The Ford Focus, left, designed in Europe, and the Chevrolet Spark, designed in Korea, have gotten high marks for fuel efficiency and design. Fuel economy is based on predicted highway numbers for the 2011 models.
It wasn't a particular look or style that dominated the conversations of designers at the 2010 Detroit auto show this January, and it wasn't a buzzword like retro or kinetic or flame-surfaced. It was the shadow of a number: 35.5.
More global connections
- Italian Fiats and Lancias will be rebranded as Dodges and Chryslers and will be in the U.S. well before the 2012 regulations are phased in.
- Buick is borrowing from Opel, taking the Euro-market Insignia as the basis for its new Regal. Despite being Americanized, it retains a European flavor.
- The Hyundai Tucson grew out of ideas developed in California and was completed in the Korean firm's European studio.
In miles per gallon, that's the required fleet average fuel economy that automakers must achieve in 2016 under the Obama administration's rules. It's a mandate that not just engineers, but designers as well, must deal with.
As automakers' displays at the show suggested, it also has spurred designers to look around the world for new ideas, looks, lessons, materials and philosophies. Designers, especially those at Detroit-based companies, are being pressed to join the global community and move away from creating cars tailored to a domestic market whose roads, distances and fuel prices kept engines and cars large.
The shift began long ago on other continents. European and Asian governments dealt with fuel crises by taxing engine displacement and fuel itself, affecting the looks and shapes of cars. Detroit shifted more slowly, first with the visual trick called downsizing, then with the rebadging of imports.
But at this year's show, the input from abroad was evident all around. Ford emphasized smaller cars, bringing the new Focus from Europe to join the Fiesta, a subcompact that will be in showrooms later this year.
General Motors's Aveo RS concept came out of their Korean design studios. (General Motors)
General Motors introduced the Aveo RS concept, a look at the design future of the smallest car Chevrolet now offers, and it showed the Spark, an even smaller car it will sell. Both were based heavily on input from GM's Korean studios.
The Aveo and the Spark are hatchbacks, a shape that American buyers, in the era of 35.5, will likely have increased exposure to. The world's automakers can offer lessons in building and selling the hatchbacks and compact cars that the auto industry categorizes as "premium small" -- small cars with the amenities of large ones.
"That is well established in Europe," says Stefan Sielaff, head of design at Audi. The A1 small car his studios are planning now, he says, will accommodate many of the high-tech elements of the A8 luxury sedan that won the Eyes on Design award for the best new production car.
Designers are constantly speaking of a brand's design language, but Americans have historically not been very multilingual. No wonder J Mays, group vice president for design at Ford, is proud of the voice-command system in the Focus.
"It will recognize thousands of words," he says, "and multiple languages."
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