on your car. And I must also say that the new BMW Z4 actually looks quite sharp. But at the end of the day, a convertible should be driven with the top down and in most of the cases the fabric top should only be your last resort, so why carrying around all that metal and complexity?

Toyota Prius Alpha - why it makes sense to build this compact van

Toyota has announced the Toyota Prius Alpha, kind of a compact van version of the Prius, similar to the Verso. This is a good idea. Anyway the Prius wasn't a pretty car, so changing the back can't do much harm. Also, the Prius always suffered from a lack of luggage space. With the bigger back, that should be at least partially solved. And finally, from an aerodynamics standpoint the high "Kammheck" shouldn't worsen the drag coefficient substantially. And families have been happy buyers of the Prius, with more space they will be even more happy. Hopefully the brakes work this time ;-)