Royal College of Art freshmen envision the future of cars

Earlier this month, first year students of the Vehicle Design course at London's Royal College of Art were asked to present concepts for light, compact cars of the future. The results are pretty fun: the one above looks like it just crawled out of a Miyazaki anime, while the one below looks like it is imported from a world gone Tron.

EuroK-Cars at the Royal College of Art [Dezeen]

[#1 posted by Bruno Bolisarte , December 23, 2008 10:29 AM]

The designs on that first car are in fact taken directly from artist Takashi Murakami.

[#2 posted by dustbuster7000 , December 23, 2008 10:33 AM]

This is the reason that concept cars make the final products look so tame by comparison, the concepts are always by artists, not engineers. Which is fine up to a point (imagine a world where only engineers got to decide what cars looked like), but it means you get let down when reality steps in. That said, the two in the post are just ugly. More like cars with cancer. Some of the others at the linked site are kinda cool though.

[#3 posted by knifie_sp00nie , December 23, 2008 10:34 AM]

Wow! They've reinvented "The Homer".

http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/%22The_Homer%22

[#4 posted by Daneel , December 23, 2008 10:44 AM]

Only came by to reference the Homer, see I got beaten to it.

While I'm here though, I have to say I wish companies would lay off the concept cars. They always look great, then never get made and that just makes the tedious dull boxes they foist on us look even blander than they would otherwise.

Witness the new Megane Coupe with the scissor doors. The production version might be okay, but for me it's now forever ruined by not having those doors.

I can never work out why production cars are so tedious to look at. Surely it can't really be that much less effort to design them to look boring. I was at the Motor Show in London this year and the most interesting looking production car was a bloody 2 year old Honda Civic, ferchrisssakes.

[#5 posted by pork musket , December 23, 2008 10:54 AM]

@2 You are correct in terms of design/engineers, but often a company will design the car and then tart it up and present it at a auto show to generate hype, never intending to sell the tarted up version. Trying to find the blog post I read about it but failing...

[#6 posted by clueless in brooklyn , December 23, 2008 11:10 AM]

we need concept cars like we need to find water on mars.

[#7 posted by TJ S , December 23, 2008 11:29 AM]

@4 & 6:

Concept cars are necessary. I look at them as a form of negotiaton between the designers and the engineers. Designers ask for 100, engineers come back and offer 34. If the concept wasn't there in the first place, the engineers would most likely go ahead and go with an 8.

[#8 posted by grimc , December 23, 2008 11:32 AM]

Didn't we find water on Mars?

[#9 posted by Daneel , December 23, 2008 11:37 AM]

I suspect when you say 'engineers', you mean 'accountants'.

[#10 posted by clueless in brooklyn , December 23, 2008 12:36 PM]

Yes, we found water and we also found Homer's car at the Royal College. Now what?

[#11 posted by Halloween Jack , December 23, 2008 1:43 PM]

So, basically, minor variations on the Jetson's car with stickers on it? Congratulations, Art Student Mom & Dad! A small fortune in tuition well spent!

[#12 posted by grimc , December 23, 2008 6:28 PM]

@clueless

Profit.

[#13 posted by Trent Hawkins , December 23, 2008 9:50 PM]

by fresh men, do they in fact mean kindergarten? because that would make more sense.

[#14 posted by ackpht , December 24, 2008 7:51 PM]

Anyone who prefers designers over engineers for car design has never changed sparkplugs on a Ford Taurus.

[#15 posted by arkizzle , December 24, 2008 8:36 PM]

The two shown above look quite similar to the Nissan Pivo (also, see the cockpit rotate 180°, @ 0.55).

[#16 posted by DefMech , December 25, 2008 7:28 AM]

The car created by the guy from the US (Shawn Deutchman) probably nails the spirit of this project better than any other. It actually looks practical, cheap and modern(even kinda looks good, too). The rest are really interesting, but fail at what makes existing Kei cars so successful.

[#17 posted by sonascope , December 25, 2008 8:44 AM]

Always with the goddamn shrouded front wheels and the resultant 90 foot turning circle (did anyone learn anything from the Nash Metropolitan?). Always with the hermetically-sealed passenger compartments, where you have to install complex systems to bring the air up or down to the same level as the outside, rather than, hell, opening a window. Always blobby and insect-like, always arch and intentionally counter to every single reasonable convention for the sake of being freaky and unconventional (but never in a glorious Citroen DS sort of way).

I'm actually amazed that there's only one example of the customary whiz-bang world-of-the-future hubless wheel in this go-round. Suspension travel? Ground clearance? Serviceable parts? What are those?

Where are Alec Issigonis, André Lefèbvre, or Sixten Sason when you need them?

Who needs renaissance (wo)men anymore? Just stick 'em in culturally-insulated art schools, give 'em an overdeveloped love of camp and irony, let 'em make cutesy Daft Punkâ„¢ themed toy cars, and screw that whole usability thing.

Sigh.

[#18 posted by Hanglyman , December 26, 2008 12:54 AM]

I personally love concept cars, and wish auto manufacturers and the public had the guts to actually encourage a little bit of artistry in cars, instead of producing bland, almost identical models every year. Still, it gets a little old when absolutely every concept car has the wheels covered up, lies only a few inches above the ground, and has headlights or taillights that are wildly impractical because of safety reasons. These concepts have been rejected time and time again for valid reasons rather than a simple aversion to something different, so why do designers keep including them?

[#19 posted by octopussoup , December 26, 2008 11:32 AM]

I'm guessing the goal is to make cars so ugly that people will walk instead.