Lexus Nuaero: Self-Absorbed Car Designers Rejoice

Jon Rådbrink’s Lexus Nuaero concept

Ah, car design students, they’re pretentiousness embodied. Aside from actors, there really is no more self-absorbed group. Young Swedish designer, Jon Rådbrink, presented this concept at the Royal College of Art graduation show in London last month. This really is function sacrificed at the altar of faux-futurist form.

It’s called the Lexus Nuaero, and instead of a transmission, it has individual motors located at each wheel. That design also allows for open, catamaran underbody, since there’s no driveshaft or trans under there. There’s also no brake or gas pedal, all the controls are in an airplane style steering wheel. To apply the brakes, you push the wheel away from you. That’s actually all well and good, new design is interesting and shakes things up, what bothers me is the designers idea of what defines quality.

See, the Nuaero is 15 and a half feet long, 6 and a half feet wide, 4 feet high, with a 11 foot wheelbase…yet it weighs 1700 pounds, about the same as a Smart Fortwo. It seems like a stiff wind would loft this car up like a kite.

“I believe that this design paradox of low weight and large presence could be the way we’ll define premium in the future,” the designer says.

Really? Because that’s actually how most human beings intuitively define “low quality”, the exact opposite of premium. Low weight + large presence = no substance. It’s just a big hollow plastic form. But then again, maybe I was a little harsh, what do you think?

Here’s the pics and a video:

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