check this out

[tomislavp4]

I know that we talk about fast things around here but check this truck out
http://www.on.net.mk/galerii//Tamche/index.html

[dumrick]

Actually this has a very interesting link to F1... the designer of these trucks is a swiss guy called Luigi Colani.


In his site Mr. Colani's philosophy is summed up like this: "The earth is round, all the heavenly bodies are round; they all move on round or elliptical orbits. This same image of circular globe-shaped mini worlds orbiting around each other follows us right down to the microcosmos. We are even aroused by round forms in species propagation related eroticism. Why should I join the straying mass who want to make everything angular? I am going to pursue Galileo Galilei's philosophy: my world is also round."

As so very typical of every new-age kind of thinking, when you start believing that some things are universally true, there are no limits for what you can do with those beliefs... this brings us back to Mr. Colani that, in 1972, decided that he was capable of... designing a F1 bodywork. The "victim" was a new team created by a german guy called Günther Henerici that owned the caravan manufacturing company Eifelland Wohnwagenbau. The new team bought an hopeless March 721 chassis and handed it over to Mr. Colani to invoke the magical spirits of the round shapes and turn it into something competitive.
Back to F1 Rejects:

What he conjured up was something to behold. It featured a spectacular, swooping one-piece rear wing, a one-piece cockpit incorporating an airbox at the front, and an imaginative, all-embracing one-piece front wing with additional cooling ducts. But, most noticeably, sticking out like a sore thumb was a one-piece (yes, there seems to be a trend here ...) periscope-inspired mirror rising up smack-bang in front of the cockpit.

Here's the only photo I know of the Eiffeland in its initial spendor - subsequently, the lack of downforce and overheating issues created by the bodywork were serious enough to make the bodywork revert to a much more standard one, keeping just the single central periscope mirror to honour its origins.


So, you know what I think about these truck designs? The guy has seen too much Sci-Fi, but is definately not a designer, in the sense that his shape elaborations relate very loosely with functional criteriae.

To take a deeper look at his work, you can check it out here. I strongly recommend not to miss the intro, to appreciate the mix of 60's Sci-Fi with New Age theories from this so-called "3D-Philosopher" and understand better how his designs arise. Check under "Visions" a lot more automotive and transport related things (cars, trains, magnetic levitation vehicles...). I'm really very happy that most of them seem to never have reached not even the 1:1 prototype status... some accidents could have happened...

[tomislavp4]

Some of the designs (5%) are ok but the others....

[Tom]

Probably just me but I really like this design, it would be entertaining to see one of these block me off on the M74

[miqi23]

Not bad to be honest, at least from an Aero point of view.

[Carlos]

These ideas are interesting , current trends in product design reflect organic forms related to circles, elipses, and Ciros Avatar. Goggle "blobjects" Designers like Eero Saarinen, Russel Wright, Eameses postWW2 reflect these trends. The design direction was called "biomorphic" Today Frank Gehry, Greg Lynn and Karim Rashid reflect these ideals. Read blobitecture by John K Waters if you are curious.

[manchild]

Interesting stuff but some things as insisting on Mercedes star as 3-blade screen wipers is idiotic because it kills a lot of view.

Something more realistic few years old:

http://archive.cardesignnews.com/news/2 ... -radiance/

[tomislavp4]

Yeah, now we are talkin´
Beautiful

[Carlos]

I went to the link, Wikipedia and Mr Colani's commercial web site. He has an exptremely successful and innovative portfolio of design work for many well known companies and has exhibited works in many prestigious museums. In addition I consider his work outstanding. Yet every article I have read about the Colani F1 car makes him sound like some sort of wacko lunatic. This just proves, once again, you can't always believe what you read. He has done a lot of automotive work for Fiat and the MX 5 for Mazda.

[Tom]

That Renault is a bit dull really, I preffer the Mercs.

[dumrick]

I went to the link, Wikipedia and Mr Colani's commercial web site. He has an exptremely successful and innovative portfolio of design work for many well known companies and has exhibited works in many prestigious museums. In addition I consider his work outstanding. Yet every article I have read about the Colani F1 car makes him sound like some sort of wacko lunatic. This just proves, once again, you can't always believe what you read. He has done a lot of automotive work for Fiat and the MX 5 for Mazda.

A industrial "designer" with a 40 year carrer having a few of its work industrialized hardly strikes me down as impressive. Also, making inefficient "sports cars" that later are bought by museums of contemporary art also only underlines the difficulty of assessing contemporary trends, which is valuable for art, philosophy, political ideals, etc: the important thinking is only conveniently valued with some time detachement. It has the property of being... timeless!
Anyway, I'm a functionalist in heart, so this guy could never impress me: my engineering experience about the importance of performance, cost-efficiency, easy industrialization and so, makes me highly suspicious of someone that takes a fish shape, puts it in a can opener and sells it as the ultimate thinking about design. Natural shapes are perfectly adjusted to the function of an organism. Taking it away from its purpose and applying to anything else is, for me, the antithesis of "natural" thinking: that every application has suited shapes and designs.
So, I consider this guy a wacko allright: he mixes some New Age outdated mumbo-jumbo with design concepts and, looking at his work I laugh inside.

[Ray]

Hey dumrick, got a question for you. Why is it that engineers think a design is great, yet it's almost impossible for the mechanic to work on? I worked on F-18s and the engineers who designed that were very smart. So smart I bet not one could even change a single part because the design was great on paper, but in practice made no sense. Why is that? Not knocking on engineers of course, if I were as smart as them, I'd be the one answering the question and not asking it.

[Spyker MF1]

Interesting stuff but some things as insisting on Mercedes star as 3-blade screen wipers is idiotic because it kills a lot of view.

Something more realistic few years old:

http://archive.cardesignnews.com/news/2 ... -radiance/

Is it me or is that lorry just a megane/clio with a block of metal stuck on top as the cab?

[Carlos]

Design also has an emotional component. Curves have a certain appeal. Considering organic sources. A man's body may be more efficent but I can't help but find a woman's body more stimulating.

Engineers perfect technology. Industrial Designers create products that are mean't to appeal to the consumer. Mr Colani is an Industrial Designer, not an Engineer. I find his work intriguing. Just a matter of personal taste and opinion. At the same time, I also admire Engineering. The human experience is a complex assembly of many concrete and abstract values.

I wouldn't expect Mr Colani to have designed the 1966 5 cylinder 125cc Honda GP motor - but I admire the Engineers that did.

Both Dumrick's and Ray's points are well taken. It's a good discussion.

[dumrick]

Hey dumrick, got a question for you. Why is it that engineers think a design is great, yet it's almost impossible for the mechanic to work on? I worked on F-18s and the engineers who designed that were very smart. So smart I bet not one could even change a single part because the design was great on paper, but in practice made no sense. Why is that? Not knocking on engineers of course, if I were as smart as them, I'd be the one answering the question and not asking it.

That's indeed a good question, since newer products tend in fact to become increasingly difficult to service.
My first answer would be that good enginnering should always be attentive to the fact that mechanics have to service machines and is just as important the possibility of adequate service to assure that performance is kept along the life cycle of a product as the initial ability for performance.
However, there are some forces that indeed are making the focus shift to harder serviceable products. One is performance requirements. Since a new generation of a product must be more performant than the previous, product design is shifting to more radical solutions, where the compromises found at first for adequate servicing have increasingly less weight in the minds of the design engineers. Some corrections may be done in the subsequent development of the product, but those are never as efficient as if they were considered in the drawing board.
Afterwards, there is the aesthetical design of the product that, for the bean counters, will always sell more than the serviceability of the product.
Next, there are increasingly stricter norms to follow, in the EU and in the USA, that gradually give less room for engineers to freely decide on the concepts they work on.
Finally, commercial interests often get in the way. A product I work with was basically engineered from the outside-in. When people understood that, to meet the performance goals, it would help if it was slightly longer, the product dpt. people answered that, to fit in a specific segment, that was out of the question. The result? A difficult-to-service product...
These are some of the causes for, in some new vehicles, some light bulbs being only replaceable in properly equipped workshops...