New directions in design

Automotive Industries,  Dec, 2004  by Gary Witzenburg

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We suggested a year ago that car companies tend to embark on radical new design directions when they desperately need to--a marque's product image is down, sales are tanking, blood is in the water, sharks are circling and smacking their leathery lips. We offered Cadillac, Chrysler and Nissan as examples and tossed in BMW as an interesting exception.

This year, it's appropriate to examine troubled Mitsubishi and Saturn (plus up-to-now uncompetitive interior design at GM) with a side glance at increasingly successful Audi.

Designing a Turnaround

* Mitsubishi North American design chief Dan Sims reaches forward by exploring the marque's roots.

We'll see two early moves in Mitsubishi's new direction--an all-new 2006 Eclipse sportster and a (Dodge Dakota-based) Raider pickup--unveiled at January's 2005 Detroit North American International Auto Show. Both were teased by radical concepts at last year's NAIAS, and the Concept E sports coupe was fairly close to the '06 Eclipse.

Not that Mitsu's current products don't look goof The Galant sedan and Endeaver SUV are appealing designs awash in a sea of competition, while the rally-bred Lancer Evolution small sedan overcomes its boxy basic shape with a monster wing and ember-hot performance.

Still, with the parent company beset by scandals in Japan and its U.S. arm suffering a convergence of that plus a bunch of bad loans to insolvent or irresponsible members of its youthful target market, a healthy dose of design excitement seems in order. So we asked Mitsubishi R&D America Design Center Manager Dan Sims what might be over the horizon.

Heritage and DNA

"We're in a unique position," he began. "Unlike some of our European counterparts, Mitsubishi manufacturs a wide variety of vehicles ... everything from small K-size cars in Japan to SUV-type vehicles. It doesn't make sense for us to have an approach similar to BMW's, for example, where they apply Name surfacing' to virtually all their cars.

"We'll be getting back to our roots, our core values, what Mitsubishi DNA is all about. We've been doing a lot of soul searching, and we have a lot to draw from both in motor sports and exciting vehicles from our past.

"One thing Mitsubishi represents is 'fun to drive'--our marketing people have called it 'spirited cars for spirited people.' Our cars are engaging, not appliances. They don't isolate you from the road. So we want to design to reflect that--muscular, athletic, agile. Another core value is a strong presence In the SUV world, including off-road racing. Another is unique vehicles--we've found little white spaces in the market that we've jumped into. Still another attribute is strength--a lot of tuners like our vehicles because the engine blocks are so strong that they can tweak them and add a lot of power, and they hold up."

How will Mitsubishi translate such attributes into its future designs? "You'll see our designs going in a cleaner, simpler and bolder direction," Sims continued. "We want them to be recognizable and distinctive--you look at the car, and it's very clear what it does and what its intent is. We went through a stage of geomechanical designs--geometric and machine-like--now we're shifting to a more emotional direction. I also want our designs to be simple enough that someone can describe a car's side view by drawing three or four lines. The current Eclipse has a line that goes along the fenders and three strakes in the side. If you draw those lines for anyone, they'll say, 'Oh yeah, I know that car.'

"One other thing is a wheel emphasis. We want to shrink-wrap the body as much as possible to enhance the wheels, which are shoved out to look very stable, nimble and driver oriented. That's going to be a character of our future designs--that look of stability."

Concept E

We assume that last year's Concept E reflects that cleaner, simpler, bolder and more emotional direction. We remember it as very rounded and curvy, without a straight line on it. "That is a very emotional design," Sims responded, "and there are some sharp edges--the line that cuts between the taillights and creates the spoiler, the edges of the hood that are stepped down from the fenders, the chin spoiler that runs along and becomes the side still structure. The surfaces are natural, like surfaces on an athletic human body. Viewed from above [plan view], it pulls in like a human waist. The cabin is teardrop shaped and the rear fenders are where your hips would be. Those are grounding elements.

"You can imagine a structure along the bottom and around the wheal openings and the body as a flexible membrane shrink-wrapped over the chassis. We don't want an amorphic, non-defined shape. We want the car to look like it has a sub-structure under the skin with muscles and skin above that structure. It's a look that says, 'This is a muscular, athletic, high-performance car.' Yet it's very simple and clean, not overly busy. There are no extraneous or unnecessary lines. Every line is there because it needs to be."