The Red Bull Effect
What fizzy drinks can teach us about car design...
One of my little hobbies when I'm driving in to work is slot in behind some interesting car and ponder its design. The Mitsubishi Evo 6 yesterday is just as utilitarian as it was under Makkinen's Finnish buttocks, the Smart Roadster mentioned in a previous blog is a ball of lovely curves and missed opportunity, but today I was following a Boxster, and I just couldn't put my finger on what's wrong with it.
And then it hit me. It's bland.
The bonnet and headlamp treatment is nice and the rear end a touch non-descript, but there's nothing which inspires lust, sweaty palms, and a desire to actually buy one. Then there's the weird symmetry to the car's profile meaning with the roof up you might confuse the front for the back.
Dietrich Mateschitz - he of Red Bull fame - had a problem when he discovered the energy drink keeping Thai taxi drivers up all night, and that was what should it taste of? He did focus groups, trials, tests, and found it hard to find a flavour which everyone liked. Instead he focussed on the flavour which polarised opinion most. If you like it, you'll love it, if not you'll hate it. As a result Red Bull tastes of fizzy power steering fluid, but you won't forget it in a hurry.
Log onto any Ferrari forum, and you'll see similar debates on the 430 vs the F355. Chris Bangle did the same with BMW in a style that a lot of folk now seem to be catching up with. Even the 911 splits opinion between the devoted and the Fast Beetle brigade.
On that subject, I think Porsche really have a problem with their road cars, in that they are obsessed with 'Porscheness' and 'Porsche DNA' through their models. Both the Cayenne and Panamera are clumsily Porsche. You feel that if Porsche made a cooker hob, all the dials would be clustered together in the centre in overlapping circles like a dashboard, and a 996 headlamp would be glued onto the front corners.
What I don't understand is that they have people who designed the 917, the Speedster, the RS Spyder, and yet they can't seem to get their head around a change of design philosophy. They can't bear to make something completely new. They need some fresh inspiration.
Maybe Jim Glickhaus (of Ferrari P4/5 fame) should comission the factory to turn a Carrera GT into a modern 917...
Anyway, this is no redemption for the willfully ugly. I'm sure a few folk love the Cayenne, the Suzuki X.90 or the last Ford Scorpio, but it's hardly enough to keep those models alive (Cayenne excepted of course, the wonders of WAGs after badges and leather to match their fake tans...)
A beautiful, interesting, charming car will always be an aim, from the Fiat 500/2CV/Ford KA to the Ferrari 250LM GTO, and some cars will hide their styling light under a bushel in order to appeal to the mass market (BMW 3-series, I'm looking at you), but never, ever should a car be designed to be bland.
Car designers of the world, please give me something interesting to look at on the way to work!