The Center of World Design Has Moved

As far back as I can remember, I have always been a car nut. Every Fall the new models came out, and I was the kid who was down at the local new car lot, hoping for a sneak peek at the new dream-mobiles Detroit was sending us. Mostly, I was looking for Harley Earl’s new designs, but I did not know it at the time.

As I grew up, I saw that the leading edge of automotive design was elsewhere. It was in Germany, and in Japan. (Remember those two countries we beat in WWII?)

In the last decade or two, as I worked in Aerospace and then in Electronics, we had a phrase: The Center of World Design Moves West. If you are a history buff, you know of this concept, that Progress is always Westward. I think that Center left our California shore sometime in the 70’s.

I have found the Center again, most recently. I am a steady visitor to the CarDesignNews website, and I avidly follow the Auto Shows, both here in the U.S., and everywhere overseas. None of them disappoint. In L.A., there was the Dodge Magnum, the Ford Faction, and the best of show (IMO) Chevrolet Cobalt, which is looks like a jazzed up version of the two door Honda Civic.

Then there is the Chicago Auto Show, the New York Auto Show, and the International Auto Show in Detroit. There have been so many new cars introduced there, and all of them are beautiful! I especially like the new Chevy Nomad, the Chrysler Crossfire, the Pontiac Solstice, and the Ford 500.

However, none of that may matter any more. As much as I am in love with Detroit Iron, I have seen something that is far beyond anything else on the planet, as automotive design. I saw the vehicles of Japan, at the 2004 Tokyo Motor Show. Believe me when I tell you it was an epiphany! The Japanese automobiles are at least a decade beyond us.

Japan has become the Center of World Design. If you visit the link above, you will see cars that ‘stand up’ when they approach the curb. There are cars that broach the boundary of what is an automobile. There are interiors where seats fold into the sides of the vehicle, or disappear down into the floor. In some vehicles, all four seats recline like a Lazy Boy, with a foot rest swinging out from under the seat. There is even a vehicle where all the seats move to surround a glass table for a business meeting or a picnic!

There is every kind of drive-by-wire, where the steering elements and the motive tools of the car move out of sight when not in use. There are overheads that are made of light, or which altogether disappear at a whim There is so much there that is far beyond anything I have ever seen at any Auto Show anywhere.

The exterior designs are astonishing, for the cars come in every imaginable shape and form, and the lighting and door openings are so different from what you might expect. Even the normal things you would think would be in a headlight or a taillight, or in a window have changed, both in their physical makeup and in their design function.

Engines are not where you would expect them to be, nor of any configuration that you could recognize. Japan leads the way in alternative power and fuel concepts, and they are already on their highways.

I also know that many other appliances, such as computers, televisions, stereos, and even mundane things like washing machines, refrigerators and kitchen tools are designed far beyond what we are used to, here in our country.

Here is the link for the Tokyo Motor Show. Most notable are the Honda IMAS (my favorite), the lexus LF-S, the Mitsubishi Se-Ro, the Nissan Effis, the Nissan Redigo, the Nissan Serenity, the Suzuki Mobile Terrace, the Suzuki S-Ride, the Toyota Fine-N, and especially the Toyota PM.)

http://www.cardesignnews.com/autoshows/2003/tokyo/index.html

You can see much more of the Tokyo Motor Show here: (Try not to go out and kick your new American car after you are done.)

http://www.cardesignnews.com/autoshows/2003/tokyo/gallery/index.html

(These are thumbnails of the cars at the Tokyo Motor Show. To see the full sized photos requires a membership.)

Yes, it is astonishing to see some of their products on the Web. It is also depressing. How can we compete with an awesome design force such as this? I already know the answer for the short term: We ban their most innovative products from our markets. We do what the European markets do to our goods. We protect ourselves, and insulate ourselves from those amazing designs. We may well never see some of those cars over here, nor their best computers and PDAs, nor their leading edge appliances.

This short term solution is really not a solution at all, is it? The world continues to shrink, and the Westward movement of Progress is hard to hold back.

America still has the edge in technology and in Aerospace and in the military. I think we always will. But in the consumer marketplace, we have two choices. One, we can continue to block products from the Pacific Rim, or, Two, we can chose to become innovative once more. Not by imitating what is already done elsewhere, but by investing in R & D, and by throwing off the tyranny of the Quarterly Financial Statement, which has murdered our businesses ability to innovate.

Apple Computer Corporation leads the way in the concept of innovation regardless of the bottom line or of the current market conditions. The rest of our manufacturing companies should follow their lead. Especially the car companies. I want to be able to drive a car that is more than an incremental upgrade from the last one I drove. I want my new car to be as innovative as a G5, or as beautiful as an iPod.