From JALOPNIK:

Peugeot Design Contest Down to 10 Needs Your Vote

Peugeot has developed the nasty habit of giving budding automotive stylists a wild hope that their ideas will make it through a committee of soul-less commodity buyers and federal safety nannies. This is the fourth Peugeot Design Contest and each themed contest has brought out more talent than a San Fernando Valley casting call. Some may say the designs are fanciful; lacking any semblance of existing or production capable technology. I call those people “realists” and there’s no place for them in the styling world. It’s a bit ridiculous to expect a groundbreaking designs if you have to work with insane constraints like “pneumatic wheels” and “dynamically stable suspensions”. The best part is that next year, with hundreds of hours of Photoshop training, half a pound of mushrooms, and a lot of free time, you too can enter the competition with a chance at fabulous prizes and international fame. – Ben Wojdyla

Update: Apparently they don’t need your vote. They only wanted the unwashed masses to narrow the field, not make the final decision on a winner. I guess that’s French democracy for you.

Peugeot Design Contest

Related:
Everyone’s a Critic: Peugeot’s 2007 Design Contest Entries

The People running OEM’s are out of touch with current times, not that shocking considering they are all at lease 30 years older then us here at CDF.
This is why we started CarDesignFetish.com To inject some much needed newness into the Auto Design Arena.

The week between Christmas and the New Year is the least productive for automakers. It’s when factories enter shutdown mode and the offices of automotive power that dot the Metro Detroit area become a loosely arranged snoozeville. Inside, if you’re not planning for the Detroit Auto Show you’re as far from Detroit as is possible on a coach ticket. If you have an active role to play, you’re doing so in a bathrobe and Nascar slippers. But for bloggers this year, there was a staggering amount of work, as we all tried to match the buff mags’ time-shift act (February in December? What are the odds?). That’s why I interrupted Jason Vines, Chrysler Group’s VP of Communications, as he was watching a movie at home on the Thursday before New Year’s Eve. I had an embargo-related question for the chief-spinmeister at the ‘merican side of the German-American hybrid. While on the subject, Vines told me he was “pissed off” at the number of embargoes that had gone to hell “by the buff books” and was interested in planning a “summit” to “figure out what to do differently next time around.” I filed that away, too busy to think about meetings yet to be. Then, this past week, I heard Chrysler wasn’t the only automaker interested in a “summit,” or “meeting of the minds” or “dinner party,” or whatever, to address press embargoes. The PR professionals at the largest power tower of them all, the Renaissance Center, were looking to get General Motors in on some of that summit action. Well now.
Read more

Starting this coming Wednesday (the 7th of Feb) seven of GM’s auto design interns will be featured in a 4-part series on the Discovery Channel.

Titled “FutureCar”, the series chronicles the adventures of the students as they are given a task to design a fuel-cell vehicle for 2030.

So, that’s the bare-bones details of the show’s premise. Now on to the opinions.
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A new podcast is up so subscribe and check it out. We talk briefly about Ford’s troubles and then branding/ marketing. The CDf crew questions what the right way is to market a vehicle to consumers. How is it being done today and who do we think is doing it the best. Give it a listen and leave some comments/questions in the message boards.
-CDf Crew

Colorblender is a website that I have utalized for about 2 years now. Any time I get stuck with picking 2 or more interior colors, or rendering an exterior with some complimentary colors. I go to Color Blender this site is great at getting you out of your color element, and comes up with combinations you would not other wise think of. Check it out.

Scott Digital

Here is a great article on the continuing influence from Apple on branding and product.

According to Yahoo finance, Apple juice is the Detroit’s drink of the moment. Mark Fields, FoMoCo’s Prez Del Americas: “I admire their pure understanding of the brand and the type of customer they’re going after.” Mark LeNeve, GM’s Veep of SS&M (Sales, Service and Marketing): “We’re really trying to be more like companies like Apple, where we can innovate and move faster.” Eric Ridenour, COO of the C in DCX: “I think a fresh, creative mind is something that you can appreciate and focus simply on some complicated things.” While the Big Two Point Five’s top execs are happy to sing the praises of the iMac, iPod, Apple TV and iPhone, it’s lip service. They’re unwilling to learn the true lessons of Apple’s recent success.

Read on to learn the lessons from Apple
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Here is the Volvo XC60 interior. Bella!!!! Beautiful in design and execution, forms are nice and full, lines are clean and very Volvo. The theme of the center stack is an evolotion of their production stack. This theme in production is fairly well executed, but in concept it is a home run. With the surface changing from a smoked white color, to a high luster 90% black. The form is flowing with just enough organic interuptions to be pleasing to the eye. There are little touches throughout the vehicle that make it sing Elegent. The color and materials are right on ( a fairly high-contrast white/black theme ) There is a very Techno Lux feel to the interior. Volvo is saying (yeah we have the technology, but don’t need to flaunt it, it is there when you need it, hidden when you don’t.) So if you compare this to what is currently offered, this is beautiful, production is SO/SO…

Here is Volvo’s press release……
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Here is a topic that everyone here at CarDesignFetish is HOT on.

Autoshow concept interiors are filled with new and exciting ideas. Production car interiors SUCK the royal dong. For those of you in the industry (inclucing me) we know this, and are saddened by it. Year after year there are countless numbers of hot interiors that are put forth, only to collect dust in a warehouse somewhere. Lets break this down a bit shall we.

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It’s officialally unoficial, CDF is one of the most energy efficient on the web…

Found on the digitaljournal:

Black Google Would Save 3,000 Megawatts a Year

Posted Jan 21, 2007 by malan in SciTech and viewed 568 times

All white web page use about 74 watts to display, while an all black page uses only 59 watts. See what happens when you do the math on Google’s home page

Full story: ecoiron.blogspot.com

Ever noticed how pulling up http://www.google.com will make a dark room light up at night?

An all white web page uses about 74 watts to display, while an all black page uses only 59 watts. A blogger has recently done the math to see what kind of energy could be saved if Google changed it’s website from white to a black format.

Google, gets about 200 million queries a day. Let’s assume each query is displayed for about 10 seconds; that means Google is running for about 550,000 hours every day on some desktop. Assuming that users run Google in full screen mode, the shift to a black background will save a total of 15 (74-59) watts. That turns into a global savings of 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, or about 3000 Megawatt-hours a year. And at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, that’s $300,000, a goodly amount of energy and dollars for changing a few color codes.

I wonder what the chances are of Google ever offering a secondary version of their site that offers a black shell, wouldn’t it be as easy as setting up an alternative style sheet for the layout, text and ads? I for one would definitely use it. http://www.google.com has burned my eyes more than a few times.

Ninja.com check it out.

JohnnyB

I have to say this, then I will let it die. Dutch is a car guy. I like him, he gives some great whitty commentry, and is in it for the love.

Sooooo, why, oh why oh why does he take the Gayheeest photo’s ever.
I have been know to take a goofey photo from now and then, but Dutch is
the king of queer photo’s apearing every week right there on the pages of
Autoweek Magazine. Here is one courtesy of CarDesignFetish.com
Oh and next year when I ask Autoweek to support some CarDesignFetish events,
Dutch, remember it is all in good fun.

Scott Digital