Trend: The new classicism and travelling in the future

What will define the car of the future? Above all, it will be design very closely oriented towards the target group, the jury members Hans Ehrich, Odo Klose and Yrjö Sotamaa identified as the central topic of the industry. More than ever it was a question of design whether a product was judged a success or a failure, largely because there were so few technological differences between products in terms of safety and power.

How do designers meet these challenges? The trend in cars tends to a re-interpretation of classic design. In addition, there are remakes that "offer successful and neat solutions from a merely formal and technical point of view in design," the jury says. In the mid-class category of vehicles, cars could take the role of the innovative and the avant-garde. Sports cars succeeded in projecting the image of super-car design into the future and, thus, in creating a combination of tradition and future.

Transport and construction vehicles display innovative features regarding the ergonomics of the driver’s seat. The operating levers were clean and easy to handle – "one can get in and drive off immediately without any problem," the jury commented approvingly. Motorcycles succeeded in giving an up-to-date interpretation of emotions by “inspiring and imaginative" design. Vehicles designed to run on rails and airplanes, the jury said unanimously, presented designs for a newly understood mobility; travelling would change radically in the future.

Jurors: Hans Ehrich, Odo Klose, Yrjö Sotamaa

You can find the winners of "red dot: best of the best" 2004 here.