“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

        The world, as God made it, works on the principle of Yin-Yang. For every good, there is something horrible. For every beauty, there exists a stinker. Like a Rahul Mahajan for every Clint Eastwood. Like a Porsche Cayenne for every Range Rover.

       Automotive design is a prerogative of three dominant schools of thought: form over function and function over form. The Cayenne is an excellent case in the latter point. After the intelligentsia at Stuttgart took care of the function (which naturally came first, this being Porsche!), the design team had its work cut out. Then they gave the world something that went like the bloody blazes and looked like a bloated toad.

Porsche Cayenne and Rang Rover Sport

        The first reports of children being scared to death by its looks started trickling in and the saner heads at Porsche reworked the physog. The resulting Cayenne now looks more like a well-groomed ogre rather than a toothless gargoyle. Despite the initial damage, it still sells. Because the form was dictated by market studies which revealed we had enough boneheads on this planet who would prefer a Cayenne over the perfectly capable, inoffensive looking Rangie.
       I am no Porsche loyalist but I do love the classic 911 and the GT3RS. The overalls go hand-in-glove with the badge and the moniker. I just feel they messed up by taking the 'function over form' thing a tad too seriously and insisted on a family look for all of their models.
      The 'form over function' thought process generally limits itself to concepts. And Maserati. Many of them never see the light of the production day (thankfully preventing a mini holocaust!) some of them are cursed for being brilliant design studies but simply show cars and a couple wrestle their way onto our roads. They invariably are watered down versions of the form they were once conceptualized and presented to us at glitzy auto expos.
       Lately though, auto marques have been bucking this annoying trend. There could be no better example than the Jaguar XF. The production version looks eerily similar to Ian Callum's gorgeous baby, the concept C-XF. Even the bells and whistles that the concept showcased were carried over, like the cryogenic cool rising gear selector (the Jaguar DriveSelect) and the effervescent blue mood lighting. It's brilliant. 

The rotary gear selector rises sensually up after starting the Jaguar XF

     Audi gave us the LeMans concept in a practical suit, christened the R8 and in the process turned 8 year olds into pimply teenagers. Forget the biggies, back home, Maruti Suzuki gave us the Ritz, an unaltered version of the pretty neat Splash concept, while somewhere else Chevrolet lost its collective marbles and thought its concept Beat was, in fact, the actual car and told the world accordingly.
      Thus, they treaded that fine line between form and function, striking a delectable balance between them and flawlessly blending sheer art with engineering expertise. The Europeans (sans the Germans, who seem to have the artistic ability of Fred Flintstone!), seem mighty adept at the art form. The names evoke strong memories: Sergio Pininfarina, Marcello Gandini (who fathered the utterly sinful Lamborghini Miura), Lorenzo Ramaciotti (Ferrari Enzo, another legend) and lots more.

Legendary designer Marcello Gandini and his creation the Lamborghini Miura

     The most beautiful piece of automotive design, then? The matter's highly subjective, obviously. I, for one, vote for the Alfa Romeo 8c Competizione. Trust me, if it were any more stunning, I'd have babies with it! So much for being a Lamborghini devout.

Alfa Romeo 8c Competizione (2007-2009)

        
          In case you missed it, I wrote 'three' schools of thoughts earlier and mentioned only two. The Japanese, the Koreans and worryingly, the Chinese have spawned their own design language, an independent entity which, much like their language and food, is understood just by their own kind. More on that later.


- Guest Writer

 Abhishek Joshi