phb2013_complete_en.pdf [18.3 MB] - Wöhner

MADE IN GERMANY
FORMS
IN
MOTION
It is said that Germans really love their cars.
Power, safety, fuel consumption, quality
and a whole series of important innovations,
such as ESP, driver assistance and
start-stop systems and brake energy recuperation,
are all important characteristics
of German cars. But it is their design
that makes them genuinely unmistakable.
That’s a BMW. That’s a Porsche. That’s a
Mercedes-Benz. That’s a VW. And that’s an
Audi. Even children can distinguish between
one make of car and another without looking
at the engine or the chassis, never mind
the onboard computer. How do they do it?
It might be down to the badge on the bonnet
or the radiator grille, but, above all, it is
the shape of cars which makes them unmistakable,
immediately recognisable and,
most importantly, attractive.
This is confi rmed by Walter da Silva, an Italian,
who is head designer at VW. “The design
plays a massive part in a car’s success,”
he explained to the German newspaper
“Süddeutsche Zeitung” in an interview. “It is
the fi rst thing that the customer sees. He
must like the car, otherwise he won’t even
get in. Then he sits in the car, feels the materials
and gains an initial impression. If everything
is right, then he moves on to consider
the engine, the sound and the
handling.”
New cars are not designed for tomorrow,
but for years in advance. The lead time for
planning purposes is up to fi ve years. This
means that a car which is conceived and
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DATES
12 – 22 September 2013
65th Frankfurt Motor Show
Car design: Moving forms
23
designed on paper in 2013 must correspond
with the visual trends in 2018. And,
of course, designers cannot just produce
whatever design takes their fancy. They
have to take technical and, just as importantly,
fi nancial constraints into consideration.
Ultimately, cars are not just works
of art, but industrial designs. They are
everyday products which are generally
manufactured in large volumes. This often
means that the form has to give way to
the function.
There is also another important dimension
which should not be forgotten in all of this:
a model’s sales success. And that is always
linked to the customers’ expectations of
the brand. It is essential to live up to those
expectations, otherwise the car will come
in for fi erce criticism from people like top
architect Christoph Ingenhoven. He is a
Porsche 911 enthusiast who condemned
the latest model as a “girl’s car” and told
the German newspaper the “Frankfurter
Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung”: “Customers
buy a 911 because it’s a 911 and it must not
be watered down under any circumstances.”
It is clear that car design is a very complex
matter and that is without even starting
to consider the appearance of the interior.
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