Dilip Chhabria. For those unfamiliar, he is the founder of DC Design Pvt Ltd, which specialises in automotive designing, conceptualising and manufacturing. To earn a degree from DYPDC, you need to start by submitting your portfolio involving sketches of cars, bikes, trucks and couple of other concepts that they mention in the form. My friend wanted to give it a try last year. He had his ideas on how the car wanted to be, which made things pretty easy. The headlights, tail lamps, pretty much everything. And when he translated it to pencil sketches it looked neat but plain, without a personality. Good but not gracious. That’s when I noticed something missing. A line. Not the window base line, nor the lines on the grille. Something called a shoulder line or crease line or character line. I can see why it is called a character line. The car looks blunt and 2D without one. He was hesitant to draw and I wanted to show him a pic of some car that defines my ideas clearly. Eventually, he got the point but not without a lot of explanation. All because I did not have a car to show him what I had in mind.
Well that’s till a month later
“New Thinking, New Possibilities” – Hyundai’s new marketing tagline. I can see what they mean. Although they used this tagline as a combo with their new design language, the Fluidic sculpture design, it seems to work wonders. What Hyundai has come up with here is an elegant and pleasing design that can be argued as the best facelift job of the decade. The old Santro, dull and sleeping. The new Santro, better but still boxy with a couple of lines. The Getz, pleasing but predictable. The old Sonata, infamously known for its Merc face and Jaguar rear. Even I could have made it a little more original. Then there is the Accent which if you look at it, makes it more American than Korean. It’s no doubt, accidental, that it turned out looking more muscular than intended, which is a pillar of a reason(and the hype of CRDi tech) why it actually kinda clicked. The i10 was pretty, but it was like that village girl Savitha hesitant for any make up.
It was then that Hyundai probably hired a new crew of design surgeons to perform the plastic surgery that would transform a Julia Robert to Ang Jolie. The transition began with the i20. I had tried to convince myself that the front hood and the logo positioning are not xeroxed from the ever hunk and sexy hyper car – Mercedes McLaren SLR and the rear to the S-class. It just gave a wanna be look. But it dint take me long to get out of that. And when I did, I started appreciating the swooping lines on the sides, the swept back headlamps and the good to look at rear.
If the old i10 was paavam little Savitha, this is Savitha Babi in her red carpet attire. People bought it more for its reasonable reliability, maintanence and service. Yes the looks did compliment the package. It’s sharp and actually installed the fluidic theme completely. It was definitive but seemed to be hiding something.
The Eon is how an entry level budget car must be. As much as a like this car, there is a part of me that does not want the Eon to be successful. It’s probably the best option for anyone to open your own garage, but may be the thought of Maruti Suzuki being a home brand is what’s hurting me when I see a serious contender to the Alto. While the Alto played it safe with flat panels and simple architecture to reduce cost, the Eon decided to question conventions and breaks loose on the fluidic design, though may be a tad too much for my liking. Those heavy front lamps and muscular wheel arches add to the flair of this beautiful little car. The interiors too seem better than its bigger brothers.
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| Hyundai Verna |
Amazing to notice that when people talk of the fluidic design, they tend to speak of the Verna before anything else. Its bold and beautiful, muscular yet elegant. Arguably the best looking car in production in India today. Think of muscle, there is the Cruze. Think of unique styling, there is the Fluence. The most radical design, Civic. An intimidator, well there’s the Fortuner. But you never really had sub 10lakh car that one would buy just because it looks stunning. Especially when you consider the prev-gen Verna. Not the Verna that which was launched in 2005. I’m talking of the Verna Transform. That will go down as the poorest facelift ever, to an otherwise dull but decent looking car. I mean, think of it. Who called it a facelift anyway! That makes the new car even more sensuous.
The level of detailing that has gone into this body is simply mind blowing. The European design team has got the blend perfectly. For starters, it is decently proportional. The rear looks chunky with sufficient overhang to not disturb the weight distribution, besides the stance and the front being eye-catchingly sharp. The rear has a heavy and flowing feel to it. The side profile is to me the sexiest. That shoulder line burst out from nowhere to reach the rear lamps. Wait! Till you look a little more towards the front end, only to realise that it actually starts from the fog lamps (that isn’t a typo, I did mean the fog lamps) and still manages to look good as it slashes across the door handle and merges to tail lamps. A lot of cars have experimented with different crease line styling, but the difference which I've been waiting for so long for an Auto manufacturer to try out was to make this line more like a sword than a formality twine like line drawn with a scale. It is now no longer straight and simply drawn to connect two points. It’s a perfectly flowing curve and more importantly 3D. The line is actually protruding out of the skin. There have been a lot of design changes from the Verna Transform, but this one is essentially what makes the new design ‘fluidic’. Besides the shoulder line, what is prominent on the door panel is a neat undercut at the bottom of the side door panel.
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| Unmistakable hexagonal grille, new-gen headlamps and a pair of sharp fog lamps.. Awesome..!! |
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| It was made to target the City and Vento. Well, the interior makes the rivals look like a budget package. |
Coming back to the Hyundais, the interiors are about lines drawn with a single long curve with good ergonomics in mind. The central console has a long line up of features and with the air-con and buttons converging to the gear knob, it blends in neatly with the dash board. The Verna has tried making the hood look muscular not by giving it an outward hunkness as seen in every car but by having a smooth ridge in the hood. Everything that it touches turns gold seemed to be the manthra with the Verna. And it has done the trick even with this experimentation. The hood looks bold and fresh and will take a while to get the outdated tag. And mind you, this is despite constraining to the strict pedestrian safety rules. In the looks department, the Verna comes a proud second only to its elder brother, Elantra. We all know the Elantra. Nope. Not the boring checked dress worn saloon. This is the new and upgraded Elantra which has everything going all fluidic. From the swooping headlamps and the sexy tail lamps, everything looks just designed to be winning the car pageant contest. And the Sonata which takes the last spot on the podium is yet another beauty from the Hyundai stable.
One thing that was missing for brand ambassador, King Khan, was the lack of glam factor people associate the Hyundais with. So much for that! I wonder if he had anything to do with this makeover decision….. Ponder how much ever you want on how this popular but hard to accept brand has elevated its image to something more desirable and worth buying. Stunning looks, decent performance, value for money package and a widespread service network. Way to go.. And with the improvements in its technology, people cannot overlook these cars because they come from a Korean company. After Samsung and LG, we now have something more to link India’s obsession with Korea. No complaints!!
