Design will always appear as the top 5 reasons determining people's decision on vehicle purchase, and depending on which company or consultancy you speak to, the exact ranking may differ but it rarely drops below the top-5. Design speaks for itself. Other elements like reliability and quality are very perception driven.
The general public is not trained to measure quality objectively other than by randomly feeling their hands across the door trim and dashboard like it's going to tell them anything useful. The public generally assumes that a Mazda, by virtue of it being Japanese, is naturally made to a higher quality than a Ford. Nevermind the fact that on this side of the world, many Mazda and Ford models roll off the same Auto Alliance Thailand plant in Rayong, Thailand and Changan-Ford-Mazda's JV plant in China, and are made by the same group of people, with the same tools and same mechanical parts. Americans perceive the Toyota Voltz to be of a higher quality than GM's own Pontiac Vibe, never mind the fact that both are made by the same people at the NUMMI plant.
It costs a lot of marketing money to change people's perception. So the fastest and most effective way to change people's perception, to make them sit up and take notice of you is via design. Many know this but few can execute it right. Kia hired Peter Schreyer to get people to buy a Kia because they want one and not because it's cheap but horrible and they have little choice, BMW hired Chris Bangle to push the brand into 21st century, Mazda got Laurens van den Acker to break the small Japanese company away from being bogged down with fighting the big Japanese boys of Toyota, Honda and Nissan on their terms, Henrik Fisker did for Aston Martin what Walter da Silvia did for Audi - brands with a rich history but are also trapped in the history books.
10 years ago VW had a staid and boring image. Then came the Scirocco and the world went mad. Even Toyota's boss Akio Toyoda acknowledge the Scirocco's all round appeal. To push the company to meet its target of overtaking Toyota by 2018, VW company can't continue doing what is doing now and attract the same group of people to buy its cars. It needs to appeal to more / different groups of people. And what better to do this than by buying to the only surviving independent design house with a relatively healthy balance sheet. Pininfarina has filed for bankruptcy and Bertone's coachbuilding arm Carrozzeria Bertone is on an emergency loan lifeline from its creditors and is being restructured. Karmann has since gone under. Ghia is long dead after the disastrous take over by Ford and is the Ghia brand is now nothing but a name for a variant / trim line package.
So why did VW purchased Giugiaro, since the trend of contracting independent design houses is on a down trend with many manufacturers now choosing to do all the design work in-house?
Domestic Chinese companies, have improved rapidly over the last 5 years. VW traditionally holds top spot in the Chinese market but in recent years VW have seen its market share gradually decline, particularly in the small-compact car segment, in tandem with rising competitiveness of domestic Chinese brands like Chery, Geely, Chang'an and BYD. Chinese car makers are not blind or deaf to criticisms. They too, know that design is important but unlike Western car makers, they do not have the capability nor the facilities to do complex designs in-house. Thus, Chinese car companies are now the biggest clients of independent design houses. In fact, over the last 5-years with the reduction of contract work from Western car makers, it is Chinese car companies who kept many of these design houses afloat. When Bertone loss the Chery contract in 2006, Bertone went into a negative spiral that it never quite recovered. Chery took its money to Torino Design when Bertone's former boss, Roberto Piatti, with a lot of Bertone family politics playing behind the scene, decided to pack up and start his own design house. Chery followed him.
Do not undersestimate the Chinese domestic brands. Though who laugh at them now will do so at their own peril. This was not my opinion but that of a German executive I spoke to. He even added the Chinese are extremely brilliant and has no doubt that its only a matter of time before they become a leading car producer.
VW cannot realistically hope to maintain the same level of market share lead as now with more stronger competition in China, now its largest single market. It has to me better strategic moves. Part of the clause in VW's purchase of Italdesign-Giugiaro (IDG) is that IDG will work exclusively for VW. In other words it means, Chinese companies will have to go elsewhere. There are less than 5 top class design houses and a lot more domestic Chinese brands clamoring to have their services. But this does not necessarily play into design house's favour. Companies will hesitate in contracting a particular house if it knows a direct competitor is working closely with them.
Even now, BMW do have some concerns as they have existing projects with IDG. Two Chinese car makers, Brilliance and Chery are also existing IDG clients who will have to go elsewhere. When you consider the fact that BMW is the largest luxury brand in the world and is in direct competition with VW's own Audi brand's intention of becoming the top luxury car brand, and that Brilliance and Chery both produce cars that are in direct competition with VW in China - it all starts to make sense.
We are seeing the twilight years of independent Italian design houses - whose reputation peaked in the 60s. It's a demise caused primarily by two factors - the decline of Italy as a cultural / fashion capital of the world and the change in manufacturing and product development processes and crash safety regulations which in the opinion of car manufacturers, it now makes a lot more sense do all the design work in-house.
Since the late 90s, car makers have been opening their own design centres in London and California, as a reflection of the rising status these two cities. California is truly a melting pot of the world's talents and culture. The dot com boom fueled influx of talent from Asia in Silicon Valley and San Jose area. London rose in tandem with New York as the world's top financial hub, again fueled by influx of young skilled workers from all over the world at a time when investment banking and finance along with technology industries attracted the best brains. They were truly globalized and multi-racial in nature and is more in tune with the time. The most famous design center in California is probably Toyota's Calty. BMW runs 3 offices in California, which the company calls it the California Innovation Triangle (CIT) - the Technology Office in Palo Alto, Designworks in Newbury Park, and the Engineering and Emission Test Center in Oxnard. Nissan runs Nissan Design European in London in the multi-cultural Paddington Basin.
The history of independent design houses can be traced back to pre-World War 1 days. In those days buying a car was a complex process. You don't just pop into a showroom and there are no financing packages. Only the rich had the money and the contacts to place an order to the factory, who then delivers a rolling chassis. Like in the image below.
The main visual difference for the rolling chassis is the radiator grille. This explains why many car brands with a rich history - like Rolls Royce, Mercedes-Benz, Bentley and Aston Martin all still maintain the practise of having an unmistakable grille design.
The owner will then have to arrange to have the rolling chassis transported to a coachbuilder, or as the Italians call it "carozzeria" who design and fabricate a body, customized to the owner's taste to fit over the rolling chassis. The owner can choose to specify what body type he wants - a roadster, drophead, landaulet, sedan, phaeton, tourer, streamliner etc etc. This is why in identifying pre-WW1 cars, you can't really depend on the exterior design alone, and is so difficult unless you are an expert connoisseur or a familiar face in Pebble Beach and the Goodwood. If those two names don't ring a bell to you, then you will obviously be lost in the classic car community. Even for an automotive history buff like myself, I still find it hard to identify those Fraser-Nash to Delahaye and the many different iterations of Ferraris bodied by Zagato and other coach builders.
A 1933 Rolls-Royce Phantom II, bodied by Hooper & Co. in sports coupe body.
These coach builders started their trade in the days of horse carriages. When motorization took over Europe, they adapted their trade from making carriages pulled by horse to also build "horseless carriages." Then came Henry Ford and his Ford Model T, and the rest is history.
IDG have done a lot of projects for VW previously, as well as for its Lamborghini sub-brand. The W12 Roadster Concept, the original Mk1 Golf, the original Scirocco, the original Passat. The ill-fated "baby Lambo" - the Lamborghini Cala was also penned by IDG.
But the most interesting IDG VW project of all is the 1970 Concept Volkswagen Porsche Tapiro, based on a Porsche 914/6, which was itself the result of a joint VW-Porsche project that unfortunately was a commercial failure, partly due to company politics following a change in management at Porsche. See how the VW-Porsche merger have always been in the mind of Ferdinand Piech way back in 1970. And wow look at those 70s women!
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