I may be going out on a limb here, but I would guess that something like half of the men in the developed world have drawn, sketched or doodled a Ferrari at some point in there lives. Given this seemingly inborn tendency, you’d think that young, ambitious design students would jump into a Ferrari design challenge with shockingly distinctive, radically passionate, heart-wrenchingly beautiful designs, matured by years of fixation on the most aspirational sportscar brand in the world. And yet… many of the designs at the Ferrari World Design Challenge 2011, depicting a “Ferrari of the Third Millennium,” seem like they could be any brand’s “car of the future.”
Some may put this down to the fact that these are design students, not the trained teams that come up with Ferrari’s current designs, but I have another explanation: good design, even for something as frivolous and over-the-top as a Ferrari, has to have function at its core. But what is Ferrari’s function in our uncertain future? What is Ferrari without V-12s? Where does performance go in the next millennium when the current “base” Ferrari hits 60 MPH in just over three seconds? How can a brand like Ferrari maintain its exalted position without breaking down major performance barriers in each generation? Rather than knocking these students for their sometimes-disappointing designs, let’s take a moment to appreciate just how tough their task is.
I’d say design may be the only way to differentiate high end supercars like Ferraris these days. We seem to be reaching an asymtotic barrier in car performance. Even the $1 Million Bugatti Veyron with 1000+ horsepower is not that much faster than the best from Ferrari or Porsche. When all the girls are fast you look at the prettiest one.
The same thing happened in commercial aviation. A Boeing 707 took six hours to fly from NYC to LA in 1960. The new 787 will take the same time 50 years later.
Today’s cars are much faster and more economical than before. But they still break down when they get old – sometimes with a real vengeance as in Boxster IMS failure. Then there are ticking time bombs like Benz brake-by-wire and computer-controlled oil pumps in BMW products. The problem of ‘excessive quality’ is under control. Bottom lines are looking good. One would think that with all the progress mankind has made, building an automobile to last longer that its warranty would be within reach by now. Unfortunately, the profit motive seems to keep it an unattainable dream.
“The same thing happened in commercial aviation. A Boeing 707 took six hours to fly from NYC to LA in 1960. The new 787 will take the same time 50 years later.”
JJ – Yes, the Concorde could have flown NYC to LA in 2 hours but it was never allowed to go super sonic over the continental US. It was also an economic disaster burning more fuel NYC to Paris than a 747 on the same route.
The sound barrier may no longer be a technical barrier but it is an economic one. So are sub two second 0-60 times in car you’d want to drive every day.
Engineers “break down major performance barriers.”
Design students draw pretty pictures.
Well, it’s obvious that the guy who designed car shown at 1m:22s never changed a tire in his life.
Looks like he took an old Pontiac Banshee and stuck some bizarre wheels on it.
About all of these designs look just like the Fiero prototype. That or the Chrysler from the Wraith but with 20 unneeded angles carved in.
If I were asked to design a new Ferrari I’d try to bring back the Ferrari 250, it’d probably look similar to the new Mercedes Gullwing but with less angles. And it wouldn’t look like a shoe like these cars.
Although I am currently in the developed world, my Ferrari doodling years were lived in the third world. And 100% of the doodling was about the F40. Even today, if you asked me to sketch a Ferrari, you would see a badly drawn F40.
The Ferrari design language for me is still the F40 and the Testarossa. All those curves look weird.
As far as the future of the brand, I feel like a set of guiding principles and spiritual definitions can help.
Ferrari is the [nearly-X-rated] Italian Jaguar.
So, if a Jaguar is Kate Beckinsale in a tight black dress,
-looking over her shoulder at you.
Then a Ferrari is Monica Bellucci in high-gloss red latex bridge paint, standing on the backs of 2 asphyxiated gilded pygmy lutists, licking a stream of honey off the leg of prosciutto being dangled in front of her face on a flax rope by Federico Fellini,
during the guitar solo of “Nessun Dorma”.
This just goes to show that the same sick convergent evolution that turned the current run of Jaguars into overblown Camrys is at work here. Let the engineers, focus groups and bean-counters design your cars and you’ll bleed every drop of passion out of them. A Ferrari should be a little senseless, but hot blooded. That is, it must look hot-blooded. When I look at these designs, none of them stand out, and none of them say, “Ferrari”. Not really. Warmed-over Banshee, half-melted Aventador perhaps. There’s even some boiled Chevy Express in there. . . Nothing that would get Enzo’s blood moving.
Exhibit one: The Alfa-Romeo 8C. Classic beauty, Italian verve. It may not post the biggest numbers, but if sheer numbers at any cost is your game, you’re not really shopping Ferrari anyhow.
My suggestion for the students would have been to look toward the classic Ferrari designs of the 50’s and 60’s, instead of the less than stunning lines of the 90’s to now. Ferrari design should be about classic ideals of passion and verve, not the Jetsons in red.
+1, well said.
This is clearly not the actual Ferrari studio. No Cayenne or Panamera fighters in sight!