Latest news with #automotiveDesign
Auto Car
25-05-2025
- Automotive
- Auto Car
Here's how to design a 300mph hypercar, according to Hennessey
Designer of one of the world's fastest cars explains how designs can bend the laws of physics Hennessey Venom F5 is aiming to reach a top speed of 310mph-plus Close Ever wondered why so many supercars claim a '217mph-plus' top speed? The McLaren P1, LaFerrari and Lamborghini Revuelto are just a trio of heavy-hitting examples. An easy, clean conversion to a mite under 350kph is one possible reason. Another explanation, however, is aerodynamics. 'There's an exponential increase in difficulty and complexity beyond 220mph,' says Nathan Malinick, Hennessey's director of design. 'Most hypercars can do that no problem, but 250mph and above remains very, very difficult. You have to know what you're doing.' His most dramatic work so far is the Hennessey Venom F5, its target to be the fastest production car in the world. Its theoretical 310mph-plus top speed (itself a neat 500kph) will outstrip Bugatti and Koenigsegg should it come to fruition, but Malinick is only too familiar with the soaring aerodynamic challenges as you try to surpass the triple-ton – at which point you're covering a mile every 12 seconds and pushing tyre technology to its very margins. Handily, his CV includes work in the aerospace industry. 'We are a comparatively small company and we have to be extremely efficient. If our target was closer to 200mph then the requirements would be totally different. That's still fast, but it's nothing like 300, which is getting more into the aerospace side of things versus automotive,' he says. 'There is quite a bit of crossover. From an aesthetic and philosophical standpoint, the F5's interior is relatable to some of the cockpits that I was working on in my previous role. Simplicity drives a lot of what we do; on the exterior, it drove things in maybe unusual ways. One instance would be a lack of active aerodynamics, because we didn't want to have an aspect of the car that would be susceptible to a failure at such high speeds. 'You're not going to see the flicks and blades of an F1 car on an F-35 or F-22 jet. Likewise, you're not going to see them on our car because they contradict its purpose of top speed.' Supercars mostly sell on glamour, so how easy is it for Malinick to ensure his team's designs are beautiful enough to be coveted by the collectors with the requisite millions to buy one? 'We're lucky to have creative engineers who recognise the value of design and want to support it, because ultimately people buy with their eyes,' he says. 'The kind of people we're talking to already have one of everything. Our car needs to pull on their heartstrings. 'Our design and engineering teams work hand in hand. It's not like we progress a design element and then say: 'Hey engineering, take a look and see what you think.' Feedback is in real time. We might need to stop and take something into CFD [computational fluid dynamics], or rapid-prototype something in the wind tunnel to ensure there's no time lost. 'The engineers are helpful in saying 'this area of the car is not as significant, so do whatever you want here'. But sometimes our design will be dictated by function. Some of that is neat: a purely engineering-driven detail underneath the car that you're not going to see unless it's jacked up on a lift.' Despite its lofty goals and Malinick's aerospace past, the Venom F5 can still thank pencil and paper for its design. 'I do a ton of sketching,' admits Malinick. 'It's my favourite part of the process. I probably have thousands and thousands of sketches, whether it's F5 or what we're moving onto next.' It's bait I can't resist taking: what is coming next? He says: 'If the F5 is all about performance, the next car is about driving interaction. It's not going to be as powerful; it doesn't need to be. "The feedback we've had from customers and dealers has been really strong. It's very much the antithesis to the digital age of cars we find ourselves in.' Does that mean it's a manual? 'If the customers come back and say 'we want a DCT', okay, that's fine,' he says. 'But as of now, I'd say it's analogue to the nth degree.' Which suggests it will be free of the Venom's turbocharging. 'We're still determining that,' says Malinick, 'but we're leaning towards something free of forced induction for the purity of it all. "We want something very, very high-revving.' Sounds like a noble target to us. Join our WhatsApp community and be the first to read about the latest news and reviews wowing the car world. Our community is the best, easiest and most direct place to tap into the minds of Autocar, and if you join you'll also be treated to unique WhatsApp content. You can leave at any time after joining - check our full privacy policy here.
Edmunds
19-05-2025
- Automotive
- Edmunds
The 2025 Lexus ES350 Is Slow, Old and Brilliant
We already know a lot about the next Lexus ES, and it's nothing like the car you see here. Lexus is headed straight for the future with the next iteration of its midsize sedan, so much so that it might make the current car seem a bit dull. Old-fashioned, even. The current ES is still a handsome sedan. The simple surfacing, clean lines, relatively short wheelbase and long overhangs are reminiscent of the original LS 400. The ES has a busier face, sure, but its overall proportions are within tenths of an inch of that very first Lexus sold in America. The same things Lexus nailed in 1990, it gets right here, too. All the panels line up perfectly; there are no obvious gaps inside or out. The interior feels expensive, and there is a robust mix of materials that help break up lines in interesting ways. You can even have wood inlays with real grain and texture.
Auto Car
16-05-2025
- Automotive
- Auto Car
Bangle design, Integrale engines with a Pininfarina interior - from £5000
Proportions more arresting than elegant. Superfluous, slash-like indentations above the wheel housings. Double-blistered headlamp covers, deep-recessed taillights, an aluminium flip-top fuel filler, an aluminium key-fob and a bold repeat of the car's exterior colour arcing across the dashboard. This was the Fiat Coupé, a car unexpectedly signaling that its maker was ready to build sports cars again, and a car signaling the arrival of one Chris Bangle, a designer who would soon stir up the car industry like few designers before him. This car was a surprise not just for its shape, but because Fiat had previously said that it would no longer make pure sports cars, despite a glorious run in the 1960s that included the pretty 850 Coupé and Spider, the 124 Spider, the 124 and 128 Coupés, the Dino Coupé and the exquisite Fiat Dino Spider. That was before Paolo Cantarella arrived to take charge of Fiat Auto in 1989. Cantarella was a businessman who had previously managed the Fiat Group's industrial robot division Comau, but he was also a car enthusiast, and acutely aware of the Italian car industry's past successes Like any CEO, his overriding mission was to keep the Fiat Auto motor running sweetly, and while Puntos and Pandas sold by the trainload, the bigger Tipos and Cromas were more of a struggle. The Fiat brand needed some burnishing and, if the numbers could be made to work, this new coupé could help. Work began around 1991 at both Fiat Centro Stile and Pininfarina, the pair producing quite different proposals. Pininfarina's was crisp, subtle, well-proportioned, elegant and conventional. Fiat's in-house suggestion bordered on the outlandish, its wheel arches capped with angled elliptical blisters in black, a crease bisecting the upper third of its doors at exactly the same angle. Its tail was short, its boot lid no more than a modest capping. It wasn't beautiful but it was daring, original and fresh. Fiat bravely went with this proposal rather than Pininfarina's, and while the finished article grew a longer and appealingly pert tail, the spirit of Bangle's startling design survived largely intact. Pininfarina's interior suggestion featuring a swathe of body colour paneling across dashboard and doors easily won the interior competition, the coachbuilder also winning the manufacturing contract.
