Concept cars were once a no holds barred look at what future automobiles could be. While today’s concept vehicles are certainly stunning, they can easily be described as ‘realistic’, as they lack the fantastical details that were once prevalent in the concepts of yesteryear.
Whether you agree or not, that’s the opinion of the folks at Ward’s Automotive, who observe a dramatic transformation in the way concepts are being developed. According to Connecticut Acura Dealers, years ago, concepts showed what was possible if cost, physics and safety, weren’t constraints. Today however, many concepts are design exercises in practicality.
“I think the days of wild, indulgent concepts for the sake of show are kind of, at least now, especially with business and economic climates, being scrutinized a lot more,” John Mendel, executive vice president-American Honda Motor Co. Inc., tells Ward’s.
Unfortunately, after interviewing a slew of automotive designers, Ward’s Byron Pope found that the biggest factor inhibiting concept cars is, not surprisingly, cost. Due to recent financial uncertainty, resources for multi-million dollar concepts are becoming scarce. And, since concepts have a somewhat limited ability to change public perception, the cost is often considered too great.
“Companies are very aware (of) what they want to do with the public’s attention when they have it,” says Larry Erickson, chairman of the Detroit-based College for Creative Studies’ Transportation Design Dept. “When they show too many show cars that don’t turn out (to be) a product, you use up your equity.”
Despite the financial peril that the automotive industry has faced in recent years, Pope found that the industry goes through cycles and undergoes periods when extravagant design is embraced. Looking back, automotive concepts following the great depression became much more realistic and practical, but then in the ’50s and ’60s more outrageous designs were back on the auto show circuit. The resurgence lasted until the late 1970s, until the economy, again, grounded design.
“At Ford, we’ve cut back (on concepts) dramatically over the last five years,” says J Mays, Ford’s group vice president-design and chief creative officer. “I always tell the design team concepts are great for you guys, but they’re in the public mind for about 10 minutes.”
According to Acura Dealer Washington DC, if you’re one that craves the boldest and riskiest of concept vehicles, chances are you won’t have to wait too long before you’ll see those vehicles again, at least if history is any indication.
“The latest concept cars are designed to solve real problems,” says Kevin Hunter, president of Toyota’s Calty Design Research Inc.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Concept cars, I honestly don’t see a use for. Majority never gets used.
Today’s computer fast world has little room for concepts and deals directly with real problems in design with speeds unheard of for the yesteryear car designers. Fuel is also going to be a design problem. We use ethanol now and will soon have to subsidize gasoline with battery power as the oil crisis worsens! The Volt, our new socialized GM(America) entry into the market is surrounded by major manufacturers conjuring up a plethora of Hybrids, some plug in, some not yet! Real cars very easily mocked up by computer and backed with full design equations and digital descriptions are possible in most college computer labs. The old days of Concept cars is dead and gone and a new age of Vapor-ware cars is born and we haven’t yet looked at the replacement of cars by nuclear/electric sourced electric bullet trains but China has them up and running and doing and end run around the whole “car” concept for societies of the future! America has fallen sorrowfully behind the Asian world in these technologies, and may have to purchase them from Asians to play catch-up, and hold her place in the twenty-first century. We still flog Jeeps, of 1930′s design, in an age of Asian Bullet trains screaming from city to city at 320 kph – a reality for the Chinese – a glimpse of the future for Americans who still burn gasoline like it was free and as unending as Solar, Wind, Wave, Hydro, Tidal, Geothermal or even Nuclear power – all electric – just like the Chinese bullet trains! Put “Concept Cars” in historical perspective, and in light of Asian progress it puts American Automotive Engineering in the history books!
Frankly I don’t mind having more realistic concept cars. This allows viewers to see themselves inside the vehicle. A level of familiarity needs to be established to create a better connection in the mind. Having a car without a steering wheel is a great concept, but it would be difficult to keep this thought in our head because we have never experienced a car without a steering wheel. Just a thought…
A densely populated Chinese Walmart slave population will have to get around somehow and trains make the most sense there. Owning a car and going where I want and when I want is a luxury. Agreed we have to figure out how to power our cars on something other than liquefied dinosaur bones. Our solution is market driven. As soon as an alternative is cheaper, oil will fall. We don’t need to place a higher tax on fuel to shape the market, fossil fuels already get 7 times the subsidies of clean energy. Yank them away and it won’t be long.
Uncle B.
I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. And are basically here to plant Chinese propaganda.
America has bullet trains, in nearly every state in the nation. Fuel is not a design problem, it’s an engineering problem, GM has paid back nearly every dollar they were given to pay back.
And alternative energy is so vastly inferior, for the moment, to fuel a country’s vehicles and homes. Nuclear power is great, for homes and plug in electric cars like the GM Volt.
So what is your point?
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