Selling cars or design

I have always compare the power of design to cars. Most people don’t want to buy a car that doesn’t look good. Some of us can’t afford the car we really want, but we all aspire towards owning that special car that makes your hart go warm.
I wont buy a car that performs in speed, acceleration, braking, handling capabilities, fuel efficiency etc. but does not visually appeal to me. If the car is ugly it’s ugly and I don’t want it! I will rather buy the car that has less performance but makes you go WOW when you see it.
With today’s technology and access to information and resources, car manufacturers produce cars with similar capabilities in a certain price range, but what sets them apart is design and the emotion they create through there branding campaigns.

A good example of such cars is the “Spyker” series of sports cars. Most Formula1 supporters know this brand because of there participation in 2007 F1.

The Spyker cars don’t have the best performance and you can probably buy a Porsche for far less that out performs the spyker in all aspects.
So how can they charge 3 to 4 million Rand for the C8 Spyder? Well it’s quite clear, just look at it!
http://www.spykercars.nl
They are selling design, and one wonders just how many of those millions you pay is actually just for the design?

Another great design piece I stumbled across is a must have for any designer, car lover and artist.
It is the book “Cosmic Motors” by Daniel Simon an internationally established car designer that has worked on projects for brands like Bugatti and Lamborghini. It is a 176 page book filled with over 200 sketches and 130 illustrations of futuristic vehicle designs from a faraway galaxy.
http://www.cosmic-motors.com/thebook/thebook.html

This entry was written by renier, posted on August 15, 2008 at 12:41 pm, filed under Cool Design. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.