At the beginning of the week, Hyundai defeated 2012 Ford Focus and Volkswagen’s newly updated Passat by calling out a strike to win the Car of the year Award in North America. John Krafcik, CEO of Hyundai Motor America, backed by the 50-juror judging panel, proposed the idea that not just the 40 mpg highway fuel economy rating but in fact the cars design was the basic reason for the victory.
As per researchers such as J.D Power and associates, due to the high competition found in the automotive industry, for most buyers, the exterior image of the car plays a much bigger role than the car’s need for fuel.
Even today, when recession is at its peak, carmakers such as Ford, Hyundai and Audi are not out of work only because of the designs which they provide their buyers. As per Freeman Thomas, when it comes to cars, “It’s the difference between a short-order cook and a great chef.” Today he believes that car designs majorly influence a buyer’s choice because of the issues that Founder Henry Ford had to face until he finally gave up in the 1920s and agreed to provide customers with different models of the “Model T”.
The new chairman of the inclining General Motors, Alfred P. Sloan presented a collection of colors to the company. He hired a coachbuilder, Harley Earl, to become the first manager of design, of the industry, for the company. This step accentuated the department of "Art and Color" of General Motors. The concept of utilizing sculpted clay models was introduced by Earl, along with the suggestion of using refined automotive designs. Earl contributed very prolific ideas to the company; in 1939 he renamed the first concept car, Buick Y-Job, as "Styling Division" in order to emphasize its aesthetics. Buick Y-Job was designed to provide a bunch of variant sophisticated ideas to the public, such as a mechanical convertible roof. Another important intention behind the renaming of Buick Y-Job was to examine the response of its potential customers with regards to its advanced style.
The approach is practiced even today. The Detroit Auto Show of 2012 is displaying a range of concept cars such as the model of the redesigned Acura NSX. The production of Acura NSX is prospected to begin by the year 1214 while a redesigned and fabricated Honda Accord Coupe will reach the showrooms within this year.
The major part of the accord was focussed on midsize passenger car segments from which sales worth 2 million units were made. The director of AutoTrends Consulting, Joe Phillippi said that customers are not satisfied with plain vanilla design but want something different now. The winner of this segment, Toyota was far behind this time as it was severely criticised by its customers who saw the new model before the official launch which was after 18 months. It was said that Toyota copied the design of Camrys 2012 model. The makers are trying hard to redo the design a bit but it is still far behind its competition like Ford.
A new design of the Fusion sedan which is to compete with Camry was launched by a US car maker. It has been given the Eyes on Design Production Car design award by almost 24 automobile designers at the Detroit auto show. This has caused it to gain many financers. Chief researcher of IHS Automative, Rebecca Lindland believes that due to design Camry 2012 will not be able to compete. The producers are also increasing their production rates now as previous year there was a shortage of cars due to tsunami and quakes. She believes that Fusion because of its design could be the top seller.
It is not easy to construct a best seller design for a car as the basic architecture is the same. It is hard to decide where to locate things like pillar or windshield when constructing a new product is keeping a check on its aerodynamics. All details have a great effect on the co efficient of drag which basically means on the fuel economy. It is also important that all new cars have wind tunnel test performed on them.
An experienced designer of GM, Jhon Cafaro, stated that now a day’s talented designer started to work on some new projects with latest designs that are aerodynamic too. The use of digital tools of designing is presented as good news for designers so that a designer himself, his fellow companion and his competitor can easily find many surprising ways to set up their designs free. With the increasing regularity, the manufacturers are continuously kept on taking over other’s studios for the sake of talent. This war for the leadership of designing is mostly prominent on flood of auto show instead nastiest skirmishes is ready to take over the place.
Many years ago, Kia launched its styling project of bending steel metal in amazingly simple technique. Kia hired Peter Schreyer from Audi, recently Automobile Magazine declared him Man of the Year. Kia is now well reputed in this technology.
Chris Chapman of BMW is hired by Hyundai and now he would give breakthrough to the Korean carmaker. It introduced Elantra and Sonata sedan as well.
This design industry is too agile in awareness of designers; today’s leader can also be tomorrow’s laggard. Goodness of your designs is measured by the latest design you produced, no other criteria.
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