Road & Motor
Design
Automotive design, coachbuilding, engineering and craftsmanship. Cars as designed objects.
Design
The A310 Vision Is Not a Car. It Is a Platform Wearing a Memory.
At the Paris Motor Show on 12 October, Alpine showed a one-off concept that revives the 1971 A310: 4.55 metres long, 2.03 metres wide, 1.18 metres tall, and explicitly not a production announcement. What it announces instead is the flexibility of the APP platform that will carry the electric A110.
Design
The A110 Has to Become Electric. Alpine Just Showed Us the Shape of the Answer.
A full-size sculpture unveiled on 28 September previews the third-generation A110, the electric car that must carry Alpine's lightest name. The design keeps the Berlinette's proportions; the Alpine Performance Platform underneath fights the battle that will decide the car's fate: weight.
Design
8,000 Hours of Wood: The Craft Inside the Arcadia Droptail
Rolls-Royce's third Coachbuild Droptail commission uses 233 pieces of Santos Straight Grain timber, a wood so difficult it tears when machined. Developing it took longer than building most cars.
Design
Written in Light: How Headlights Became Brand Signatures
The daytime running light is the most valuable square centimetre in car design. From Porsche's four-point stare to the industry's light-bar consensus, the night has become the new brand identity.
Design
Coachbuilding's New Generation
Touring Superleggera, Zagato and Nardone Automotive are building some of the most considered cars of the decade. Here is what is real, what it costs, and what it is based on.
Design
The Architecture of a Great Driving Position
Seat, pedals, sight lines and steering: how a small number of cars got the driver-machine interface right, and what the rest can learn.
Design
The Great-Engine Renaissance: Why the Best Engines Are Being Built Now
V12s revving past 12,000 rpm, a naturally aspirated V16, a turbo V8 that spins to 10,000. Against every prediction, the internal combustion engine's most extraordinary chapter is being written today, with hybridisation as its enabler.