the ultimate branding mistake

when we think of ferrari, we think of one of the most established marques in all of motoring history, with a history of succesful race cars and some of the most amazing road cars of all time. all in all a fairly impressive track record. however, the recently opened "ferrari world" in abu dabi, with its ferrari rollercoasters, simulators and endless red merchandise, has been criticesed for cheapening the brand. perhaps it is just a bit of harmless fun, but ferrari's appeal to a wider (and cheaper) audience can be seen as a real step in the wrong direction. 

super forward thinking

recently i found a picture of the willis building, which is an insurance office in ipswich, and is a truly remarkable peice of architecture. however what is the most surprising thing about the building is that it was built in the 1970s, but still looks modern today. it was designed by sir norman foster. 

not so exclusive afterall

as you can probably tell from my post "the ultimate supercar", i am not in any way a fan of the bugatti veyron. but i was surprised to find that the so-called ultimate supercar, supposed to be one of the most exclusive cars of all time, had popped up on autotrader. and not just one, but 4 at once. perhaps the ultimate car is not so exclusive afterall.

go comapre..... memorable or just scarring mentally?

the gocompare adverts are immediately recogniseable when they come on, for the right reasons or not. although they are generally regarded as one of the most irritating things on tv, they do stick in the mind. and is that not what adverts are designed to do? perhaps then, despite being the most irritating, it is one of the most successful.

the ultimate supercar?

whilst researching info about various cars old and new for a recent project, i decided to look up some information about my favorite cars of all time. i was born in the early 1990's, and so i grew up with the cars from that age, which command my preference over just about any modern cars. i'd take a mclaren f1 over the bugatti veyron any day. but whilst looking into it more closely, it seems some of the iconic cars from my childhood could hold their own or better with some of today's giants. the bugatti veyron, we are told endlessly is perhaps the greatest engineering achievement in the automotive world, but is it really?




we see in the clip above, the "ultimate" supercars of both era's squaring off in a 1 mile drag race, in which, for the first 1/2 at least the mclaren is winning, but eventually the veyron takes it. however, the mclarent in the video was perhaps not the "ultimate" supercar of its time, and certainly not the one i would have chosen to represent that period of time.
although the roadgoing mclaren f1 was quite an amazing car, there were examples that were faster still. the special LM edition mclaren f1 boasted an impressive 50 extra horsepower, and 100kg less weight, giving it much improved performance espcially over a short drag race.

                                          Mclaren f1 LM

however, even this, the ultimate mclaren f1 is not the car i would choose to represent the 1990s in such a race. the evidence for my choice comes in the form of the 1990s GT championships, in which the mclaren f1 GTR competed. up until 1997, the mclarens were the dominating force in this sport, but then mercedes introduced its CLK GTR. the GTR had been designed specifically to beat the mclarens and porsches, and after 2 seasons, and having won 17 of 22 races, no other team was keen to compete again. the mercedes was so fast it had effectively killed off an entire sport, but road going versions had to be produced.

the clk gtr roadcar was, and still is the most expensive production car of all time, at £1,175,000, for which customers got a race car with slight modifications to make it road legal,  and over 720bhp. this made it even faster than the mclaren, but because of its gearing and downforce-creating body, it maxed out at 215mph, 25 short of the mclaren, one of the main factors in its much lower recognition.
but even this is not the "ultimate" of road cars, as a special edition of the clk gtr was also produced. known as the supersports, it was given the original version of mercedes 7.3litre v12, had close to 750 horsepower, an added front splitter and even more torque, which gave performance figures that are truly astonishing.

to give an example, the bugatti veyron supersports can do a standing quarter mile time of 10 seconds, which is very impressive, but the CLK GTR SS, from the 1990s was able to do a standing quarter mile in just 9.2 seconds, a figure that remains unmatched by almost any roadcar since.

perhaps if that had been the drag race, the result would have been a liitle different

the definition of irony

segway boss jim heselden died in september, having driven one of his own segways into a river on his own estate. he was pronounced dead at the scene and the segway was found nearby.

the unreal made real?

In my last post i wrote about the amazing red bull x1 car designed for the gran turismo 5 playstation game. and, amazingly, IDC (industrial design consultancy) have created a real one! well, a model at least. the life size replica is over 4m long and 2.5m wide and is an almost perfect copy of the car in the game. it was unveiled at the release of the gt5 game.

the unreal

Red bull, the succesful formula one team has teamed up with the maker's of gran turismo 5 in order to create what could theoretically be the fastest race car ever made: the x1. instead of following the substansial rule book around building f1 cars, they started from the ground up to create something without limits. the x1 has a 15000rpm gas turbine, super aerodynamic bodywork, a vacuum to suck it onto the track and boasts a virtual top speed of 250mph.

Old versus new

Overall, as material science advances, and products are developed, modern materials and innovation almost always win out over old-fashioned craftsmanship and tradition. however, in the case of musical instruments such as electric guitars, this hasn't nessacarily been the case. i myself am a bassist, and the best selling design of bass worldwide, the fender p bass has remained virtually unchanged in its design and construction in 50 years. however, these days, some companies are challenging the norm, such as status graphite, a company that is innovating the construction of guitars using carbon fibre, to fantastic results. creating super lightweight, comfortable and great sounding instruments for around the same price as a "designer" guitar or bass made with traditional methods.

1000mph car: bloodhound ssc

 back in 1997, richard noble's land speed record team, with their car: "thrust ssc" driven by andy green broke not only the land speed record, but the sound barrier as well, with an average speed of 763 mph, or mach 1.01. this was undoubtably a great achievement, but the question stands: where do you go from here? well, richard noble has now returned with a new project, called the bloodhound ssc, a car perhaps capable of 1000mph. however, noble says that the purpose of the bloodhound project is not to break the 1000mph mark, or any other speed taret, it is simply to get people excited about maths and science. this idea of bringing all people together and getting them interested in engineering through this incredible project seems like a great idea, and is, so far having the desired effect. huge numbers of supporters of the project have donated money, and students across the country are being given lectures by the team about the project. the thing that seems to be getting people to take notice so far are the unbelievable figures attached to the car, it will be driven by a prototype eurofighter engine, and boosted to 1000mph by a hybrid rocket engine, which requires another 800hp engine jus to pump the oxidiser needed for it to burn continuously. the solid aluminium wheels will experience 50,000 radial G at the rim, and will rotate at over 10,000rpm. the project, provided sponser money comes in will go ahead with the run hopefully taking place in late 2011 or early 2012, and i'm sure we all wish them the best. 


 

The future of human-computer interface? and how do we futurise our desktops?

In films such as minority report, and more recently quantum of solace and iron man, we see super futuristic interfaces between humans and computers. these interfaces are designed to be ultimately as easy to use, and as intuitive as possible. they appear both endlessly complicated, and as supremely simple to use as possible. of course we think that this tech might be several years away, but recent developments at edinburgh univeristy has proved different. they have begun to develop these super intuitive touch screen systems on a large scale, and for the first time we are approaching the same technologies as in the films:





But what about the rest of us? who have to make do with our pc's or macs? running on windows or leopard? well, similarly, readily available programs are developing computer interfaces that closely mimic the design of those in minority report and quantum of solace. these interfaces draw on the semi transparent, wide, open and simple typfaces immediately associated with super futuristic computer systems. one such program is rainmeter, a free program for microsoft that can be downloaded from the official website: http://rainmeter.net/RainCMS/. with new skins being designed every day, along with new desktop gadgets, wallpapers, widgets and styles, it allows almost infinate customisation to allow any information or program to be accesed instantly from the desktop of windows. it is also easy to link into existing windows skins and themes, and other interface programs such as rocketdock, meaning any of us can now have a little slice of the amazing interfaces we see in the cinema.

                                          some rainmeter interfaces   

rocketdock is a program for windows designed to mimic a mac interface, also with various different skins and icons to suit individual taste. rocketdock is perhaps the most popular new tools in making the traditional windows interface more simple and easier to use, as well as more animated and interesting visually. its various skins can be used to match it to existing windows or rainmeter styles, meaning it can be linked in to your current desktop setup, whatever it might be. it is available for free from the rocketdock website: http://rocketdock.com/download

                                         some rocketdock styles

These programs give huge scope for customizing the desktop of your computer, but for those who really don't like the existing OS interfaces from windows and apple, a new program allows a complete refit of the interface. this program is called talisman, and is perhaps the biggest departure from what we would consider "the norm". it is a revolutionary new program that completely changes the appearance and system of a windows interface, and unlike other programs, talisman has no real templates, meaning the talisman skins can be almost anything, many of which are very similar to the amazing film programs. note how, on the pictures below, many of the designs totally avoid the traditional layout of buttons to create a unique and visually captivating interface, and although these layouts may not be considered normal, they are still logical layouts, and no less easy to use (and in some cases much easier) than existing windows or apple products. the newest version is available for free trail, and full download at $25, and the origional talisman program is available for free: http://www.lighttek.com/talisman.htm

a selection of the available talisman visual styles, all with varying complexity, colour scheme and layout.
                      

Paris motorshow

The 30th of september saw the annual paris motorshow take place, one of the most exciting and important shows in the motoring calendar. this year the show was packed with hundreds of new concept cars, some very conceptual and artistic, and somne that could well be on the roads within 12 months. one of the most interesting things at this years show was the radically different routes taken by lamborghini and jaguar as they looked at the next generation of supercar.

Lamborghini's centerpiece for this years show was the "sesto elemento"(meaning 6th element) a completely carbon-fibre creation, designed around a 5.6 litre v10, and taking their existing angular, sharp and edgey design language (currently seen on the lp640 and lp560) to the absolute extreme:

At the other end of the scale however, jaguar has designed their new concept: the C-X75 to be an enviromentally friendly supercar. jaguar have the design focused around it being a diesel electric hybrid, 2 concepts seen as totally opposite to speed and performance, which may seem odd, but in actual fact it makes some sense. Jaguar took note of how porsche stole the 2010 geneva show with the 918 spyder, another enviromentally friendly supercar, and so have gone to great lengths to convince people about the radical technologies to make their diesel electric hybrid work. the design of the C-X75 is very different to what we have seen from jaguar recently. its wide, open front grille, small, high headlights, huge, striking wheels and radical back end give it a much more "love or hate" look than the recent XF, XJ and XK models, which seem to be more appealing to a wider audience.

it is certainly interesting to look at how these two manufacturers have taken such massively different approaches to effectively the same problem: the next generation of supercars. lamborghini have taken their existing ideas and designs, and adapted them to be evermore extreme and striking, giving the brand an instantly recognisable product and shape. wheras jaguar have approached the problem from a whole new angle, hinting that the entire set of problems that lay behind designing a supercar are set to change, and that they are ahead of the pack in tackling them.