I have a thing for clean design. It speaks an honest, approachable language that ultimately creates an intimate bond with the user.
In the automotive world, by contrast, the biggest recent trend is to go towards ‘aggressive’ designs even for compact utility cars. I will avoid commenting on the reasoning behind such design choices…
In today’s visually bloated car landscape, it felt surprisingly refreshing to stumble upon the Ford 021C Concept.
This concept car made its first appearance at the 1999 Tokyo Motor show. At the time Ford wanted to try new things and experimented working with a designer from outside the company to create a concept car. They chose Marc Newson, an award-winning designer especially famous for having designed iconic pieces of furniture (notably, 15 years later in 2014 he joined Apple to work on the Apple Watch).
Newson never worked in auto design before and he brought with him a lot of principles alien to cars back then. The concept’s shape were soft and flowing giving the sense of an organic object.
But apart from its clean and pure shape, the car was innovative for packaging and interior design as well.
It had rear-hinged back doors for easier ingress and egress to the back seats. The seats themselves (pulled straight from Newson’s design portfolio) could swivel to let front and back passengers talk face to face, creating a home-like, relaxed space.
Other interesting features included a pull-out trunk that basically turned the boot into a drawer and a push-button automatic transmission.
Interior’s elements are reduced to the minimum to maximise available space for passenger and create an airy environment (helped by the large glass surface and small pillars). The floor is completely flat and the seats have a small footprint helping to create the sensation of sitting in a living room.
The car was ground-breaking for technical reasons as well: it was built out of carbon fibre, keeping weight to a minimum and minimising fuel consumption. This was in stark contrast to the American car landscape of the time that was decidedly non eco-friendly with big, heavy and gas-guzzling SUVs.
Back in 1999 people’s reaction to the concept was really bad, it was labelled as too eccentric and criticised for its toy-like appearance and small proportions (it was just 3.6m long). The car was not understood for what it was: a simple, efficient, pure city car that encouraged a happy time inside the vehicle for 4 passengers.
Ford’s (and Newson’s) forward thinking and out of the box ideas are to be commended. The concept’s lines have gracefully aged during the last 25+ years.
Clearly, the car was too early for its own good as today this kind of design has started showing up again in concept cars, with success.
In the context of self-driving, cars will have to be designed more like a living space with comfort and relax at the top of priorities. Automakers will go back to designs such as this one to find inspiration for the new paradigm shift in mobility that is autonomy.
Hey Ford! Maybe it is time to launch the 021C, just 27 years late :)
Get new posts by email
No spam. Unsubscribe any time.
Or follow with RSS.