Class of 2012 – Driven To Write

Isles of Wonder

Take me back to dear old Blighty…

In July 2012, the London Olympic Games was officially opened with a spectacular opening ceremony created by a team under the curatorship of film director, Danny Boyle; a skilful weaving of a complex historical tale, combining creation myth, popular culture and a few pointed semi-political thrusts, not to mention no small measure of beauty, humour and outright whimsy to craft a compelling vision of a modern, pluralist Britain at peace with itself and its often troubled past^[1].

At the time, there probably was not a more quintessentially British automobile extant than the Range Rover, with its unique blend of the time-honoured and the contemporary; with roots both of the land yet above it, despite more latterly forging a identity as a distinctly urban-centric creature. These qualities, while present from the outset, were both underlined and vulcanised by the 2002 L322 iteration, a car which despite its Anglo-German bloodline^[2], maintained an insouciance, which successfully tempered its studied formality and ever-increasing mass. But by 2012, its successor was ready, and at that Autumn’s Paris motor show, an all new Range Rover^[3] made its world debut.

Love it or loathe it, but the generational reinvention of the Range Rover remains not only a genuinely noteworthy automotive event, but from a purely creative and engineering perspective at least, one of the industry’s tougher gigs. Few cars have such a broad remit, carry such a hefty weight of historical baggage or are required to Continue reading “Isles of Wonder”

She’s Electric

ZOE’s days may be numbered, but its EV pioneer status is assured.

A decade ago, two quite different, yet in their own way, equally significant electric cars would go on sale. While the Tesla Model S would come to define the latterday electric car as a tech-laden, super-computer on wheels, another – less significant from a purely historical context perhaps – would go on to become the best selling European battery electric car ever, a position it retains.

The 2009 Frankfurt motor show witnessed something of a bombshell from Groupe Renault, the carmaker displaying four fully electric concept cars^[1], each destined to Continue reading “She’s Electric”

Would You ADAM and Eve It?

The testament of ADAM.

Choice, the holy grail of sales. Only sometimes too much is just that and those sales either fail to materialise or the product simply confuses potential purchasers. The story of the Vauxhall/ Opel ADAM bears witness to this.

In the early part of the twenty first century, the small urbane hatchback had quite the following, dominated by the Anglo-German MINI and Italy’s Fiat 500. Opel believed an opening in this hegemony could be prized, not only to take sales but also to revolutionise modes of customisation – targeting an increasingly younger (or maybe younger at heart) audience, employing capital letters to draw even more attention.

Michigan born designer Darren Luke, who had only just left college to join GM, was flown to Rüsselsheim to Continue reading “Would You ADAM and Eve It?”