HIGH CONCEPT
Cars of the future
In the driving seat of England’s premier luxury automotive brand for ten years, Aston Martin Design Director Marek Reichman is responsible for shaping the vehicles of the future. But what exactly is a concept car, how are they produced and is the public always ready to receive them?
You could call concept cars the haute couture of the automotive industry. They deliver a very fast message and are much quicker to produce than standard cars at around six months, as opposed to about three and a half years. It’s a competitive market, and what you’re doing is showing your competitors your intention.
Many concept cars from mass manufacturers are typically plastic models that have 3D printed parts and are made in a very expedient way. They have all of the engineering and all the content that you would put into a future car, but they don’t go through the same rigorous testing.
The design and engineering teams can explore different manufacturing methodologies, materials, electronics systems and interfaces that haven’t been tried and tested before – and provoke a reaction from an audience. It’s a test of the marketplace and it’s a test of your future thinking on technology and form. Concept cars can also grow from a cross-fertilization of ideas, collaborating with a fashion designer or architect or a designer to get innovative combinations.
Production costs range from one million to three million pounds. However, if you consider that investment versus spending £300 million on a full car program, it’s a cost-effective way of gleaning a very quick indication of where your customers sit, whether they’re actually going to buy into it and if they are interested in the technology.
Bring a car too early to market and the consumer might not be ready. I’m currently working on cars that are five years into the future and if I were to show them to customers today, they’d probably be shocked. That said, if they accepted the cars instantly, I’d know that in five years time they weren’t going to cut it. We launched a concept SUV for Lagonda 10 years ago. A year later Bentley showed a concept for an SUV and they both got an incredibly negative reaction. In today’s market, what are the hottest selling cars? Luxury SUVs. The consumer just wasn’t ready until the first product came out; then they understood it.