Supergroups are always cause for excitement. When legends join forces, the possibilities seem endless. And so it is with Brembo and Michelin, leaders in their field, teaming up to make cars stop better, and possibly a bit more.

The collaboration revolves around Brembo’s new Sensify braking system, which in itself is particularly interesting. We’ve had brake-by-wire systems before, where the brake pedal essentially sends a signal to an electronic booster that distributes the hydraulic fluid to the calipers as in an otherwise-conventional (purely hydraulic) system, but Sensify is a bit different.

The system uses the brake pedal to send a signal to a control unit, but from there, the braking force at each corner of the car is fully variable. There are two methods of achieving this. First is with hydraulics, where each individual brake has its own master cylinder, actuated by an electric motor receiving signals from the brake control unit; second is with electric motors in the calipers, which actuate the pads without fluid whatsoever. In theory, you can combine both types, for instance, having hydraulic braking for the front wheels and "dry" braking for the rears.

Michelin is helping take it to the next level. Data from its software integrates with the information Sensify collects to create highly accurate real-time estimates of tire grip.

"What we do is in real time, we can identify based on data provided by Sensify… four critical parameters of the tires,” says Serge Lafon, head of Michelin’s OE tire business. "The tire load, wear level, pressure, and temperature. With those four parameters, we can identify and calculate the adherence coefficient of the tire, which is critical for any braking system."

In essence, Sensify can optimize the brake pressure at each corner of the car, getting much closer to the limit of grip just before lock-up.

'What’s essential to the system is how this precise knowledge of physics is provided to the Sensify brain almost instantaneously.'

"What’s essential to the system is how this precise knowledge of physics is provided to the Sensify brain almost instantaneously," says Ignacio Alvarez Troncoso, head of R&D at Brembo. "It makes a huge difference with how Sensify makes decisions."

The two companies started with simulation work. Real-world testing began at Michelin’s proving ground last fall. So far, the only figure the pair has provided is a reduction of ABS braking distances of up to 13 feet compared to a car with a "standard" ABS system. The tests were carried out in cars with both summer and winter tires, new and worn tires, correctly and underinflated tires, and in dry and wet conditions. The tests included full stops from speeds of 31 mph to 86 mph.

"At all times, you apply the maximum pressure without locking the tire," says Lafon. The system can compensate for any factor—environmental, wear, etc.—because it’s always calculating the exact grip coefficient for each tire.

Sensify distributes braking force by assessing everything that affects tire and braking performance, then makes adjustments on the fly. Troncoso didn’t get into specifics, but he did say the speed and accuracy of the data that it has, thanks to Michelin, has changed the way Brembo is developing the system.

What’s even more intriguing is what this sort of real-time tire data means for the rest of a car’s systems. The term “software-defined vehicle” is new and buzzy, and while arguably vehicles have been at least somewhat software-defined since the first computer-controlled engine management systems of the 1970s and 1980s, the term is useful to understand a more recent trend in cars.

So much of a car’s hardware is controlled by software, and increasingly, we see vehicle systems that talk to each other in a more sophisticated way. Not just multiple ECUs working away in parallel. Sensify fits in with this world.

"When we conceived Sensify, we were obviously thinking of the megatrend of the software-defined vehicle and making sure that our electronic architecture was compatible with the different evolutions we’re seeing," Troncoso says.

From a vehicle dynamics perspective, the goal is to maximize tire grip in all scenarios. Sensify, with the aid of Michelin, does so in braking events, but the data it generates on tire-grip levels has huge implications for other vehicle systems.

All these systems rely on virtual models, and tires are one of the hardest things to recreate in the digital world. Michelin, as you might expect, is one of the best at this, and adding real-time information from a clever braking system only enhances this.

Think about how that data will affect adaptive or active suspension, electronically controlled differentials, active aerodynamics, and powertrain systems. This collaboration between Brembo and Michelin will affect more than just how a car stops. It’ll also influence the direction of Michelin and Brembo’s (and likely everyone else’s) hardware, too.

But this partnership and the systems it has produced are still in their early days.

"We are at the beginning of this collaboration," Troncoso says. Sensify is set to hit the market in a production car in 2026, but neither Brembo nor Michelin is saying if the results of this collaboration will influence the earliest iterations of Sensify. However, both are clear that the aim is to put this on the road.

For a certain type of car nerd, the promise that this collaboration holds is huge. Let’s hope that, unlike so many other supergroups, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Read More From The Rabbit Hole

Get ready for a tidal shift in the BMW world. Neue Klasse is coming, and it’s not just for electric vehicles. The minimalist design language seen on concepts will make its production debut later this year on the iX3, but a new 3 Series sedan shouldn’t be far behind.

It’s about time, too. The current 3 Series debuted in 2018 (as a 2019 model) and received a modest update in 2022 that, among other things, added all kinds of contrasting angles to the front fascia and a new iDrive 8 infotainment system. Even post-update, though, 3 Series sales were down 7.8 percent in 2024. Either buyers are waiting for the next-gen model, or they’re not terribly enthused with those updates.

Will Neue Klasse change that? Styling aside, BMW’s next-generation sedan will be packed with new technology. That includes everything from powertrains to interior features, though details at this point aren’t known. We do know a few things about the new model, however, so here’s a preview of what you can expect from the next BMW 3 Series.

What Will It Be Called?

2022 BMW 3 Series

Neue Klasse just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? While that term is tossed around regularly, this next-gen car should simply be the BMW 3 Series in gas form, and i3 as an EV. The name has considerable brand equity for BMW, so there’s no reason to believe that will change now. Neue Klasse will almost certainly be mentioned extensively during its debut, but don’t expect it to become an official part of the sedan’s name.

That said, some naming shenanigans are afoot. All of BMW’s electric models start with an i designation, so the automaker will ditch the i as a suffix from trim levels to prevent confusion. In other words, the days of the 330i or M340i are over; the M340i becomes the M350.

What Will It Look Like?

2027 BMW 3 Series Neue Klasse Rendering

BMW famously previewed its future back in 2023 with the debut of the i Vision Dee concept, and later that year, a less abstract version called the Vision Neue Klasse concept. Both were stark contrasts to BMW’s current, complex design language, eschewing all those scoops, vents, and contrasting lines for a clean, geometric body.

The production 3 Series won’t go to such extremes, but it will bear more than a passing resemblance to the Neue Klasse concept. Based on spy photos of 3 Series prototypes, our exclusive rendering shows a Neue Klasse-inspired face with the kidney grille spanning the width of the car. It will use a narrow grille versus the deeper, narrower shape of the current model, incorporating small, sharp headlights at the corners. Dipping further, the lower fascia should feature prominent vertical vents that are largely rectangular in shape. The myriad angles and body lines of the current car are replaced with vertical and horizontal symmetry.

BMW Vision Neue Klasse Concept

BMW Vision Neue Klasse Concept

2027 BMW 3 Series Neue Klasse Rendering

It’s not entirely a straight-laced Neue Klasse show, however. Moving front-to-back, we have a very gentle curve to the beltline. A subtle Hofmeister kink persists at the C-pillar, meeting up with a sloping roof as opposed to the hard-edged lines from the Neue Klasse concept. At the very back, the new 3 may not look too different from the current model, save for thinner rectangular taillights and straighter lines on the rear fascia.

Our rendering depicts the combustion-powered 3 Series, riding on a tweaked version of the sedan’s current platform. The all-electric counterpart will have its own Neue Klasse platform dedicated to electric power, and it will likely borrow more of the concept’s edgier lines. The i3’s hood will be shorter, and at the C-pillar, we could see a straighter roof without as much slope.

What's Under The Hood?

2025 BMW M3 CS Touring Engine

The future—or at least the near future—is no longer an all-electric affair. The next-generation 3 Series will likely carry over its current four-cylinder and inline-six offerings. As a refresher, the base 330i uses BMW’s turbocharged 2.0-liter mill generating 255 horsepower. The boosted 3.0-liter inline-six makes 386 hp, and of course, there’s considerably more from the twin-turbo six in the M3—which has been officially confirmed to return.

Whether the plug-in hybrid version returns to the US market is unclear; BMW dropped the 330e in 2024, but given the general popularity of hybrids right now, expect some kind of plug-in hybrid option to endure, even if it’s not offered in the States.

As for the all-electric i3, details like horsepower and range are still a mystery. Dual-motor powertrains are virtually guaranteed, though a thrifty single-motor version turning just the rear wheels could be in the cards. On the opposite side is the electric M3, which is expected to have four motors and nearly 700 hp. However, the Neue Klasse architecture can support power levels nearly twice that amount. If BMW wanted to turn the M3 into a 1,000-hp competitor to the Tesla Model S Plaid or Lucid Air Sapphire, the hardware is there for it.

How About The Interior?

BMW iDrive 8

Here’s where things could get interesting. The Neue Klasse concept showcased an interior about as minimal as its exterior styling. It will have a massive 17.9-inch touchscreen (similar to what's currently in the iX) that extends from the driver’s seat well into the center of the dash. But the greenhouse won’t be as minimal as you expect. BMW confirmed to Motor1 last year that “we will have knobs where it is necessary. It’s not a knob- or control-element-free car, that’s not our vision."

How Much Will It Cost?

Tariffs notwithstanding, the current BMW 3 Series starts at approximately $47,000 and reaches all the way to $87,000 for an M3 Competition xDrive. It’s safe to assume the next-generation combustion 3 Series will see a modest increase, likely starting near $50,000. The electric 3 will likely be a bit more expensive, starting just north of $50,000.

When Will It Arrive?

The first Neue Klasse vehicle, the iX3 SUV, will be unveiled in September 2025 at IAA Mobility in Munich. The new 3 Series and electric i3 will both debut sometime in 2026 and go on sale for the 2027 model year. Production is expected to start in late 2026.

More From BMW

As an enthusiast, I'm always on the hunt. It's a sickness. Not one I'm terribly desperate to fix, mind you, but a sickness that's led to a garage full of half-broken race cars, a Trans-Am-style Camaro project, and a Honda XR500 that'd rather like to kill me.

At any rate, I've got a kid now. As such, I can't go getting my head lopped off by the bottom of a semi trailer when my NA Miata doesn't show up in some strung-out trucker's blind spot.

A late, low-mile ST. They're still out there

So I'm hunting for something to replace the little roadster. Something with a compact footprint, a roof, decent reliability, two rows, and at least a modicum of enthusiast cred to mix into a dusting of practicality. Like the green light at the end of Daisy's dock, a Reddit post beckoned my desirous heart. It read: "Used Fiesta STs are dirt cheap right now..."

This, of course, sent me spiraling. Down the rabbit hole last night I fell. For roughly two-and-a-half hours after I tried to get to bed, and about an hour-and-a-half after I promised to turn the lights out, I clicked on probably 50 different listings and a hundred forum posts. Mountune! Aftermarket diffs! Rally light pods!

Again, a sickness. 

With enough cash, your ST can look like Ken Block's

But this one is a rare Reddit post worth amplifying: Fiesta ST's are dirt cheap right now. Twelve grand gets you into an ST with relatively low miles (around 80,000 or fewer), while high-mile examples can be had for around $6,000 or less if you're diligent in your hunt. That used to be the sort of territory reserved for NA Miatas. Instead, you'll find that clean Miatas are five-digit affairs now, and that the old Mazdas are appreciably more ragged than a Fiesta ST of the same price. 

At the low end, six grand gets you into a FiST

But why snag a Fiesta ST in the first place?

Because they're epic little cars. Pocket-sized rally-bred missiles. In-period, Road & Track called it "All the Performance Car You Need," and we here at Motor1 gave the newer (Euro-exclusive) Fiesta ST rave ratings. The Fiesta ST offers that goldilocks combo of a punchy engine, edgelord handling, the right shape, and now, an even cheaper price.

Low-mile cars are still out there, too. 

LOW-mile cars are about $12,000

Please forgive me a moment of soap-box self-indulgence: The Fiesta ST is the rare cut-rate enthusiast car that never patronized its owner. Ford spent the money on the ST's development by leaving the cheap, plasticky interior mostly untouched and lavished attention upon the stuff that matters, like the engine and chassis. Perfection.

You get a stout 1.6-liter turbo four (about 200 horses and 200 lb-ft.) that responds well to mods and has proved generally reliable, paired to that workaday interior and brilliant chassis.

Thu turbo lump that could

My enduring memory of the FiST—to use the parlance of our times—is that they handle delightfully and feel happiest when three-wheeling through every corner with the front outside tire howling in protest. Just note that on grippy rubber at autocross courses, they stand the chance of rolling. Remember, this compact car rides on a short, narrow wheelbase, betraying (or perhaps highlighting) its roots as a cheap sub-compact. 

Forum bros insist that once you lower your FiST and select a wider wheel and some rubber with less sidewall, the risk of rollover diminishes. But honestly, I find that little bit of jeopardy charming. I can't just give up decapitation risk for a minivan. What would that teach my son about his father?

Anyways, happy FiST hunting. 

More on the Fiesta ST

Bursting onto the scene in 2024, the UK’s DRVN Automotive Group promises many wonderful things. DRVN’s restomodded take on the Ferrari 355, the Evoluto, aims to bring the iconic 90s supercar bang up to date, while the group’s Boreham Motorworks division is partnering with Ford to bring back and reinvigorate a series of the Blue Oval’s greatest hits.

Based in Coventry, one of the UK car industry’s many hubs (and historic home of… most of the UK’s cars), DRVN’s offices look, from the outside, like any other block on an industrial estate. When you peek inside, though, things get very, very serious.

Boreham Motorworks

DRVN Automotive isn’t one company but a collection of businesses that can create a car from start to finish without really having to bother anyone on the outside. Its goal isn’t to create an EV for the masses, but rather to bring an analog experience back to the fore.

DRVN endeavors to become the world’s automotive brand delivering a peak analog experience…

"What we mean when we say that—we don’t put a 0-60 time or a VMAX on the product definition scope for the vehicles," says DRVN Automotive Group CEO Iain Muir. "That’s now what the cars are about, but hopefully every car we deliver will put a big smile on your face as you’re driving."

A look at the very top end of the market shows that while hybrid hypercars are popular, a group of buyers want an idealized version of the cars they lusted after when they were kids. TWR’s Supercat, the Totem Alfa GT Super, literally anything Singer produces… and now DRVN’s fleet is there to serve them.

Much has been written about the Evoluto F355 already. Potential takers need to sling a donor car and a wad of cash to DRVN, and after fettling has been done, they’ll get an as-new, tweaked car back in return. The new car takes the Ferrari that many love, and replaces its body with freshly designed carbon fiber panels better suited for aerodynamics, stability, and engine cooling.

The F355’s famous V-8 has been given a going over and a bump to 414 horsepower. There are suspension tweaks, and the interior is no longer a feast of '90s plastics. It’s a grown-up affair. In creating the car, the team found there were either parts that were too expensive to buy, weren’t quite as good as they would like, or that simply didn’t exist anymore. Rather than giving up, they found a way to design, engineer, and produce their own version of these parts to put on the car, and potentially stock 355s, should customers want them.

Ferrari 355 by Evoluto Automobili

As an opening salvo, restomodding one of the most loved Ferraris of all time was a big one, but DRVN wasn’t done. Its Boreham Motorworks arm teamed up with Ford to produce ‘continumods.’

Their Escort Mk 1 RS has already been revealed, and it’s… not a cheap car. At all. But Boreham promises that every one of your $375,000 is going to a good place, and that seems to have gone down well.

"I remember when the embargo [on the Escort] lifted. I think it was 1:00 PM on the 12th [of December 2024], and we were really humbled by the response we got from the general public," says Muir.

Ford Escort RS by Boreham Motorworks

'I remember when the embargo [on the Escort] lifted. I think it was 1:00 PM on the 12th [of December 2024], and we were really humbled by the response we got from the general public.'

But people on the internet are one thing. What about customers?

"For the 150 cars that we had available we had more applications in the first 45 minutes than we have build slots available. Looking at them coming through, it's literally from all over the globe. We had applications in from Trinidad and Tobago through to Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and America."

Nostalgia is good for business.

The Boreham cars are, for all intents and purposes, actual Fords. Built with the blessing of the company, they’ll only ever appear in limited numbers. DRVN has a plan for them, too. There’ll be different ‘series’ to choose from, a bit like McLarens. The Collector Series cars will be road-legal, period-sympathetic cars, built new with updated styling, modern engineering under the skin, Ford chassis numbers, and, of course, a manual gearbox. They’ll be a sort of final boss of Sunday cars.

A step further up the Boreham rung is the track only Race Series. Without having to think about emissions regulations or any real-world consequences, they’ll be let off the leash and designed to make you feel like a hero on a circuit.

Finally, there’s the Ultimate Series. Blueprint accurate, built new but to look like the original cars they’re based on, some will be made for the road, some for the track, they’ll come with an FIA passport for historic racing, and will get Ford-certified chassis numbers. They’ll be ‘peak Boreham,’ and will likely come with a price tag to match.

As they’ll be built in limited numbers and sold to like-minded folks, there’ll be a social element to Boreham Motorworks. The firm is planning a Boreham High Performance Club, which’ll connect current owners, VIPs, and such at events all over the world. That’s the plan anyway.

That all sounds very smart, but what’s actually clever about DRVN is how it works. Pretty much everything it needs is on site or part of a network of connected businesses in the UK. It’s broadly self-sufficient. And its Coventry location puts DRVN’s relatively small team in close proximity to each other, so if someone needs something, they can just get up and ask. No scheduling meetings, sending hopeful emails, or relying on ‘smart’ modern technology to get things done.

DRVN has an in-house design team to make its projects a reality. Headed up by Aston Martin and Jaguar alum (and legit Rock God) Wayne Burgess, their job is to make your poster cars just that little bit more livable, but also feel just right:

'The wonderful thing about a Mk I Escort is it’s the purest, simplest, most honest piece of design you can imagine, so we’ve been quite sensitive—we’ve been reverential of it.'

Gentle updates may well be needed to bring the cars up to date, but Burgess and his team aren’t using that as an excuse to go overboard. The Escort, for example, sits on 15-inch wheels here, tiny compared to today’s standards, but two inches bigger than the car would have had in period. The Boreham cars will be full of gentle nods and subtle upgrades that will feel just right.

For now, the Escort Mk 1 RS is the only car any firm information can be given on. But a virtual mock up of Boreham Motorworks’ next car, the rally special RS200, exists and looks to be in fine shape. Considering the original RS200 was basically an engine strapped to a tiny chassis and some switchgear swiped from a parts bin, you can rest assured that the newer car won’t be quite as pared back.

Burgess and team aren’t just designing the future of Ford’s past, but also working with customers on their car’s spec.

"Some customers start to spec the car in their mind before even coming to us," says Burgess, "A lot of them will come with ideas of what they’re looking for, because of the race and rally heritage of the Mk I Escort a lot of people will have a favourite driver, or a favorite car."

With ideas come opportunities to make dreams come true, and for DRVN that’s the business:

"Any requests we get from a client… we’ll look at, and deliver them if we can," adds Burgess.

DRVN didn’t just appear from nowhere with a selection of cars in 2024, it’s been going for a few years with the intention to keep going far, far into the future. It appears to run much like an OEM, albeit on a small scale.

The processes and standards are akin to what you’d find in top-tier manufacturers, and while, yes, you know someone is counting the beans, you know that everyone there is doing so for the love of the product. What’s the plan then?

Muir explains: "When we reach peak production, which will be 2028, we'll be doing 400 vehicles a year. Tiny by comparison to mainstream OEMs, but significant numbers in comparison to the restomod sector."

There’s fun cooking in Coventry, and it looks like plenty of people want in on it.

More From DRVN Automotive

Moments like these don’t arrive every day, and if you ask Adrian van Hooydonk, it’s not every decade either. 

"I do think in all my years here at BMW, I've never seen a project with more momentum or more impact than this one," van Hooydonk told Motor1 in an exclusive Design Week interview.

Adrian van Hooydonk (Center) & The BMW Design Team

The imminent launch of BMW’s Neue Klasse EVs demands all this hyperbole. Slated for a 2025 arrival, the Neue Klasse cars have been teased by BMW’s own corporate messaging and online spy shots for more than a year. The camouflaged cars look tantalizing, with angular, funky silhouettes and evocative backlit kidney grilles. 

By their dramatically angled rooflines alone, these new cars promise a leap forward in tech and attitude, a ground-up restart for BMW’s EV portfolio, the promise of a new chapter altogether. It’s a landmark moment for the company and a long time coming for van Hooydonk.

"The new design that we are going to show will be 100 percent BMW, maybe 110 percent BMW," van Hooydonk said. "Because, taking a leaf out of Marcello Gandini’s book… the overall design language is going to be cleaner than what you know from us today, but it is 100 percent recognizable as A BMW."

BMW Neue Klasse Sedan Prototype

It has to be; Neue Klasse’s importance is evidenced by BMW’s marketing and messaging strategies at present; Never before has a new model line generated such a waterfall of digital Bavarian ink. You'll find Neue Klasse teasers everywhere from BMW's social media to this very site.

"So yeah, let's say this also adds some pressure," Van Hooydonk said. "We saw at the very early stages of this project that we were basically going to change everything about cars as we know them inside BMW. So from every bit of technology to every bit of design, it'll be very, very new."

It's a critical juncture for the brand, but Van Hooydonk is no stranger to the pressurizes of BMW design. The Dutchman started his journey with BMW back in 1992, following graduation from Delft Polytechnic University with a master's in industrial design. In the interim, you could say Van Hooydonk’s seen a roundel or two roll off the line. 

'The new design that we are going to show will be 100 percent BMW, maybe 110 percent BMW."

He currently sits as the BMW Group’s Design Director, earning the mantle after Chris Bangle’s departure from the position in 2009. In this role, Van Hooydonk oversees design work for BMW, Mini, and Rolls-Royce. No pressure.

Many key Bimmers were breathed to life on van Hooydonk’s drafting board, but Neue Klasse offered a design challenge unlike any other. By borrowing the “Neue Klasse” moniker from its own locker, evoking the brand’s infamous sedans like the 1500 and 2002, BMW both faces the future, and pits these "new" Neue Klasse cars against a hallowed, critical chapter in its own history. 

BMW 1500

The "old" Neue Klasse cars debuted in 1962 and ran for roughly a decade. Sales of these groundbreaking and—at the time—sophisticated sedans arguably saved BMW itself, allowing the firm to turn a profit and to pay back its shareholders for the first time in a decade. Neue Klasse's success laid groundwork for BMW as we understand it today. 

It was a technology and design-driven revolution for the Bavarians. Neue Klasse debuted more than a few cornerstones of 20th-century BMW, including the M10 inline-four, Macpherson strut suspension, and that hallowed design staple, the Hofmeister Kink. 

BMW 2002 Turbo

BMW 2002 Turbo

How do you balance all that history and the expectation it demands with an eye to the future? You simply simplify, he said.

"So the effort that we made, or let's say the exercise that we went through, was 'How can we bring out the very essence of the BMW brand while using fewer elements, fewer lines, fewer details?' And I think we will manage that," van Hooydonk said.

That reduction in complexity, laying lines that are simple and low and angular, has always broadcasted futurism. Earlier in the conversation, van Hooydonk praised Bertone’s Lancia Stratos Zero concept (one of the many great wedge designs). He called the wedge-like Zero a piece of timeless, future-facing design, and argued it’s perhaps the most-beautiful car ever built. (Though BMW's own E9 coupe and M1 supercar were in the hunt, according to Van Hooydonk). 

1970 Bertone Stratos Zero Concept

Upcoming Neue Klasse cars won’t borrow from the Zero's design explicitly, but will perhaps benefit from a modern take on Bertone's reductionist philosophy, hewing both more angular and much simpler than recent BMWs.

Van Hooydonk noted that seven generations of BMW 3 Series have already passed since their birth, following the revolutionary Neue Klasse. While some 3 Series designs offered small visual tweaks when a new generation debuted, other generations leapt ahead a great deal.

This forthcoming Neue Klasse, van Hooydonk said, will offer something entirely different.

BMW Neue Klasse Sedan Prototype

"This one will be a big step, and it'll be such a big step that it almost looks like we jumped one generation. That's how big the change is going to be," he said. 

While it’s fairly standard to hear designers talk about taking chances, it’s much rarer to see them on the road. BMW, along with Hyundai, are the exceptions to an industry that defaults to malaise, compartmentalizing its risk in low-volume or low-visibility models.

That's not Van Hooydonk's BMW; Whatever you think of the 4 Series’s gaping grille, the XM’s challenging bloat, or the 5 Series’s slanted snorty snout, they are brave designs.

'This one will be a big step, and it'll be such a big step that it almost looks like we jumped one generation. That's how big the change is going to be.'

It’s a terrible responsibility, I posited to Van Hooydonk, to be brave in the face of online echo chambers and scathing critic fanboys like myself who have never warmed to the look of the newest M4. Van Hooydonk sees it more like opportunity, deflecting the idea that past scorn would temper any leap forward for BMW design.

"Human nature is such that, if one is confronted with something very new, the first reaction is rarely positive," he said, meeting my comments about the M4’s grille head-on. "Two years ago, when we launched the 4 Series, we had a lot of [complaints about its grille]... But now that is completely gone. That feedback and the sales of these cars have done really well."

The M4's controversial grille

Van Hooydonk was quick to note it wasn’t arrogance speaking. Instead, it was planning, listening, and revision. Each big visual change for the brand faces market research with BMW customers, people who spend their money on BMWs.

By listening to their feedback, he said, BMW has a magic 8-ball's insight into whether designs will last. Even controversial ones. The process allows van Hooydonk some slack to experiment, for the brand to evolve in dramatic, calculated leaps.

"Now going forward, if we talk about the front end of a BMW in a wider sense, the Neue Klasse will show some interesting new solutions where we are going to replace chrome (accents) with light," Van Hooydonk said. "I think people will see things that they will undeniably recognize as BMW, even though it's not like any BMW that they've seen before."

New BMW iX3 Prototype With Neue Klasse Sedan

Though Van Hooydonk’s team is around 700-strong, the Dutchman rides the tip of the spear. Like Bangle before him, van Hooydonk will face the brunt as a figurehead for BMW design, but past criticisms haven’t tempered his ambition for Neue Klasse.

"We may have been around for 110 years, but that's no guarantee that people will buy our product," van Hooydonk said. "The only guarantee is that if you want to be a part of the future, you have to shape it for yourself."

More Design Week Interviews

The wedge. Is there another automotive design philosophy that’s held up so well? Consider for a moment the OG Lamborghini Countach, arguably the most iconic wedge that ever wedged. Designed in the early 1970s, it became the iconic poster car of the 1980s despite being six years old at the start of the decade. And it still looks futuristic today, over half a century since its introduction.

For that matter, take your pick of the numerous wedge concepts that appeared throughout the 1970s. The Lancia Stratos Zero could’ve passed for a UFO when it turned up at the 1970 Turin Auto Show. Created by legendary designer and unofficial wedge-king Marcello Gandini, he would ultimately have a hand in some of the most prominent sharp-edged concepts and production cars of the wedge era. That includes the Countach and the stunning 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo concept, cited by many as the origin of the wedge revolution.

But was it really? 

The Wedge’s Origins

Lancia Stratos Zero Concept

It all depends (as a notable Jedi once pointed out) on your point of view. Are we talking about the first production car? The first concept car? One-off builds by private individuals? Do race cars count? And then there’s the definition of wedge itself. Is it a pure wedge, going unaltered from a flat front to a bulky backside? What about sloping fastbacks with pointy noses, or a thin face on curvy cars? Do convertibles count? 

The book, The Origins of Wedge Car Design, explores both the early history and philosophy of the wedge. Written by Guy Dirkin and Geoffrey Hacker, it’s an interesting read that brings to light some notable one-offs from talented artists and designers through the early and middle 1960s, predating the Italian onslaught and Gandini’s efforts later in the decade.

Among them, we see the 1966 Cannara, a vehicle built by Ray Cannara when he was just 18 years old. With draped fiberglass over a modified Chevrolet Impala frame, the Cannara had a Chevy V-8 under its long hood, a wickedly pointed front end, no roof, and a slightly beefy butt. It was uncovered by Hacker in 2016 and subsequently restored with input from Cannara, whom Hacker eventually tracked down. After learning about the car’s history, Hacker and Dirkin believe it is the first true wedge car, the wedge’s origin story, if you will.

The authors note two other one-offs that predate the Cannara. The 1964 Ocelot and 1964 Erickson GT both had properly pointy faces but sloped down slightly at the back. Similarly, you can step back to 1962 and see strong wedge overtones in the 1962 Ford Mustang 1 concept. Going further still, the 1959 Corvette XP-87 Stingray is very wedgy, though arched fenders and a sloping fastback offset the flat surface. So yes, it all depends on your point of view. 

1962 Ford Mustang I Concept

1988 Honda Accord DX Hatchback

But there’s no debating the wedge phenomenon that exploded through the 1970s and 1980s as a result. It wasn’t just concepts and exotics either—you could get wedge styling on everything from subcompacts to sporty coupes and even sedans. Honda was so wedge crazy that it offered every single one of those body styles on just the third-generation Accord, never mind the Civic, CRX, Prelude, and NSX. And you know what? None of those cars look out of place in 2025.

That’s what makes wedge cars special. The flat nose. Those long, sleek, simple lines. The wedge is proportional and wholly satisfying on an elemental level. No matter how old they get, wedge cars always look modern. 

And now, thanks to Honda and Hyundai, we’re on the cusp of a new wedge revolution.

The Modern Wedge

In January 2024 at CES, our collective jaws dropped when Honda revealed the Saloon Concept—a sleek EV utilizing something called “man maximum/machine minimum” packaging. It describes a low, wide vehicle with clean lines and a wedge shape that benefits both vehicle efficiency and interior space for passengers. 

It’s a radical take that bears resemblance to Honda’s HP-X concept from 1984, a vehicle that took the show lawn at Pebble Beach last year, and that we recently had occasion to see in person at the Petersen Museum in LA. Even more than 40 years after its debut, its clean lines and angular shape could pass for a 21st-century concept car.

There are two notable differences between Honda’s modern wedge and the original HP-X, however. The HP-X was envisioned as a mid-engined supercar, whereas the Saloon Concept is a practical, four-door electric fastback. And unlike the HP-X, the Saloon Concept is actually going into production.

1984 Honda HP-X

Honda promised a debut in 2026 for what we presumed would be a watered-down production version. But our jaws dropped again when the 0 Saloon prototype debuted earlier this year, looking almost identical to the concept, right down to the steeply raked windshield that blends perfectly into the hood. Joining it at CES 2025 was the 0 SUV prototype, two vehicles that will headline Honda’s new 0 Series lineup. 

Unless Honda makes significant changes to these prototypes in the next few months, you could be looking at the most radical production car launch since the 1974 Countach. 

Nothing else on the road will look like these Hondas, which got us wondering. With classic wedge vehicles still looking quite modern, how did Honda evolve this segment to make the 0 Series look like something truly modern and futuristic without simply copying the past?

Honda 0 Saloon & Honda 0 SUV

We posed that question to Honda Chief Designer Yosuke Shimizu, 0 Series designer and product design studio manager for Honda’s e-mobility design division. In short, the switch from internal combustion engines to electric powertrains opens up new directions for the wedge. No engine means you don't need a long hood—a design feature long associated with performance cars. Shimizu proposes we rethink this convention.

"With that in mind, the iconic model of the 0 Series, the Saloon, features a bold forward-cabin design," he explained. "Additionally, recognizing its strong connection to passenger vehicles, we lowered the overall height to improve aerodynamics, evolving the design to align with new social environments and advancing technologies.”

Honda 0 Saloon

Given the similarities to the HP-X Concept, we were also surprised to learn that Honda wasn’t looking at the past for inspiration on the 0 Series. That is, at least in terms of design. Honda tugged on some robotic heartstrings by reviving the ASIMO name for the 0 Series’ operating system. The car will incorporate next-generation technology that, among other things, includes Level 3 hands-off eyes-off driver assist systems. Shimizu tells us this was actually one of the biggest challenges in bringing the 0 Series to life, integrating the systems into a user-friendly cockpit while keeping a compelling exterior design.  

"Rather than drawing direct styling inspiration, we focused on a design philosophy influenced by our long-standing research and development in robotics," said Shimizu. "In an era where cars are defined by software, we reconsidered the concept of personally owned vehicles and recognized the need for a design that brings people and cars closer together.

The proportions achieve a spacious interior and expansive visibility—features that might seem unexpected from its sleek, sporty silhouette. Rather than simply predicting trends, our design is the result of forming a strong connection with technology, always striving to stay closely aligned with our customers’ needs.”

Honda 0 Series SUV Concept

'Rather than drawing direct styling inspiration, we focused on a design philosophy influenced by our long-standing research and development in robotics.'

Honda even managed to sprinkle some wedge dust into the SUV segment, where everything is pretty much the anti-wedge these days. The 0 SUV isn’t nearly as sleek as the Saloon, but still carries a wedge ambiance. Shimizu highlighted the design nuances that make that happen.

"By making the rear tailgate more upright in the rear view, we emphasize the strength and ‘innovative, functional, and beauty’ of the SUV segment," he explained. "Normally, this would add visual weight, making the cabin appear more dominant than the fenders. However, by incorporating a tapered design in the top-down view and narrowing the shape toward the bottom, we’ve enhanced the presence of the fenders. This design approach effectively balances the ruggedness of an SUV with a sleek, sporty look."

Honda may not have considered the past with its wedge renaissance, but Hyundai sure did. On July 14, 2022, Hyundai revealed the N Vision 74 in all its angular glory. And for a brief, glorious moment, the entire automotive internet actually agreed on something: this thing looks awesome and we want it.

Hyundai N Vision 74 Concept

'It’s an homage to the past, but we’re actually moving towards the future, that’s the message.'

Hyundai listened. After some on-again-off-again rumors, a high-performance electric version of the N Vision 74 was confirmed for production, arriving by 2030. Based on the 1974 Hyundai Pony Concept, penned by noted Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro, we still don’t know exactly how the final version will look but it won’t stray far from the concept. 

We spoke with SangYup Lee, global head of design for Hyundai and Genesis, to understand the motivation behind the N Vision 74. Was it a response to changing design trends? Or did Hyundai hope to be a trendsetter by honoring the original Pony, the company’s first domestic production car? 

Turns out, it’s a bit of both.

"It’s an homage to the past, but we’re actually moving towards the future, that’s the message," said Lee. "[Paying] homage is very important, especially for a company like Hyundai with more than 100 years of history. And the Pony story is a perfect example. People changed their lifestyle because of Pony."

Hyundai’s original plan had the Pony concept coming to fruition as a performance variant, sold alongside the hatchback, sedan, and pickup versions that powered South Korea well into the 1980s. That didn’t happen, but a few years after the Pony debuted, the concept’s essence reemerged in the DeLorean DMC-12, a car also designed by Giugiaro.

1974 Hyundai Pony Concept

In Lee’s eyes, it’s all part of the Pony’s—and the N Vision 74’s—legacy. But he also conceded that customer tastes are always shifting. There’s a need to create something unique that isn’t too retro, because simply revisiting the past doesn’t move the needle forward.

"That’s a beautiful story, of course, we have to celebrate it," he said. "But when we create [something], if the past stays the past, there is no story. [The] past carrying into [the] future, that is important. So this [wedge] monocoque style, it has some potential … it has a very interesting form factor in design, execution. We call this ‘art of steel.’ Isn’t it amazing that a sheet of steel can form into something really, really beautiful, soft to the heart?"

It’s no secret that modern vehicle design has been… complex for quite a while now. It’s understandable to a degree, given the popularity of SUVs. There are only so many variations on a theme you can pull off before you need to get really creative, and perhaps we’re finally reaching that point. 

Hyundai took a bold step with the Santa Fe and Sonata, stepping away from curves and complex angles for straighter, simpler lines. Honda has taken a simpler approach as well, infusing the current Civic and Accord with cleaner lines compared to the previous generation. And the forthcoming Prelude, while not the sharp-nosed wedge it was in the 1980s, looks clean, simple, and sporty. 

Honda Prelude Concept

And it’s not just these two brands stirring the design pot. BMW—arguably the worst automaker in recent memory when it comes to ugly, overdesigned vehicles—is taking a cleaner approach with its Neue Klasse line. Neue Klasse coupe prototypes have even been spotted with a thin front clip and steeply raked windshield culminating in a sizeable backside. If BMW ever wanted to build a proper successor to the M1, now could be the time.

The wedge is back. Long may it reign.

More Design Week Features:

In its purest form, a concept car is a look into an automaker's crystal ball. It showcases new technology, over-the-top design, and outrageous performance. While most concepts take center stage at auto shows, more often than not, they’re relegated to a dusty museum or sent to a crusher afterward.

Concept cars are not a new, well, concept. They've been around for nearly a century. The 1938 Buick Y-Job is widely considered the first concept car, even though Volvo's Venus Bilo technically debuted five years earlier. The idea really didn't catch fire until the 1950s and ‘60s, when the Germans and Italians got their hands on modeling clay and sculpted some truly fantastic things.

In the 1970s and 1980s, America came into its own with concepts like the Chevrolet Aerovette, one of the first far-flung ideas from a US automaker. Ford followed with the Probe II and Maya sports cars. There was another mid-engined Corvette—the Indy—and when Chrysler owned Lamborghini (remember that?), the duo teamed up for the four-door Portofino.

But maybe the most outrageous American concept car of the 1980s came from a brand you probably never expected.

The Beginnings: Oldsmobile’s Almost Supercar

1987 Oldsmobile Aerotech Concept

At the time, Oldsmobile was a huge success in the US. Between 1983 and 1986, the company was moving nearly 1 million cars annually. So with money to blow and the new "Quad-Four" engine imminent, complete with dual overhead cams and 16 valves, the company needed a way to showcase its latest engineering breakthrough. 

The Quad-Four made just 150 horsepower in production form, and it would go on to power hundreds of thousands of vehicles across the country. Oldsmobile figured the best way to promote its new engine was with a highly modified, 900-horsepower, track-ready hypercar designed by icon Ed Welburn, naturally.

The goal, as with most concept cars, was to take a relatively mundane technology and turn it into something spectacular. A longtime head of GM Design, Welburn designed the Aerotech and remembers it well.

Ed Welburn With The Oldsmobile Aerotech Concept

"One of the initiatives was to create a high-speed research vehicle to establish a closed-course record," Welburn tells me via email. "This came at a time in which there had been a flurry of closed course records set by Porsche and Mercedes, all with 12- or 8-cylinder engines. Aerotech had a 2.0-liter, turbo 4-cylinder engine."

But the Aerotech’s lack of cylinders didn’t slow it down. IndyCar legend AJ Foyt hit 257.1 miles per hour on GM’s test oval, breaking any and all closed-course speed records of the day. It was a huge accomplishment for Oldsmobile at the time and a significant accomplishment for the Aerotech.

The design, though, is what people remember most.

A sleek, silvery body with a long-tail rear ripped from a Le Mans car. Welburn used the Porsche 917LH as his inspiration for the proportions, while the Oldsmobile team employed a wind tunnel to ensure the Aerotech was as slippery as possible. It had a drag coefficient of around 0.30 cD, which may not sound impressive now, but it was revolutionary at the time.

'One of the initiatives was to create a high-speed research vehicle to establish a closed-course record.'

"Well-executed aerodynamics were critical in helping Aerotech set its records," says Welburn. "We were fortunate to work with one of the most talented aerodynamicists in the industry named Max Schenkel. Max was brilliant and had deep knowledge and experience with high-speed vehicles, and understood the needs of the designers."

The Aerotech never made it to production, although Welburn admits that he did create "a couple of sketches of a street version of the car"—just imagine what could have been. Regardless, it remains an important piece of Welburn’s portfolio, which includes concepts like the Cadillac Ciel and Elmiraj, and production cars like the C7 Corvette and Pontiac Solstice Coupe.

"Aerotech was one of my favorite projects," he admits, "not just because it set records for speed and later for endurance; it was the first project in which I was not only sketching, but I also managed the project from a design perspective and spent an incredible number of hours in the wind tunnel working with Max. Through Aerotech, I learned the power of collaboration…"

The Aerotech was a huge accomplishment for Oldsmobile, not just on the track, but as a technology showcase. Other American automakers took note. The Aerotech’s impressive reception would help spawn a hypercar obsession that lasted well into the new millennium.

The '90s: Ford’s Far-Flung GT90

1995 Ford GT90 Concept

The original Ford GT40 officially hung up its helmet in 1969, ending a hugely successful career in endurance racing with multiple Le Mans wins. But it would be another 20 years before Ford took a second crack at its iconic sports car.

The GT90 concept debuted at the 1995 Detroit Auto Show, stunning onlookers with its dramatic angles and retro-fantastic interior. This was Ford’s first true take on a hypercar. Vice President of Design at the time, Jack Telnack, wanted to showcase the brand’s then-new "New Edge" design language. The look was penned by James Hope, and the GT90 would eventually go on to inspire the fourth-generation Mustang and most of the Blue Oval’s products throughout the late ‘90s and early 2000s.

"[Ford] basically said we want a new direction, we want something fresh, new, and exciting,” Hope said on an episode of the Crown Unfiltered Car Design podcast. "So I was doing all these stealth cars, and that was adapted as the direction. It all came together with this exciting push to do this new design language, this kind of stealthy, angular design language that no one was doing. It was completely alien."

Based loosely on a Jaguar XJ220 chassis at the time (remember when Ford owned Jaguar?), the GT90 had all the fixings of a proper hypercar. Powering this beautiful beast was an equally beastly engine: A quad-turbocharged 5.9-liter V-12 paired to a five-speed manual transmission.

On paper, at least, the GT90 made 720 horsepower and 660 pound-feet of torque, with Ford admitting that a modest tune could result in over 900 horsepower. The GT90 would reportedly hit sixty mph in just 3.2 seconds, and it would continue on to a top speed of 235 mph. Just a bit quicker than the original.

Ultimately, though—unlike the Aerotech—this car never ran at full capacity. So we never truly saw what it could do. Ford did allow a few journalists, including Jeremy Clarkson, time behind the wheel in a speed-limited version of the GT90 that was good for only 40 miles per hour. But the concept was mostly built for show.

So why didn’t Ford build it?

Ford never really intended to put the GT90 into production from the beginning. The concept was ultimately relegated to storage before finding its way to the Hajek Motorsports Museum in Ames, Oklahoma, of all places, where it still resides today.

The Early 2000s: Cadillac Keeps It 100

2002 Cadillac Cien concept

Nearly a decade passed between the Ford GT90’s debut and the Big Three’s next hypercar. But in 2002, Cadillac’s 100th anniversary would spawn a vehicle befitting the occasion.

The Cadillac Cien—which literally translates to "100" in Spanish—debuted at the Detroit Auto Show in 2002 as the luxury automaker’s first entrant into the hypercar space in its 100-year history (though, not its last).

Imagined at GM’s Advanced Design Studio in England, Simon Cox (the same designer behind the infamous Isuzu Vehicross and Saturn Sky, oddly enough), penned the final design. The Ciel’s angular styling ushered in a new era for Cadillac—sharp, muscular lines that still linger in the brand’s current lineup.

Cox said of the Cien: "I wanted to celebrate a century with a product that really shows that we have the technology and performance—there are no bounds to where we can go."

Built atop a bespoke carbon-fiber monocoque chassis developed, in part, by the UK’s Prodrive, the Cien would outgun Ford’s GT90 with a 7.5-liter V-12 making 750 horsepower. That was enough to send it to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds and on to an estimated top speed of 217 mph. Again, all in theory.

Given its warm reception in Detroit, Cadillac brass floated a small production run of Ciens at a cost of around $200,000 each. Ultimately, though, given its high price and dramatic looks, the company decided that the Cien just wasn’t right for buyers at the time.

But with the auto show wars still raging in the mid-2000s, just two years later, we’d see a worthy contender to Cadillac’s Cien.

The Mid-2000s: Chrysler Goes All In

2004 Chrysler ME Four-Twelve Concept

At the request of then-president and COO Wolfgang Bernhard, Daimler-Chrysler would enter the hypercar wars with the ME Four-Twelve. Like all good concept cars of the day, it debuted at the 2004 Detroit Auto Show.

More than 50 designers were tasked with putting pen to paper in hopes of bringing Berhard’s dream car to life. But it was a young designer out of Chrysler’s Pacifica Advanced Design Studio named Brian Nielander who earned the right to see his sketches become reality.

"You always want to get the show car. You want to get your sketch picked. But there was definitely a lot of competition," Nielander tells me. "I was really hungry to finally land it, so I remember when they finally announced what car they were going to use—I don't think it was elation, it was just relief. I remember walking up to my car to leave work that day and just sitting in my car like, ‘Okay, I got it. I got it.’ It was an awesome feeling."

Brian would draw heavily from the Art Deco motifs littered throughout Chrysler’s lineup of the day, leaning on straight, fluid lines to give the concept its unique shape.

"The body side was the defining feature of the car—those lines that came up and over the wheels and then fanned back," Brian notes. "There were ‘lines of action’ and ‘lines of reaction.’ So the door cuts and the side glass had these lunging lines—even the antenna did that. It's like they were leaping up and out, while these lines of reaction came off the wheels and shot back."

The ME Four-Twelve was peak 2000s Chrysler design, but even today, it still looks modern. Many of those same lines would go on to show up on production cars like the Crossfire and 300C, helping shape the next decade of the Chrysler lineup.

Sculpted around a carbon and aluminum honeycomb tub, the body itself was made entirely out of carbon fiber. The chassis came from Mercedes-Benz, and behind the driver was a quad-turbocharged 6.0-liter V-12 engine Chrysler pulled from Stuttgart’s parts bin. With 850 hp, the ME Four-Twelve could (theoretically) reach 60 miles per hour in 2.9 seconds and a top speed of 248—just a titch above what Ford estimated with its GT90.

To complement all that power, the body was sleek and slippery, meant to limit wind resistance. Various vents and openings on the front end were carved out to keep air flowing freely overtop the car, while Audi R8-like rear blades on either side sent fresh oxygen directly into the V-12. Remember, this car came before the R8.

But even with Daimler leading much of the charge on the engineering front, the design was entirely home-grown.

'I was really hungry to finally land it, so I remember when they finally announced what car they were going to use—I don't think it was elation, it was just relief.'

"With the exception of Bernhard, who was very involved in the project in a good way, it was all very focused in Auburn Hills. [The company] was very willing to let me run with it and take responsibility for it. You see a lot of designs go through the process and there are a lot of people that put their input into it… But I had a lot of freedom with this car, which was a really cool thing."

Although the ME Four-Twelve started life as a 2D sketch, Brian says “around 95 percent” of the final design was done in 3D rendering software—a relatively new technology at the time. That meant, from start to finish, the concept took less than a year to finalize.

"Creating these sorts of interlocking shapes that then created other newer interesting shapes, I think was really interesting,” Brian says. “Because that software was pretty new at the time, it was a cool way to help execute it."

Chrysler promised a production version on the road less than six months after that. More than the Aerotech and GT90, Chrysler did indeed have plans to put the ME Four-Twelve into production. A second running and driving prototype would debut less than a year later, with a handful of lucky journalists taking it for a spin around Laguna Seca.

"You heard the rumors that we're going to try and build this," Brian recalls.

Although it was nearly finished, with trouble brewing at the top of the corporate ladder, the ME Four-Twelve would suffer the same fate as the Aerotech, Cien, and GT90 before it. Chrysler’s home-grown hypercar would never hit the road—destined for a storage compartment somewhere in Auburn Hills.

Brian, though, still remembers it fondly.

"Since I was little, at least in high school, that's all I wanted to do—I wanted to design cars. I wanted to draw supercars, race cars, whatever… [The ME Four-Twelve] was the moment, because these projects rarely come around, especially this magnitude… All these years looking back on it, I was just grateful for the opportunity."

–

2008 Saleen S5S Raptor Concept

The GT90, the Cien, and the ME Four-Twelve carried on a legacy that Oldsmobile helped pioneer. Into the late 2000s and 2010s, few concepts carried the torch—the Ford Shelby GR-1 in 2005, the Chrysler Firepower the same year, and the beautiful Saleen S5S Raptor in 2009, with a handful of others in between.

These days, the hypercar craze has cooled on this side of the pond, barring a few exciting outliers. No longer are we flocking to Detroit to see the latest and greatest ideas from Dearborn or Auburn Hills; there’s no more mystery as to what might show up at the Huntington Place convention center (née Cobo Hall). American hypercar concepts, as we know them, have all but disappeared.

But that’s not to say these ones aren’t worth remembering.

More From Design Week

The cars we love are machines designed by humans. The Pontiac Aztek, Lamborghini Miura, Citroën 2CV, and Chrysler PT Cruiser—beautiful or not—were all styled with purpose and intent. But that doesn't mean the public embraces every new car that pushes design boundaries.

Beauty is subjective, and one person's idea of stylish might embody another's conception of sloppy. For Design Week, we wanted to explore the idea of automotive beauty by interviewing some of the most renowned designers in the industry from some of the world's most recognizable brands.

Automotive designers have the tough task of predicting what customers will find attractive in years, decades. With ever-changing tastes and culture, that’s no easy task. But there are certain principles designers rely on when trying to create something beautiful, and for many, getting the proportions right is critical.

Porsche Design Sketches

"It's got to have a beautiful and balanced proportion," says Brian Nielander, a chief designer at Stellantis who designed the Chrysler Firepower, ME Four-Twelve concepts, and others. He adds, it's easy to "over-style things" for the sake of design. "It's not always about the details, but more about the simplicity in proportion."

"I think a little bit of simplicity goes a long way," Nielander adds.

Former GM Vice President of Global Design, Ed Welburn (Right)

Ed Welburn, GM's former vice president of global design who oversaw the second-generation Cadillac CTS-V, the Chevrolet SSR, the Oldsmobile Aerotech, and many others, also stressed the importance of keeping things simple.

"Complex designs may look great for the moment, but generally do not age gracefully," says Welburn. To him, "Beautiful designs are clear and simple, but not boring." They achieve that by being "well-proportioned in every way" while having "a consistent character of line and form."

But Welburn admits the adage, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," is true.

Former GM Vice President of Global Design, Ed Welburn

'Beautiful designs are clear and simple, but not boring.'

What makes a car beautiful might be a simple question, but it's one that Tony Hatter has "no simple answer" for. He recently retired from Style Porsche, where he was the head of design quality. Hatter served as an exterior designer at Porsche from 1986 to 2002, penning the 993 and the Carrera GT, before becoming a design manager. He now works with Ruf.

For Hatter, a car's proportion is just one of four components that can make for an attractive vehicle. He studies how the greenhouse relates to the body, the position of the wheels, and the overhangs, which he feels are determined by the second component: Function.

Hatter accounts for the car's aerodynamics, the position of the engine, and performance, but both proportion and function must follow his third component: Form.

Former Style Porsche Head of Design Quality, Tony Hatter (Middle)

"Form, however, within this aesthetic, has to have an underlying structure dictated by those first two components," Hatter says.

"This is where innate understanding of form and competence are required, specifically how the greenhouse fits, or is integrated into the body, the way the wheel arches are treated, perhaps emphasizing the position and size of the wheels and the attention to details.”

Hatter's final component is the materials, gauging the brightwork, color, and wheels, and how they contrast and complement the body. He also said, "The interior cannot be ignored, especially if we are talking about an open car."

Former Global Advanced Design Director and Chief Designer, Tom Matano

For Tom Matano, who helped design the original Mazda MX-5 Miata and FD RX-7, a beautiful car is one that's "void of gimmicky surfaces," stressing that a vehicle must be, "Totally cohesive from overall proportion to the minute detail, both inside and out. By a quick glance, one should communicate what it was designed for."

"Proportion, stance, attitude, movement, tension, center of gravity, details, and choice of materials and finishes" are what Matano looks for when determining if a car is beautiful. Matano left Mazda in 2002 to become a teacher and currently serves as Director Emeritus of the Academy of Art University's School of Industrial Design.

Former Global Advanced Design Director and Chief Designer, Tom Matano

'By a quick glance, one should communicate what it was designed for.'

Mercedes-Benz's Head of Exterior Vehicle Design, Robert Lesnik, also emphasizes the importance of getting a car's proportions right. "Where are the wheels? What is the stance?" he says.

Lesnik then looks at the surfaces and, lastly, the graphics. He says you'll likely not remember what a car's lights looked like, but you'd "remember how elegant it was when it passed by at very low speed."

Mercedes-Benz Head of Exterior Vehicle Design, Robert Lesnik

According to Frank Heyl, Bugatti's design director, who helped design the Chiron, Divo, Bolide, and W16 Mistral, a car's design can also do more than just look nice.

"It's got to tell a story, number one," says Heyl. "That’s what makes it appealing to me. It’s got to be authentic. What I’m looking at, what I'm being presented with, has got to be sure of itself. It has this purpose, and it fulfills it, and it's sympathetic when it's doing it because it's authentic."

"Number two, obviously, it's proportion, proportion, proportion," he says. "Before I look at any color or theme or line or intake exit, whatever it is, the thing just has to sit right." It's on his second look that he'll take notice of certain features or design lines.

Bugatti Head of Design, Frank Heyl

'It's got to tell a story, number one. That’s what makes it appealing to me. It’s got to be authentic.'

The proportion must be "just right." He says it's noticeable when a car doesn't "come together, that there had been some commission there without understanding, just counting the beans, and then it has small wheels and is big and bulky, and then it doesn’t look good."

Heyl says creating a beautiful car requires "a person with a vision and the best team to get something together that you know is an authentic contender."

Bugatti Head of Design, Frank Heyl

For BMW's Head of Design, Adrian Van Hooydonk, industrial design is "almost at the crossroads of art and engineering."

"We want to create products that add something to our customers' lives," he said. "To me, design is beautiful when it works really well, but over and beyond the functionality, it offers something that people can relate to in an emotional way."

Adrian Van Hooydonk (Center) & BMW Design Team

'We want to create products that add something to our customers' lives.'

But, Van Hooydonk is also upfront about the challenges of design. "We need to find solutions for a multitude of legal requirements, problems, and so on," he said. "That is part of our job. That's why we call it industrial design."

"We try to offer products that are much more than the sum total of their functions or their solved problems, let's say," he added. "And we want people to be able to really relate not only on a rational level, but also on an emotional level to the product."

--

Automotive designers balance a multitude of factors when creating a car; crash standards, cost, fuel economy targets, and more influence a vehicle's final design. That's why concept sketches can look so wildly different from the production version. There are rules designers can't break because these machines balance beauty and function, and blending the two is an art.

Beauty is also influenced by time and place. Designs once derided when a car first went on sale can find popularity decades later, but that's the beauty of beauty. It's an opinion, and opinions change—and cars would be quite boring if they didn’t.

More From Design Week

Over the last decade, Hyundai has emerged as a design leader in the automotive industry, and its luxury arm, Genesis, is upending the traditional hierarchy with distinctive, beautiful cars. Much of that credit goes to SangYup Lee, who joined Hyundai as design chief in 2016. He’s one of the most talented people in the automotive world today, and one of the nicest.

Born and raised in South Korea, Lee’s path was unconventional. He studied sculpture in college, but didn’t want to go through the inevitable starving-artist period that follows. A trip to visit the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, showed him how to apply his skills to a career with more stability.

"I visited there and saw a car design major student and they were actually making a clay model of a car," Lee recalls. "I was looking at it, and I thought ‘Oh! I’m good at making clay models as well, so maybe there’s something I can do and I can have so much fun out of it.'"

Lee decided to leave home for California to study car design at the Art Center. The toughest adjustment was coming from a place with virtually no car culture to the world’s mecca for automotive enthusiasm. Korea had been making cars for decades by that point, but there wasn’t really a car-enthusiast culture, Lee explains, just a business culture. 

"My classmates, they all grew up with cars… so they are all car enthusiasts and I was not," he says. "So it was quite a challenge for me to adapt to the culture and learn. But at the same time, one benefit of not knowing anything about cars, it’s like a little kid learning a language, like a sponge soaking up water. I adapted without filtering."

After graduating, Lee moved to Europe to intern at both Pininfarina, where he was mentored by Ken Okuyama, and Porsche, where he worked under Stefan Stark. In Italy, he also got to know Giorgetto Giugiaro, perhaps one of the most influential car designers of all time. 

Cadillac Sixteen Concept

Bentley EXP 10 Speed 6

From Europe, Lee moved back to the US to join GM, where he worked on the Cadillac Sixteen concept, C6 Corvette, and fifth-generation Camaro, among many other projects. Then it was off to Europe again, to the Volkswagen Group. There, he worked on the VW brand, then headed up exterior design for Bentley, designing the EXP 10 Speed 6 concept and the current Continental GT. 

Before moving back to Korea to join Hyundai and Genesis, Lee lived in eight different countries and designed for 15 different car brands. It was an ideal education for his current position, overseeing design for two different brands—three, if you count Hyundai’s commercial division separately—selling cars across the globe. 

"I don’t consider myself a Korean designer, to be honest," he says. "To become a good designer, you really have to have a global perspective, so I think my journey has been understanding a global perspective. Now, working for a Korean company, I didn’t join Hyundai and Genesis because I’m Korean, I joined because of the vision and passion and the history is unbelievable."

Lee credits Hyundai leadership for challenging the design team to continually push forward. You can see the results in the striking cars Hyundai and Genesis sell today. Hyundai also doesn’t see design and engineering as two warring factions pushing their agendas on one another, as is so often the case in car design.

Hyundai Ioniq 6

"Designers have to dream, and engineers have to make that dream come true. This is our mentality," he says. 

Lee also is quick to point out that Hyundai is laser-focused on its customers, which he concedes is an obvious thing for someone in his position to say, but it’s not just talk. He and his team spend a lot of time thinking about what the customer needs, even the things they might not know they need. 

"A car is expensive, you know," he says, "when you pay this much money, it has to be worth it."

When Lee visits the US (Hyundai has a design and engineering center in Irvine, California), he makes sure to visit Costco. Not for bulk paper towels or cheap vodka, but to observe his customers in the parking lot, like a sort of car-design David Attenborough. There, he can see how customers use their cars, and determine how he can make them better.

It also stresses the need to make his work stand out. "There are so many cars in the parking lot, and often I ask myself, ‘What the heck am I supposed to do to make my car special?'"

At Hyundai and Genesis, designs start from a clean sheet of paper, but not out of a vacuum. "Before I start, I just want to make sure I always look back to bring what I have to do to the next level." That means looking back at past Hyundai models, but also at entire eras of car design, and the learnings from each. 

'Designers have to dream, and engineers have to make that dream come true. This is our mentality.'

You can see that thinking in the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6. The former, being an everyday family car, takes inspiration from the Giugiaro-designed hatchbacks of the 1970s. The Volkswagen Golf, Lancia Delta, and the first Hyundai Pony were slab-sided with simple pressings as they were easier to manufacture cheaply but at high quality. The Ioniq 6 meanwhile, references early, low-drag cars like the first Saabs, which were designed by aero engineers. Hyundai wanted this electric sedan to be as efficient as possible, and a modern streamliner design pays homage to those early innovators.

The Hyundai brand is also careful to make meaningful differences between its models. Lee cites the new Santa Fe and Ioniq 9 as examples. Both three-row SUVs, but the Santa Fe went boxy both to reflect the trend toward this style and to maximize interior volume. On the other hand, the Ioniq 9 looks totally different. 

“Should we do two boxy SUVs? Probably not,” Lee muses.

Hyundai Santa Fe

Hyundai Ioniq 9

Thus, the Ioniq 9 has a more rounded design to maximize aero efficiency, which is more important in an EV than the gas-powered Santa Fe.

"In car design, form has to follow function."

Not that Lee isn’t having fun. He always tries to inject a bit of optimism and joy into his designs. 

"You know, the world is becoming more and more uncertain," he says, "the anxiety of people is growing and growing. Can we have a product to make people smile?"

Lee is also very philosophical about car design and Hyundai’s place within the pantheon of great design. He consciously avoids the sort of same-sausage-different-length design offerings of German automakers, instead differentiating each car from another, each making its own statement. 

"We don’t have the brand power like Mercedes has. Yet," he says. "So we’re taking risks… because our customer profile is so different."

Hyundai’s base is diverse. As such, different sorts of designs appeal to different groups of customers. 

'In car design, form has to follow function.'

Lee keeps returning back to this need to be “humble,” because Hyundai is still something of a challenger to the establishment—even if it is over 50 years old—and car design is about continuous evolution. The nature of designing cars has also changed significantly, and continues to do so. It’s a discipline designers must approach with humility.

“Back in the day of Giorgetto Giugario and Bertone, they’re the maestros, everybody else bows to them,” Lee says. “These days, it doesn’t work that way. It’s very complicated, not only on the hardware side, but the software side. He stresses the importance of keeping an open mind to his team. You have to collaborate with everyone else to create a car, not just impose your vision on them.

Beyond everything, Lee is grateful.

"My journey has been very fortunate. I’ve been able to meet great people, a lot of people. And one thing I always like is new challenges, new opportunities, new people. Now, I have to start thinking about how to pass my legacy to younger designers, just like how my mentors made me who I am right now."

More From Design Week

Once upon a time, most new cars came with simple steel wheels designed for strength. Hubcaps took care of the styling, even on snazzy luxury cars. There were some exceptions of course, but even when widespread use of styled aluminum wheels expanded in the 1980s, designs remained relatively simple. 

Flash forward to 2025. For every basic five-spoke wheel design there are a dozen alternatives with enough spokes, edges, pockets, angles, spinners, holes, faux fasteners, and geometric shapes to effectively melt your corneas. 

GMC Hummer EV Wheel

It’s a sign of the times, right? A reflection of automotive design that has, frankly, become quite overdone. Can’t we just have some clean, attractive wheels?

Modern wheels are indeed a reflection of complex automotive design trends, but there’s actually a method to much of that madness. Marc Mainville, Senior Design Manager at GM’s Performance, Motorsport, and Accessories (PMA) studio, opened our eyes to the technology driving the selection of these bigger, bolder, wheels.

"I don’t know that the design is intended to be more complex, but there are definitely more elements that weigh into designing a wheel than there were in the past," he said. "Say you had a simple five-spoke. They may have said 'Okay, yeah, it looks like it will be strong enough,' and they’ll make it and go run it on a track, and everyone was happy. Now we can do virtual testing, virtual aero testing, material analysis."

With sophisticated tools at their disposal, designers at the PMA studio have considerably more freedom to explore wheel development. That's not necessarily the same as simple wheel design—modern wheels must balance safety, performance, and efficiency with style.

Cadillac Celestiq

"A wheel and a tire together can affect roughly 10 percent of the overall aero count of a vehicle," explained Mainville. "Whereas before, that wasn’t so important, nowadays when we’re looking for as much efficiency as possible for electric vehicles, for high-performance vehicles, that’s part of the equation where maybe we didn’t pay as much attention before."

This is why you see many modern wheels with various inserts and flat sections. Beyond aesthetics, these design elements aim to improve aerodynamic efficiency while still exuding a bit of style.

'It allows us to challenge the designs a little bit more, make things a little bit more interesting, maybe twist shapes in ways we wouldn’t have done in the past.'

Brake cooling has always factored into wheel design, but virtual development allows designers to get very specific—and creative—with shapes to maximize cooling while balancing other considerations.

"The engineers will tell us, 'We need this much surface area open for brake cooling,' so we’ll do our favorite design we’re in love with, then run it through the computer and find out we’ve got to increase the vent area a little bit. Or maybe we’re overachieving, we’ve got to shrink it down some. One thing we do for aero performance will offset the weight. Something that offsets weight may offset stiffness. It’s like you have the wheel in the middle, and all these things are tugging in different directions. What's the right balance?"

Achieving that balance became easier with the wide range of materials and finishes now available to designers. Once upon a time, you generally had steel or aluminum to choose from. Perhaps deluxe wheels were painted or polished, or in the case of steelies, treated with a primer to reduce rust, then fitted with wheel covers. 

General Motors Advanced Design Pasadena

Now, lightweight alloys and carbon fiber open up all kinds of possibilities, including larger-diameter wheels that showroom gawkers love but performance enthusiasts generally hate. On that front, good news: at least in the halls of the PMA, performance is always in mind for wheel designs.

"[Engineers] will give us requirements," Mainville said. "Stiffness value has to be this high, or mass has to be this low. They might emphasize mass because we’re trying to reach a certain MPG number. Or they might say this is going to be doing high-speed laps at a race track, so stiffness is important. That might encourage us to use different materials."

The range of materials is particularly useful on the Corvette, which received GM’s first carbon fiber wheel. Mainville explained that going with carbon fiber allows for larger sizes that people like to see, while the lower weight means there isn’t a tradeoff in performance. And let’s not forget—larger wheels allow room for larger brakes.

But advancements in technology and materials aren’t solely for the benefit of performance cars like the Corvette. Designers can work with less exotic materials to make bigger wheels for vehicles like the Suburban, which is now available with 24-inchers from the factory—and drives amazingly well from our experience. 

2025 Chevrolet Suburban

"Maybe it’s still a traditional alloy wheel but the way it’s manufactured, it has much thinner wall sections," said Mainville. "So you can have a bigger wheel, but through finite element analysis, where the virtual testing is done, they can check to see if the wheel will meet the loads needed. So we can push the size a little bit if it’s appropriate, but then get the mass out in other areas that we could never test in the past. And that’s all with the advancements in computer software we have now."

Of course, it’s not all just numbers and virtual testing. Wheels and the tires they carry are arguably the most important components of a vehicle, and not just because they carry a car down the road. Short of a full paint job, nothing else changes the character of a car so drastically as a set of wheels. They’re usually the first thing people notice, grabbing the attention of enthusiasts and casual observers alike. They’re emotional. They’re personal. Style absolutely matters. And Mainville’s team at the PMA understands that.

"Our responsibility is compelling design; they have to look great," he said. "In the last 5-10 years there’s been a noticeable increase in making more out of the wheels. Like before, it was a simple five-spoke and maybe just a silver paint. Now we have so many different finishes."

Buick Wildcat EV Concept

Does this mean wheel designs will become increasingly complex? Mainville said that finishing and design technologies will advance further, but you need simple options too.

"With the Z06 and ZR1, there are really interesting cross-lace dual star pattern wheels that I love. But then we also have a very clean, simple five-spoke alloy. That’s two different ends of the spectrum, and for me, that’s the most exciting part because I know not every customer will have the same taste at the same time."

Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Convertible

Chevrolet Corvette Z06

So yes, factory wheels are more complex than ever. But a fair chunk of this complexity goes into making your sports car faster, your EV more efficient, or your SUV more stylish without exacting a toll on fuel economy. We suspect these factors are not often considered by the average buyer, and it makes sense when you think about it. Wheels are there so the car can roll, and maybe turn a few heads in the process. Beyond that, who cares, right?

We care. Mainville and his team care. And hopefully, now you care too. Whether you dig the big wheels with a gazillion spokes or prefer smaller, simpler shapes, it’s encouraging to see automakers investing more time into designs that actually make a car drive better. It’s proof that form and function can live in harmony.  

And dare we say—understanding the science makes these complex wheels more interesting, at the very least.

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Car designers do not simply draw cars. To be a great one, you need a deep technical understanding, and must form productive relationships with everyone involved in making a vehicle come to life. Bugatti design chief Frank Heyl is a perfect example.

"To make a car that goes 300 miles per hour, it’s not like you make any car. It requires certain skill sets," Heyl tells Motor1. "In terms of aero, at one point at those speeds, we’re talking about Mach-scale effects that compress air because it’s so fast."

Heyl graduated with a Master of Arts in Vehicle Design from the Royal College of Art in 2005. He joined Bugatti as an exterior designer in 2008. His career at the French automaker spans from the 267-mph Veyron Super Sport to the new Tourbillon. In 2023, he took over the top design job at Bugatti following Achim Anscheidt’s retirement. 

'To make a car that goes 300 miles per hour, it’s not like you make any car. It requires certain skill sets.'

A core tenant of the company’s design philosophy is that every element on a Bugatti must serve a purpose. A Chiron Super Sport 300+ has a long tail not because it looks cool—though it does—but because it reduces drag. 

"There's a story that is totally authentic to the purpose of the vehicle, and it's only if you understand all of these aerodynamic phenomena that you can weave this in from the very beginning," Heyl says. "It's not like we’re thrown a certain package across the fence of the design center, and then we put a nice candy wrapper around it."

The Tourbillon is the third, all-new model in Bugatti’s modern era, following the Chiron and Veryron. It’s also the first car produced after Bugatti merged with Croatian electric hypercar company Rimac. CEO Mate Rimac wanted to reinvent what a Bugatti could be, abandoning the Chiron and Veyron’s chassis and trademark quad-turbo W-16 engine. 

Instead, the Tourbillon combines a naturally aspirated Cosworth V-16 with a three-motor hybrid system for an astounding 1,775 horsepower. After the Chiron Super Sport 300+, Bugatti said it was done chasing absolute top-speed records, yet the Tourbillon still manages 277 mph flat out. Even in a world saturated with hypercars, it’s unlike anything else out there.

Heyl’s most proud of the Tourbillon’s underfloor, with its two six-and-a-half foot long venturis starting just under the seats, forming the diffuser. That might seem counterintuitive for a designer to highlight the floor, which you can’t see, but Heyl tells us it’s the thing that enables all that stunning bodywork and the incredible engineering it shrouds.

A diffuser is one of the most efficient ways to create downforce, by accelerating air under the vehicle without a huge drag penalty, which would reduce top speed. Bugatti’s switch from the wide, W-16 engine with its quad turbochargers mounted on the sides to a narrow, 90-degree V-16 made room for taller diffuser channels. Heyl says that the Tourbillon is aerodynamically neutral—no downforce, no lift—at top speed.

The diffuser also doubles as the car’s rear crash structure, an engineering feat in itself, and it has many other, slightly less exciting functions. 

"There’s the license plate, which you have to take into account," Heyl says. "A 52.0-centimeter license plate for the EU and UAE markets, or a 6-by-12-inch for the US market, or a Japanese one. 

"The way the diffuser is shaped is the least amount of height built up on the rear—because the rear is very slim proportionally—while still fitting all those license plates. Which might be a mundane kind of thing, but those are massive limitations to the design of a car, especially on the rear, which you have to deal with."

Of course, a Bugatti can’t be all function and no form. The design team worked closely with the engineering team from the beginning, both to define the mechanical layout of the Tourbillon, and to sculpt its looks. Automotive beauty, Heyl says, is all about proportion, so that was a main area of focus.

"If you get that just right, everything develops from the roof downwards."

'There's a story that is totally authentic to the purpose of the vehicle, and it's only if you understand all of these aerodynamic phenomena that you can weave this in from the very beginning.'

The Tourbillon is only a couple inches longer than the Chiron it replaces, and its wheelbase grew only a smidge more than an inch. Wheel sizes of 20-inch front and 21-inch rear remain the same, too, though the overall diameters of both the wheels and tires increase slightly. 

But despite the similar dimensions, the Tourbillon looks much more dramatic. Fixing the seats directly to the carbon-fiber monocoque, and instead making the pedals adjustable, allowed Bugatti designers to lower the Torbillon’s roof. That had the effect of making the car look much more muscular while reducing the frontal area, a huge boon for cutting drag. 

Heyl reminds us that we shouldn’t be too obsessed with a drag coefficient number, since it’s just that, a coefficient which is always associated with surface area; If your frontal area is huge, having a low drag coefficient doesn’t mean all that much in the real world.

It’s obvious, but the Tourbillon also has to look like a Bugatti. Beyond the C-shape "Bugatti line" running along the side, there’s the two-tone paint scheme, the horseshoe grille, and other details that reference Bugattis of the past. Especially those designed by founder Ettore and his son, Jean. But in proportion, the Tourbillon is much more extreme than any Bugatti before it, something Heyl says is only possible when the designers and engineers work together from the very beginning.

Designing a car is an exercise in balancing needs. That’s everything from the spectacular, like how to fit a V-16 engine that’s well over three feet long, to the mundane, like where to put the parking sensors. The process must be completed for a reasonable cost, even on a $3 million plus Bugatti, and the car needs to meet all relevant safety and emissions regulations. And while you’re at it, make the thing desirable. 

"I always like to regard it as a huge puzzle, and you can only solve it if you all work together," Heyl says. "Ultimately, there’s hundreds of people involved, total experts, world-class people in each of their fields… and to work together and create a product that will be there forever, or at least the next 100 years. It’s a great honor. I wouldn’t want to miss it."

More Design Week

Blob-shaped crossovers dominate our roads. It’s impossible to avoid them, each more devoid of appeal than the last. Aerodynamics and safety standards have shaped today’s cars to be largely the same flavor of bland. A few special vehicles break from that mold. 

Boxy, squared-off designs once thought too sharp for modern passenger vehicles are cropping up more by the day. Whether it’s the retro-inspired Ford Bronco, the excellent Lexus GX, or the futuristic Kia EV9, boxy SUVs have surged in popularity for the first time in decades. We asked three designers why they returned, and whether boxy rigs are here to stay.

How Did We Get Here?

1987 Toyota 4Runner

Up until recently, Toyota sold mostly blobby SUVs. The lone black sheep, the Toyota 4Runner, was first sold in 2009, a rare angular holdover in Toyota’s lineup. That changed with the Land Cruiser, fully redesigned and reimagined for 2024. 

"I think it was missing from the lineup," says Kevin Hunter, president of Calty Design Research, Toyota’s design studio. We were gravitating towards more crossover-type products and sexy SUVs because that's where the market was moving. As trends go, they cycle in and out. I think maybe the market just got a little tired of the same genre."

Toyota Land Cruiser

Toyota Land Cruiser

Hunter isn’t alone in that thought. Fashion is cyclical, as is car design. While aerodynamics often beg for a capsule-like design, consumers also just wanted something different, a break from the mold. Robert Lesnik, head of exterior vehicle design at Mercedes-Benz, echoes that thought.

"If you work for a brand that, let's say, does not have a heritage, then you might do something different, something that pops out of that sea of sameness, that sea of round cars," Lesnik says. "The [goal] for the designer of a certain brand is to do something unique, something with the individual style. So you want to stick out of the crowd."

SangYup Lee, head of the Hyundai and Genesis Global Design Center, turns that onus to the buyers.

"The customers are a moving target," he says. "Back in the day, all SUVs were boxy. Then, crossovers started to become mainstream. And then, in the last 10 years, the outdoor lifestyle became a global trend," he adds. "And it really accelerated when the pandemic hit.

So the cycle continues.

Kia EV9

Carmakers know if they can drum up emotion, there’s a better chance of making a sale. Designers bear the brunt of that challenge. First impressions are everything, after all. And right now, people want something that suggests ruggedness and adventure, even if that’s ultimately not their use case. 

"When you have a car that looks capable, that looks strong, of course, a boxy style is a very attractive choice for a customer," Lee says. "Look at the Bronco and the Land Cruiser."

"We did Santa Fe because of that," he said. "The outdoor [appeal], the efficiency, the big space inside."

2024 Hyundai Santa Fe

'When you have a car that looks capable, that looks strong, of course, a boxy style is a very attractive choice for a customer.'

Hunter saw this rising desire and used Toyota’s history to capitalize on it. 

"We thought there was an opportunity and a missing gap in our lineup that we could utilize, and bring Land Cruiser back to its roots, back to its origin," says Hunter. "[The overlanding crowd] wanted to see the Land Cruiser come back to its authentic roots."

Mercedes, on the other hand, used its heritage to ensure nothing would change at all.

"You always have to see how successful the product is," says Lesnik. [The G-Class] was, in the year 2017, still successful after 38 years on sale. And so we said, ‘Oh, don't, change it.’ If it's not broken, don't mess with it."

Actually, Tech Is Good

Mercedes G580 with EQ Technology

Efficiency is more important than ever, and common sense tells you a boxy design is less efficient than a round shape. But thanks to clever engineering, boxy cars can have their renaissance without destroying the environment. 

The Mercedes G-Wagen has looked virtually the same since its inception in 1979, despite vast changes in emissions and crash laws. That’s thanks to the people behind the scenes, says Lesnik.

"The turn indicator on the fender," he brings up as an example. "The engineers said, 'Ok, forget this. It won't work because of pedestrian protection.' Then I said, 'No, the turn indicator is important.' So they spent a lot of time on that, so that if a pedestrian hits it, then it would fall into the fender.

"It's a very tricky one, how to make it feasible," Lesnik added. "You have to put in much more effort, thinking, and clever engineering."

He goes on to say icons like the G-Class are more difficult to design since they have to stick to a central ethos. At least if you start from scratch, you don’t have to adhere to any borders. 

Adjusting shapes to better cut through air isn’t the only way to keep boxy cars alive. Huge leaps in hybrid tech have allowed cars with traditionally dismal fuel economy to remain practical.

"Utility vehicles are hard on MPG, there's no doubt," says Hunter. "But the fact we have a hybrid in the Land Cruiser, that helps. It also gives us a bit more performance, so there's an efficiency part of that, but there can also be a performance aspect as well."

Here to Stay, or Just a Fad?

The one constant with car design is that there’s no constant. A decade from now, the landscape will look totally different, a dozen trends having come and gone. Whether that spells a doomsday clock for the boxy car craze is anyone’s guess. But some designers are more hopeful than others.

"I hope we can continue with some continuity, whether it's 10, 20, 30 years from now," Hunter says. "Land Cruiser is Land Cruiser, and maybe we'll introduce some new products along the way that expand our market base a bit. But, fundamentally, I hope we stick to the core of what it represents."

Despite the G-Wagen persevering for so long, Lesnik remains a skeptic.

'If it's not broken, don't mess with it.'

"For the future, it’s going to be even more tricky. If you talk about this theme in five years, and the [G-Wagen] still looks how it looks, then you’ll know why we get our money," he says. 

Similarly, Lee understands that nothing is ever set in stone. Tastes change, so the cars will change too.

"At the same time [as these boxy cars], everybody still loves [normal crossovers]," he says. "At some point, people will look for something else, a different type of candy. This is why we really have to observe and watch the customer and their lifestyle. But right now, I must say that boxy is mainstream. It's the global trend at the moment."

Chris Perkins and Jeff Perez contributed to this story.

More From Design Week

At automaker dinners, you’ll often find designers scribbling on their napkins. To design is their compulsion, and if you ask them to sketch a car, they sure as hell won’t draw a Pinto. Invariably these sketches lean swoopy and sleek, even though in their day jobs, designers are most likely to lay down the stolid lines of some anonymous people-mover.

Not so for Horacio Pagani. His wildest dreams are not simply napkin fodder. Instead, they become reality.

Welcome to Design Week, our exploration of some of the most beautiful cars on the planet. From interviews with renowned experts to investigating trends that make up the current market, we've produced five days' worth of video and written content focused exclusively on design. Enjoy!

Signore Pagani has penned three stone-cold classics, sexy languid wedges with eyes like insects and the primal appeal of Sofia Loren. They are romantic, vaguely steampunk, totally Italian, and undeniably Pagani. Designing apex hypercars is every five-year-old’s dream—and every designer’s dream, of course. But it’s also a mountain of responsibility when hundreds of jobs—from laborers and designers to contractors—are on the line.

Build a car for such a limited market, and if it’s not well-received, the foundation crumbles.

So when Pagani launched just the third vehicle in its decades-long history last year—the Utopia—the stakes were as high as ever. It’s a terribly interesting tension to explore.

We sat down at Pagani’s Modena headquarters to discuss the topic in an exclusive, one-on-one interview with Horacio Pagani. We chatted about the fineries of chasing perfection, but in particular, the process of designing and realizing a car like the Utopia. 

[Ed's Note: This interview was translated from Italian to English in real-time by Horacio’s son, Christopher Pagani. The recorded interview tape was then translated separately by our colleagues at Motor1 Italia, and the two transcripts were combined and edited for clarity.]

The writer and The Boss at Pagani HQ. 

It all started on the floor.

"Before I talk about the Utopia, I want to give you a little background," Horacio Pagani says, leaning the elbows of his sport coat onto the glass conference table. 

While one Pagani model is in production, he explained, the next one is well into its development cycle, far further along than you’d guess. The new model lives always in the ether, stuck somewhere in Pagani’s head.

"When the Zonda S came out in 2001-2002, I had already started to set up the Huayra, which came out 10 years later."

Pagani Zonda R

Pagani Huayra Roadster BC

On holiday in Calabria at the turn of the century, Pagani brought along his drafting supplies, never one to stray from his work. One morning, inspiration struck. 

"I didn't have a drawing table, so I drew [with the paper spread on] the floor," Pagani said. He pulls up an image of the drawing and you can still see where Signore Pagani’s hand-penciled lines were interrupted by a tile joint, mid-stroke. "There the setting started."

Pagani leaned back in his chair and spread his hands apart, glancing at a poster of the Utopia, as if to reinforce the point.

'I didn't have a drawing table, so I drew [with the paper spread on] the floor.'

The Utopia was not designed yesterday, but conceived over years, starting life as an imaginative spark, but then labored over for years by in-house designers and engineers. Only once the first lines have been laid to paper, can the slow decade of development begin in earnest.

As such, there’s no set cadence for Pagani production. Only a sense that, when the tastes of a generation begin to change, so must Pagani Automobili. Subtle signs signal to Pagani that a new era must begin.

"There were things that made the Zonda become an iconic car. But I see the kids who come to the museum," Pagani said. "I ask them, 'What is your favorite car?' and they say, 'The Huayra,' not the Zonda."

Pagani Huayra Codalunga

So with the Huayra aging and new generations of devoted fans entering the Pagani museum, the time was ripe. But how do you nail cutting-edge taste (hypercars always let us glimpse of the future) in a car with a decade-long gestation? 

Simultaneously, how do you build something to last? The Huayra—and especially the Zonda—accomplished both. 

"It's the hardest thing, to work on things that are timeless," Pagani answered. "There are so many beautiful things around, you’re always going to find amazing things to add to your car that would look immediately beautiful. But then after some time, you will see them age very quickly, because sometimes they are too edgy, or they are too current, and they don't stay, they don't last."

'It's the hardest thing, to work on things that are timeless.'

Pagani listed a handful of supercars, old and new, contrasting their design qualities. He’s far more critical of his own cars than his competitors’, he notes, but his taste in the exercise skewed to cars of the 1990s and 2000s, when analog instruments filled the cabins, not a single touchscreen in sight. 

"If I get into the Porsche Carrera GT, I look at the interior, I get this sensation inside that for me, nothing has aged; There is a key to start the car in a traditional way, it's just my taste."

It’s the reason you won’t find a big, gaudy central screen in the cutting-edge Utopia. Hindsight. Also time.

No central screens here 

That’s the benefit of a decade-long timeline to build a new vehicle. Pagani is able to let an initial design age for a year or two to gauge its longevity, while mainstream automakers compress the process into half the time. 

"We work on the design a lot and we let it age, right? We let it age for maybe a year or two, and then we realize if it has aged immediately or not. And then we have an extremely critical sense. That is, we do not fall in love with the work we are doing," Pagani said. 

He explained that while his team feels a responsibility to the work, they must also approach it with objectivity. They must maintain a critical sense of the car at all times. 

"We tend not to fall in love with our creations. This is to keep the distance between what you are designing."

The more we talked, the clearer it became; Pagani approaches his designs more like a craftsman than an artist. These cars are flights of fancy, for sure. Just look at them. But they are also, from the moment they roll off the production line, simply cars that must be sold.

"We are a small family business that has to make things that customers buy. We can't make cars just to please our ego. We have to make cars to please the customer's ego." Pagani said. 

"If the Pagani customer tells you that he's not interested in a hybrid vacuum, even if it has 1,200 horsepower or 1,000 horsepower, you have to listen to him. He has really refused the hybrid car. You have to try to please him. If he says he wants a naturally aspirated or turbo V-12, you have to try to go in that direction."

'We tend not to fall in love with our creations. This is to keep the distance between what you are designing.'

At the end of the day, Pagani said, his customers are the focus. They ultimately judge Horacio Pagani’s success as a designer and Pagani Automobili as an automaker. They provide direction and clarity.

To that end, you’d consider the Utopia an immediate success. Automobili Pagani’s track record ensures its cars are sold out for the better part of the next decade, with customers purchasing vehicles that haven’t even been unveiled, or perhaps even designed. 

That faith allows for a long roadmap, a plan adaptable to ever-shifting legislation and consumer taste. Customers believe Pagani will deliver, no matter what, and they’ve put money on it. 

A rarely seen room at Pagani HQ, where cars are customized

"In December 2023, we made the organizational chart with the team of people who will work on our new projects until 2032," Pagani said. "If we look at other brands, they are moving to make SUVs, to make electric cars, to make hybrid cars, et cetera."

Pagani doesn’t chase that nonsense. Even Ferrari builds an SUV now, and many hybrids, but Horacio Pagani knows it’s not what his customers want. 

"The market responds to you the moment it buys something. I mean, if you make a magazine, you don't ask the consumer if it’s a good magazine… When you have managed to sell all the magazines, it means you have made the right product."

As with the other times I’ve interviewed Horacio Pagani, he’s key to point to Pagani’s continued investments in vertical manufacturing, product development, and especially the training and retention of employees.

You’ll never find a set of happier workers in the company cantina. The Utopia’s design may have started with a spark, but ultimately, a team of bright minds and capable hands moved the car from idea to reality, Pagani said. 

"At the end of the day there's nothing left to do but invest in people, ensuring that education always grows, the know-how and the possibilities to create extraordinary things in the future. But it has to come from within."

The Pagani Utopia

You've probably never heard the name "Calty."  But walk through any crowded parking lot in America, and you'll see a dozen or more cars penned by the US design studio—you just don't know it.

In 1973, Toyota established Calty in the US (Fun fact: the name "Calty" is the blending of "California" and "Toyota"). It was the first Japanese automaker to open a design studio in America, and it allowed Toyota to better understand the market. In the 52 years since, Calty has quietly designed some of America's most popular cars.

Welcome to Design Week, our exploration of some of the most beautiful cars on the planet. From interviews with renowned experts to investigating trends that make up the current market, we've produced five days' worth of video and written content focused exclusively on design. Enjoy!

Two Scale Models In the Lobby of Calty Design

The first US Celica, the original Tacoma, the original Prius, the Avalon, and the RAV4 all come from Calty. More recently, Calty worked its design magic on the new Land Cruiser and 4Runner SUVs. Plus, the company has top-secret projects behind closed doors.

The design firm's 85,000 square-foot Newport Beach, California, facility is relatively small by most auto conglomerate standards, but holds all the tools necessary to bring Toyota's ideas to life at scale.

A massive modeling mill transforms hunks of clay into rough vehicle designs in less than a day. A virtual reality studio allows Calty to share previews with its colleagues in the US and abroad. And two turntables on-property mean executives can see what the final product might look like on an auto show floor.

Being in the US, and with a small-ish team of around 120 employees between its Newport Beach and Ann Arbor, Michigan facilities, gives Calty a distinct advantage: More freedom to explore without Big Brother constantly looking over its shoulder.

"Sometimes when you have a small studio, you can operate outside of the corporate structure… You can get a pure statement out of a small studio," President Kevin Hunter says as we walk through the halls of Calty's Newport Beach facility. "I think that was really part of the role of the original Calty, was to take it out of Toyota's corporate environment and let the designers create unfettered ideas."

Hunter became president of Calty in 2007 after working for more than 40 years in various roles within the company. The biggest notches in his belt, prior to becoming head honcho, were the second-generation RAV4 and the experimental FXV concept from 1985.

Kevin Hunter, President of Calty Design Research

Under Kevin's leadership, Calty has sculpted some of the most jaw-dropping Toyota vehicles to date—including the sultry red sports car parked in its lobby. The FT-1 concept started as a relatively basic idea: What would a new Supra look like?

"We just thought something was missing from our lineup," Kevin tells me. "We were inspired by Akio Toyoda, who is a racer and a car enthusiast, and we thought the timing would be really great, to propose that car to Toyota as a comeback message in our sports car lineup that had been missing. So we simply made a proposal to my boss… he loved the idea of bringing it back, and we got to work on it."

Kevin tasked his team with creating a modern interpretation of the automaker's iconic sports car. They would draw inspiration from CEO Akio Toyoda's racing success and from the brand's history books, examining cars like the 2000GT and fourth-gen Supra.

'Sometimes when you have a small studio you can operate outside of the corporate structure… You can get a pure statement out of a small studio.'

But even with Calty's clear vision, the team went into the project mostly blind.

"When we developed FT-1, we had no package," Kevin says. "So the BMW platform didn't exist in our minds, we didn't even know about it at the time."

Since BMW and Toyota had yet to ink a deal on the production Supra and Z4, the FT-1 shared its proportions with the then-new Lexus LC500, which explains why the original concept was much larger than the production Supra. When Toyota green-lit the concept for production, that presented its own set of challenges.

"As a sports car, it’s a bit big," Kevin notes of the FT-1. "So things had to get condensed down quite a bit to be that type of sports car. The biggest challenge getting it into production was taking these long, sexy, beautifully sculpted forms and condensing it down to a much smaller footprint."

The Toyota FT-1 Concept debuted at the Detroit Auto Show in 2014 after a relatively quick five months of development. The Supra went into production five years later in 2019. Even with Toyota pondering the idea of a new Supra in conjunction with BMW, though, it was the public’s reception that truly pushed the idea over the edge.

"You pour your heart and soul into these projects and sometimes you don’t know what the reaction will be. But we had a really good feeling there would be a lot of excitement around [FT-1]... I think Toyota looked at that also and went, 'Hm, the reaction has been great. Maybe we can do something with it.'"

'You pour your heart and soul into these projects and sometimes you don’t know what the reaction will be. But we had a really good feeling there would be a lot of excitement around [FT-1].'

The FT-1 remains an all-time favorite for Kevin among the laundry list of vehicles he helped create throughout his 40-year career. But it’s a relatively small—albeit beautiful—piece of Calty’s history.

Most of Calty’s work is focused on volume sellers, rather than sleek concepts, and trucks and SUVs are a big part of Toyota’s business. The company has designed or had a major role in designing every generation of the 4Runner since 1983, the Tacoma since 1995, and more recently, models like the Tundra, the Sequoia, and of course, the venerable Land Cruiser.

"We understand the truck market very well in the US," Kevin admits with a coy smile.

Toyota Tacoma Design Sketches

One thing Calty wanted to ensure with the newest Land Cruiser specifically was that the iconic SUV returned to its roots. The squared-off proportions, rugged capabilities, and no-nonsense style were all crucial in returning the Land Cruiser to form.

"We had a really great history with the Land Cruiser, and we sort of went away from it. We went to a more luxury, more premium product. And we kind of lost focus on the roots of what Land Cruiser really was and represented—a pure, rugged statement. It was part of our history and part of our heritage, we just wanted to get back to that."

New Toyota Land Cruiser

The Land Cruiser, as with any good design, started out as a sketch. Calty starts by ideating each project on paper, jotting down what—it hopes—will eventually translate into the final look. Once approved, those sketches are transformed into 3D renderings.

"The hardest part is getting from a sketch to a 3D property," Kevin says. "Sketches are sketches—they’re 2D and you can work a lot of magic in 2D to make something look amazing. But putting that in 3D is another story. And then there are packaging constraints that we have for engineering, safety issues, all sorts of things that go into it to make it look amazing and incredible and beautiful."

Although Calty works mostly unencumbered, safe from Toyota peering over its shoulder, every design must be approved by Japan. Executives across the Pacific ultimately have the final say.

"There’s always give and take," Kevin notes.

But more recently, Toyota has opened up the door to Calty, allowing Kevin and his team to be more involved in each vehicle from the beginning. That means working closer with the engineering and product planning teams rather than designing around something that’s already in the later stages of development. That makes it easier for Kevin and his team to decide on what the final design could look like from the beginning—and ultimately, it yields better-looking vehicles.

"Over the last decade, designers have been involved in the early stages of the project," he says. "So we have a hand in proportions, wheel size, tire diameter, overhangs, width, height—everything. So we can start with a good platform, a good architecture, which makes designing that product a lot easier as we move into figuring out what it's going to look like from a styling point of view. Design has a good seat at the table, and I think you notice our products are getting better."

Most people would likely agree with that sentiment, especially lately. Toyota is on a roll. But for a brand as ubiquitous as Toyota, many are blind to the hundreds of designers who work tirelessly behind closed doors.

But for Kevin, name recognition isn’t important.

"I don’t know if the consumer thinks about Calty when they’re looking at a design, I hope they’re just thinking about the umbrella of Toyota. Saying, 'Oh, Toyota is designing more exciting products, they’re producing more exciting cars that I like.' And that helps all of our reputations… I like to think we’re one organization, one team all working together."

More From Toyota

For well over a decade, drivers around the world have enjoyed better headlights. Adaptive Drive Beam (ADB) moves beyond the old-school binary of high and low beams, taking advantage of modern lighting technology that allows parts of a headlight’s beam to dim for oncoming drivers, reducing glare. In America, the tech contravened Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 108, which only allowed for high and low beams, but the rule was amended in 2022.

Great! Well, three years later, the only automaker to sell an ADB system in the US is Rivian, and no other car companies have immediate plans to offer this sort of tech here. And except for Rivian, everyone is unhappy about the state of things. So how did we get here?

Mercedes-Benz debuted an early ADB system with the 2009 E-Class, and Audi’s first all-LED Matrix lighting system arrived on the 2013 A8. In essence, the Audi system and those that followed pair a headlight made up of multiple LEDs with a camera mounted in the rearview mirror.

When the car’s high beams are on, the system uses the camera to detect and identify objects ahead and selectively turn off LEDs to shade them. If there’s an oncoming car, you can leave your high beams on, but the section of the beam that would otherwise blind the opposing driver goes dark.

The upside of such a system is obvious, especially in a world where modern headlights are so damned bright. With ADB, the promise is better safety for the vehicle’s driver, and for everyone else on the road. And, of course, a profitable optional extra for automakers to offer. Naturally, automakers petitioned NHTSA to start looking at amending FMVSS 108 a little over a decade ago, and in 2018, the agency put out a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking outlining its plans. The news was not well received, as evidenced by comments from various automakers and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

Rather than follow the globally accepted SAE J3069 standard for ADB, NHTSA decided to create its own standard. According to the IIHS, the problem with this is twofold: First, the ruling attempted to apply some of the original binary low-and-high-beam thinking to FMVSS 108, limiting the potential.

"With ADB, the promise is better safety for the vehicle’s driver, and for everyone else on the road."

"The proposal would require ADB photometry inside any area shadowed for another vehicle to meet existing FMVSS 108 low beam minima, while the intensity outside of the shadowed area (or when no other vehicles were present) would be subject to the existing high beam maxima," said IIHS senior research editor Matthew Brumbelow in a 2018 comment to NHTSA. "By attempting to shoehorn ADB into the standards written for static headlights in this fashion, the proposal will prevent ADB systems from realizing both their full visibility-enhancing and glare-reducing potential."

In other words, we shouldn’t limit ADB to preexisting luminosity levels because when used to its full capability, the tech can allow for even brighter high beams without harming the vision of opposing drivers.

Second, these requirements would effectively keep existing ADB systems sold around the globe from offering their full functionality to the US market. Some automakers sell ADB-capable systems in the US, but with functionality limited to comply with FMVSS 108. The hope with the amended rule was that a simple software update would allow full ADB functionality, but NHTSA’s standards are such that automakers say they can’t make existing ADB systems compatible. Essentially, to offer ADB in the US, a company would need to build an entirely new system.

That’s what Rivian did, and so far it’s the only one; The electric truck maker’s ADB system debuted with the updated R1S and R1T last year. Whereas some of the latest systems from Audi and Mercedes use over a million LED pixels that can effectively project monochromatic images, Rivian’s system is seemingly simple from a hardware perspective. Each headlight has 35 LEDs carefully affixed on a printed circuit board (PCB).

"FMVSS requests for transition zones, and you need to design the PCB for those transition areas," explains Carlos Montes Relanzon, Rivian’s senior manager for lighting systems. "Otherwise, if you bring a European matrix, it ain’t going to happen, it’s not going to work. You need to design it for this."

Relazon said that Rivian actually tested a pre-existing ADB system from a European OEM and it failed the FMVSS test "miserably." So the need to develop a system in-house and specific for these regulations was obvious. But, while Rivian only sells cars in the US for now, it tells Motor1 that its ADB system is compatible with European and Chinese standards, so when the day comes, it can offer this tech abroad.

"With FMVSS, there’s a very well detailed test structure, test setup that we need to follow to get approval," says Relanzon’s colleague Xueming Jiang, a system engineer for lighting. “But for the [European Commission] and China, the test is more subjective. You go onto the public road and drive with people from the approval authority."

The fact that Rivian was able to create and launch an ADB system in two years is remarkable. Typically, the auto industry moves slowly, but Rivian, being a smaller, newer and less bureaucratic company than mainstream automakers, can get things done more quickly, Relanzon said. There’s fewer layers involved in the decision-making process, and both Relanzon and Jiang describe a healthy collaboration between different teams.

Rivian’s approach to hardware and software also offers a key advantage. The new R1T and R1S debuted a new “zonal architecture,” with fewer, more powerful ECUs grouped together in three geographical "zones" handling all vehicle functions. Relazon explains that the Rivian software team allows the lighting team full access to all the vehicle’s sensors, and zonal architecture allows for very quick iterative updates throughout the development process. At a traditional automaker, making such changes often involves an external supplier, which stretches out the process over months. Rivian can instead do it in minutes.

This level of integration—both within the company, and within the hardware and software of the vehicle—also means Rivian can push out over-the-air software updates for the lighting system that other automakers simply can’t. Rivian says it plans to constantly update its ADB system, too.

So, Rivian has a head start on everyone else. Other automakers are looking into developing their own US-market ADB systems, but it’s unclear when—or if—we’ll see anything. The IIHS told Motor1 in a statement that NHTSA didn’t update the rule based on any of the comments the IIHS provided.

With FMVSS 108 seemingly set in stone for the foreseeable future, Rivian may remain one of the only automakers to offer ADB in the US. Consider the huge costs/time in developing an all-new ADB system that’s also compatible with global regulations, and weigh that against all the other things automakers have to invest in.

It may be yet more decades before we Americans see the light, so to speak.

Dive Deeper Into the Rabbit Hole

A lot of people want cheerful, dependable EVs from trusted brands like Honda. The company’s first EV, the Prologue, outsold its GM platform mates in 2024 and only got better for 2025. The Japanese automaker has poured millions into its Ohio “EV Hub,” the first products of which will hit the road in 2026. But as Honda visualizes a future of wedge-shaped EVs, it needs to think inside the box. 

The answer is the box: Honda needs to bring back the Element as an EV.

The original Element was a utilitarian adventurer’s dream: Tiny on the outside, huge on the inside, with clamshell doors and a split tailgate that opened to reveal a water-resistant interior and stowable, lie-flat seating. It predicted today’s automotive outdoor lifestyle boom in ways few would have imagined. The Element enjoyed niche popularity during its eight-year run and endures as a cult classic, with low-mileage examples selling for upwards of $10,000 to 15,000 in places like Cars & Bids.

Thing is, the Element’s appeal as an adventure machine was matched only by its usefulness as a do-anything runabout. Those doors that are so useful for loading bikes and surfboards? They’re also perfect for shuttling boxes full of servers or Mom’s collection of knicknacks. The lie-flat seats made for camping are also great for catching Zzzs between shifts at Target and Olive Garden. The Element is your friend who’s up for anything, no questions asked, and we all need one of those these days.

So much room for activities.

The Element would make a great EV, specifically, because a so-called “skateboard” platform would accentuate its strengths without any serious drawbacks. Skateboard-platform EVs notably add height and bulk to the floor of a vehicle, but the Element’s box shape and ample cargo room negate any packaging concerns. A frunk would add even more usable cargo space, especially if it doubled as a cooler. While we’re at it, why not add an off-road package with all-terrain tires, a couple extra inches of suspension travel, plastic cladding, and a solar-panel roof to power accessories? Honda product planners, let me know where to send the invoice.

Honda’s 400-volt 0 Series architecture promises to be a great starting point for something like this. According to Honda, cars on this platform should be good for over 300 miles of range and 20-to-80-percent fast-charges in as little as 15 minutes. The original Element was never about performance, so Honda’s engineers could optimize for efficiency over acceleration. While some might say an EV’s range limitations cramp a lifestyle vehicle’s style, who’s really venturing further than the nearest state or national park? To the two people who just raised their hands, your 4Runner isn’t going anywhere.

Hyundai and Ford are launching rugged lifestyle-focused EVs in the Ioniq 5 XRT and the Mustang Mach-E Rally. Hell, Rivian has practically built an entire brand around the concept. I think Volkswagen is missing a golden opportunity by not offering a factory camper version of the ID.Buzz, but that’s a story for another time. Whenever Subaru decides to make a Forester or Outback Wilderness EV, it’ll almost surely print money. Point is, Honda has the chance to capitalize on a beloved nameplate and launch a genuinely unique, useful EV at the same time.

With its Marysville EV hub, Honda at least in theory has the infrastructure in place to make and sell an Element EV without digging itself too deep in a tariff hole. If it wants to be price-competitive, it’ll have to match or beat the Rivian R2’s target of around $45,000. But if the Prologue has shown us anything, it’s that people value a brand’s good reputation, something Honda has in spades.

A rugged, useful EV with a known name from a trusted brand? Honda, stop playing around and give us what we want.

More Opinions

They say perfection takes time. SSC founder and CEO Jerod Shelby takes that phrase to heart.

SSC wowed us with the first Tuatara concept way back in 2011. It took another seven years for the first production car to make its public debut in Monterey in 2018. Now, nearly 15 years since its debut, the supercar maker is finally getting its highly anticipated hypercar into the hands of its first few customers.

The question remains, was it worth the wait?

Short answer: Yes. Hell yes. Built entirely from the ground up, the Tuatara uses a twin-turbocharged 5.9-liter flat-plane crank V-8 that makes an absolutely mind-boggling 1,350 horsepower on pump fuel or 1,750 on ethanol. That gets it to 60 in just about 2.5 seconds and on nearly to 300 miles per hour flat out.

A seven-speed single-clutch gearbox manages all that power, which is sent exclusively to the rear wheels. That's right, 1,350 hp on the back tires. A clever traction management system and a custom hydraulic suspension help control the madness, which means you can safely rip the Tuatara on public roads without (too much) fear of coming face-to-face with a concrete barrier.

The design—even though it's nearly old enough for a learner's permit—is still beautiful. Former Pininfarina designer Jason Castriota penned the aerospace-inspired, ultra-streamlined shape. Castriota is the same artist responsible for the Ferrari P4/5 and the Ford Mustang Mach-E, so he knows a thing or two about slippery designs.

Buyers can choose from two versions: The standard Tuatara, which was made for high-speed runs (the same car that reached an officially recorded top speed of 282.9 mph), or the track-focused Striker, which comes with a bevy of aerodynamic upgrades. The Striker's various wings and things yield 1,100 pounds of downforce at 160 miles per hour, with 45.4 percent of that downforce applied to the front of the car. The track-focused tweaks are meant to make the Tuatara an absolute monster at your local circuit, and this trim seems to be a favorite among early buyers.

"Once we introduced [the Striker] last year, it seems like this is what everyone is ordering," CEO Jerod Shelby tells me from the passenger seat. "It just looks more aggressive with bigger rockers and all the fins and dive planes… We're doing a lot of track testing right now, getting ready to try and break a lap record at COTA or Laguna Seca this year."

Sadly, my test is relegated to the highways and backroads around this year's Moda Miami event in Coral Gables. Not exactly Laguna Seca. Nevertheless, puttering around public roads in SSC's 1,350-hp monster machine for 15 minutes gave me a brief preview of what this car is truly capable of. And it's impressive.

I slowly dip into the accelerator pedal’s travel on the first highway onramp just to get a feel for this car's immensely powerful V-8. It's impressive. Even though I'm not pushing this car anywhere near its limit, the Tuatara's acceleration is incomparable. The back end twitches just enough under hard acceleration to get those butterflies in my belly a'fluttering, but it's simultaneously moving in a straight line at speeds my puny mind can hardly comprehend. The Bugatti Chiron never felt this quick, and the Rimac Nevera wasn't anywhere near as visceral.

The V-8 behind my head sounds like it's trying to escape the engine bay while the seven-speed automated manual is firing off shifts with unbelievable quickness. Shelby says the seven-speed shifts at a rate of sub-100 milliseconds, and I believe it.

With more bravery, I push the Tuatara harder on the highway—third gear, fourth gear, and well into illegal speeds before traffic slows me down. Again, even at these speeds, the Tuatara Striker doesn't feel anywhere near its ultimate capabilities. And frankly, that kind of insatiable speed is addicting.

What’s even more impressive about the Tuatara is how well it handles the monotony of stop signs and speed bumps. The hydraulic suspension in the softest setting does a surprising job of soaking up bumps. The seats aren’t super comfy—they typically aren’t in hypercars—but it never once felt backbreaking. An abundance of glass makes the tight cockpit feel less claustrophobic, and even though the seven-speed takes some finagling to figure out, it’s not all that difficult when you know what to do.

Even in just 15 minutes, the Tuatara blew me away. It’s immensely powerful, addictingly quick, and frankly, not all that terrible to live with. I would have loved to spend more time with the Striker on the track to uncork its full potential, but for a hypercar nearly 15 years in the making, I’d say it was well worth the wait.

Supercar Reviews

Just before the floor fell out beneath Detroit in the late 2000s, Ford partnered with Airstream for something pretty cool. The impossibly shiny Ford Airstream Concept debuted at the 2007 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. At the time, the collab was two-fold: It paid homage to Airstream while simultaneously showcasing the future of the industry, which Ford believed was crossovers. Boy did they get that one right.

In Ford's press release for the Airstream concept, the company projected that 3 million crossovers could be sold annually by 2010. Crossovers and SUVs have since blended together to make them largely indistinguishable, but in 2023, these vehicles topped 8 million sales. Per Global Market Insight, the segment was valued at $565 billion that year. But you didn't click this post to wade through sales stats.

You want to see the egg-shaped concept that sort of resembles a first-generation Ford Edge. That's not entirely accidental, since the Edge also arrived in 2007. However, the Edge didn't have a big gullwing door on the passenger side, nor did it have a wraparound sofa in the back with a modernized digital lava lamp in the middle. Lava lamp? Okay, Ford didn't get the future entirely right here.

To be fair, designers channeled Stanley Kubrick's epic 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey for inspiration. That explains the lava lamp, not to mention the abundance of bright red for the interior and window trim. Fortunately, there was no sign of a homicidal computer named HAL.

The Airstream Concept had screens, though, most definitely a prelude of things to come. The driver had a floating instrument panel with a single gauge display and capacitive controls—sadly, an unwelcome prelude to modern motoring. It had a bevy of cameras for exterior views, and in the center of the dash was a dual-view screen that, among other things, could play DVDs. Remember DVDs?

In the rear, that weird lava lamp doubled as a 360-degree screen capable of playing more old-time DVDs. It was the focal point of the Airstream's main cabin, which was decked out more like a lounge with room to stretch out. We're fairly certain Ford had no idea of the “Van Life” movement to come, but this Ford Airstream certainly could've been a contender for wayward souls seeking life on the road. Plug in a few water jugs and a composting toilet and you're all set. We've seen people living full-time in smaller vehicles.

This wasn't a static concept, either. Ford called it a plug-in hybrid but it's not what you think; It didn't pair a combustion engine with a battery. Instead, it used a hydrogen fuel cell with a battery. That's not a typo—the Airstream Concept had a 336-volt lithium-ion battery pack good for an estimated 25 miles. The hydrogen fuel cell was used to charge the battery instead of powering the motor, with the automaker claiming a total range of 305 miles until everything was depleted.

There was never any pretense of production with the Ford Airstream Concept. It was designed to present Ford's vision of the near future for the automobile, and you know what? Barring a few tidbits like the hydrogen fuel cell (and lava lamp), the company just about nailed it. Ditch the red and give it a normal paint job and the Airstream wouldn't look out of place today.

Usually, the fate of such concepts is a dark one but this time we have good news. Ford recently showed off its Heritage Fleet Vault located at the company's global headquarters in Dearborn, and the Airstream Concept is nestled in there among the Mustangs, F-150s, concepts, and other vehicles chosen to honor the Blue Oval's legacy.

More Concepts We Forgot

Mercedes-Benz really wants us to believe that the new CLA is revolutionary. First teased as a concept in 2023, Mercedes promised that the forthcoming production car would offer impressive range and efficiency thanks to revolutionary tech initially previewed in the Vision EQXX concept.

Mercedes kept hyping the CLA up, drip-feeding us information with the implication that this was it—the Mercedes that would make Mercedes Mercedes again. Now, the production car is here, and while the range is impressive (likely around 400 miles on the EPA cycle for the single-motor model) not much else is.

The CLA is a reflection of the hard reality that Mercedes—and other brands—currently face. It’s caught between regulators pushing for EVs and customers who aren’t giving up internal-combustion engines as quickly as many thought. So, it has to continue down the expensive path of investing in both types of propulsion, while also fending off the existential threat of Chinese EVs that significantly undercut them on price.

The CLA rides on a new platform called Mercedes-Benz Modular Architecture, or MMA for short. Breaking with its previous approach, this platform allows for both internal-combustion and all-electric propulsion, which is inherently a compromise. Engineers use the term "package protection," which, in car development, is when you leave space for a component you may need to use. A great example is the current-generation 911. Porsche left space in the transmission for an electric motor even though the company was undecided at that point whether it would make a hybrid model.

There’s a lot of package protection that goes into a shared EV/combustion platform. You’ve got to build in height fora big battery pack in the floor, and have a long hood with room for the engine. But for either the combustion or electric versions, you’re left with a big space that goes unused. That means extra material, extra weight, and extra cost for nothing.

The CLA is a reflection of the hard reality that Mercedes—and other brands—currently face.

Not all EVs that share a combustion platform are bad. BMW in particular has done well with the i4 and i5, but even those are compromised. Both are awkwardly tall, making things challenging for designers and worse for aerodynamicists—frontal area is a function of height and width, and you want to get that as small as possible—and they’re heavy. The reason the new BMW M5 is so heavy is not simply because it's a hybrid; it’s because of all the extra material that goes into accommodating a fully electric powertrain in the same bodyshell.

And the CLA is quite heavy. The top-level CLA350 weighs 4,706 pounds—143 pounds more than a base short-wheelbase S-Class in Europe. Surely the gas-powered CLA will be lighter, but the point here is that neither it nor the CLA EV are as light as they could be.

Mercedes actually made a dedicated EV platform for its EQE and EQS models, but consumers roundly rejected them, at least, in part, because of their odd design. A design that reflected a less compromised approach to EV engineering. And now, BMW will soon release a pure-EV platform with the upcoming iX3.

To play devil’s advocate, it’s actually impressive given all these compromises that Mercedes made such an efficient EV. There’s a plethora of good hardware here: an 800-volt architecture that enables faster charging among many other benefits, new motors designed in-house, silicon-carbide inverters, a more energy-dense battery pack, and a two-speed transmission for the rear motor.

The CLA’s drag coefficient is low at 0.21 cD compared with 0.23 cD for the old CLA—though that gain is offset somewhat by the new car’s larger frontal area. And the internal-combustion version has an interesting 48-volt hybrid system.

But all of that is paired with the worst instincts of 2020s Mercedes. Chintzy design with three-pointed stars everywhere you look, an interior that eschews buttons for yet more screens, and LED ambient lighting on seemingly every single surface possible. While I haven’t sat in the car yet, it appears to be what too many modern Mercedes-Benz models are—a triumph of style over substance.

Oh, and did I mention the CLA features an AI-powered in-car radio app made in partnership with Will.i.am? I think you get the picture.

Mercedes wanted us to bring to mind the great models of its past in hyping up the new CLA. I was hoping this could be another 190E moment, but it’s not. That car was totally uncompromising: This isn’t.
To be fair, Mercedes can’t build cars like it did 40 years ago, and that’s been true for some time. And while the CLA promises some good things, I have a hard time imagining it’s a return to the glory days.

The New CLA

Complexity in cars is a funny thing. It’s tempting to say that it’s all bad, that more is always less, but complexity has given us the wonderful cars of today. It’s more that complexity must be done right, rather than avoided.

Nissan’s variable-compression engines are fascinating and complex. I remember when they debuted with a sense that Nissan had pulled off something extraordinary. Frankly, it did. But increasingly, it doesn’t look like the savior of internal-combustion once hoped.

The first variable-compression ratio engine was completed in 1919 by Sir Harry Ricardo to determine the detonation point of certain fuels. Ricardo built a large, 2.0-liter single-cylinder engine with a mechanism that raised or lowered the cylinder head relative to the crankshaft. The project, funded by Shell, laid the groundwork for how we measure octane to this day.

Obviously, Ricardo’s variable-compression engine was not practical for use outside the lab, but in the years after its development, many engineers tried to make variable-compression practical. Nissan evidently spent 20 years working on its own version, finally debuting it in 2016 and putting it into production with the 2019 Infiniti QX50.

The possible benefits of variable compression are huge. Engines run more efficiently at higher compression ratios, but the higher you go, the more you introduce the chance for detonation, when the air/fuel mixture is compressed so much it explodes before the spark plug fires. This is especially true with a turbocharged engine.

How It Works

An SAE paper from 1964, A Variable Compression Ratio Engine Development, details a handful of approaches to achieving variable compression. One idea was to have a sort of piston within a piston, with the inner part fixed to a connecting rod, and an outer part free to move within certain boundaries; another was to use a variable-displacement auxiliary combustion chamber; what’s most interesting to us, though, is using a mechanism to change the position of the piston relative to the head.

That’s what Nissan uses. A 2003 SAE paper authored by Nissan engineers describes it as a “multi-link” mechanism. Starting from the bottom, there is what Nissan calls a “control shaft,” which has a single arm connected to an electric motor. The motor rotates the shaft between two positions for low and high compression. For each cylinder, there’s a link that looks like a connecting rod and bolts at the bottom to the shaft. This is what Nissan calls the "control link."

The control link pins at the top with a piece that looks like the bottom half of the parallelogram. Nissan calls this a "lower link." The lower link bolts around the crankshaft with a mirrored piece to form the full parallelogram, which can rotate about the crank. The top half of the parallelogram and the pinned rod that connects to the piston form what Nissan calls the "upper link." When the control shaft rotates, the parallelogram-shaped piece rotates in turn, changing the position of the piston relative to the cylinder head. (The piston stroke also changes slightly between high- and low-compression settings.)

Nissan varies the compression ratio between 8.0:1, a fairly low number—though typical for a turbocharged engine—and up to 14.0:1, very high for any engine, let alone one with boost. When the driver wants maximum power, the multi-link mechanism shifts and the engine runs with its lowest compression. But at low loads, the mechanism shifts again to its high-compression setting, since the likelihood of detonation is lower as there’s less air and fuel going into the engine.

The VC-Turbo comes in two forms, a 1.5-liter three-cylinder used in the Rogue and the (not sold in the US) Qashqai, and a 2.0-liter four-cylinder used in various Infiniti crossovers, the Altima sedan until this year, and the new Murano.

Actually Building the Thing

While initially the VC-Turbo engine received a lot of positive attention, and deservedly so for the accomplishment it represented, things quickly started to go south.

A November 2018 Car and Driver story noted that the new Infiniti QX50 posted a 6.5-mpg combined improvement over its V-6 predecessor, and estimated that the variable-compression system accounted for 2.6 of those. But for all the extra complexity, the QX50 only scored 1 mpg better on C/D’s 75-mph highway test than an Audi Q5, 27 mpg vs 26 mpg, and trailed the 31-mpg BMW X3. The magazine’s test of a 2022 Rogue noted disappointing highway fuel-economy figures compared to its naturally aspirated four-cylinder predecessor, though the switch to VC-Turbo power did bring acceleration improvements.

The Altima VC-Turbo fared better in terms of delivering segment-topping performance and fuel economy, but sales were evidently so slow, Nissan discontinued the model. Still, the problems for the VC-Turbo go much deeper.

2025 Nissan Altima

In December 2023, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation into reports of VC-Turbo engine failures in the 2019-2021 Altima and QX50, and 2021-2023 Rogue. In a response to NHTSA’s questions, Nissan said bearing failures were the cause. In the four-cylinder, Nissan found failures of both lower link and control link bearings, and in the three-cylinder, the crankshaft bearings proved problematic.

Failure rates are evidently low. Nissan told NHTSA that through February 14, 2024, it found 889 warranty/goodwill service claims for new short blocks on the 454,840 vehicles covered by the investigation. The automaker also pointed out that it found that bearings did not fail spontaneously, and that "bearing failures progress over time and provide drivers with multiple forms of audible and visible warnings including abnormal noise, rough running, malfunction indicator lights (MIL) and warning messages in the instrument cluster, depending on progression and design logic."

Nissan reported that “loss of motive power” for the four-cylinder is no more than 0.39 percent of engines produced and 0.15 percent for the three-cylinder. Plus, the automaker notes that it has made manufacturing improvements to these engines since their launch, which has decreased incidence rates. And finally, that the company isn’t aware of accidents as a result of these failures.

Of course, bearing failures are not unique to these engines. But it must sting for Nissan that on top of the disappointing performance of the VC-Turbo, its failures are traced back to the very set of components that make it unique. It would be another thing if it was, say, piston-ring failure.

Still, the variable-compression system is very complicated—there’s just a lot of moving parts, and thus, more bearings, and more failure points. Variable valve timing and lift has long been ubiquitous in internal-combustion engines, but these systems aren’t really all that complicated from a hardware perspective. Just some sort of phaser to shift the camshafts back and forth to use different cam profiles, really.

Is There Any Hope?

All of this comes as Nissan is in an existential crisis. According to a December 4, 2024 Reuters report, Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida blamed its dire situation on the automaker’s lack of hybrid offerings, especially in North America. One imagines that the VC-Turbo cost huge, huge sums to develop given its decades-long gestation. If Nissan had put some of that money toward further developing hybrid powertrain offerings, perhaps it could compete with rivals rather than most likely ending up being subsumed into one.

And while variable compression does bring performance and fuel-economy improvements over fixed-compression engines, the benefits are nothing like as big as going hybrid. Let’s take the 2021 Rogue AWD as an example, as it was available with both a 2.5-liter four-cylinder, and a 1.5-liter VC-Turbo three-cylinder. The switch from conventional engine to VC-Turbo brought performance gains—Car and Driver noted a 0.4-second 0-60 mph improvement—and bumped combined fuel economy from 29 MPG to 33 MPG.

Impressive, but let’s compare that to hybrid and non-hybrid versions of the 2021 RAV4. Going from base model to hybrid net a 0.7-second improvement in 0-60 time and raised combined fuel economy from 28 mpg to 40 mpg. And arguably, the hybrid RAV4 is simpler from a hardware perspective, given the Toyota Hybrid System uses a pretty simple battery, two electric motors, a very basic internal-combustion engine, and ditches a conventional gearbox. It’s all well-proven, too, unlike the VC-Turbo.

Now, with Nissan’s future very unclear as it looks to be rescued from its current predicament, it’s unclear if variable-compression has much life left in it. A ton of focus will be on hybrids and fully electric cars.

For engineering enthusiasts, it’s bittersweet. Putting variable compression into production is a mighty achievement. Yet, it doesn’t seem like its benefits outweigh its drawbacks, at least for now. And in today’s world, Nissan being where it is, it doesn’t seem worthwhile to continue down this path.

Dive Deeper Into the Rabbit Hole