Our man in LA (Top Gear UK), Pat Devereux

Ever Wondered why car makers build jaw-droppingly beautiful concept cars that turn into so-so production models? So has Apple Computer's maverick boss Steve Jobs. In a recent interview with Time magazine at his office in California, the father of the iPod was less than complimentary, but, it has to be said, bang on about the car industry. "You know how you see a show car and it's really cool," he says. "And then four years later you see the production car and it sucks? And you go, "What happened? they had it! they had it in the palm of their hands! They grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory!"
"What happened was, the designers came up with this really great idea. Then they took it to the engineers, and the engineers said, 'Nay, we can't do that. That's impossible.' And so i gets a lot worse." But if it's that simple to identify the problem, what's the cure? A near-despotic insistence from the boss, according to Jobs.
'When we took [the first iMac] to the engineers, they said 'Oh.' And they came up with 38 reasons [not to build it]. And I said 'No, no, we're doing this.' And they said 'Well, why?' And I said 'Because I'm the CEO, and I think it can be done."
So the moral of the tale is that design success has to come from the very top and be backed up all the way to the showroom. The good news for car lovers is that the motor industry is, brand by brand, awakening to this fact.
Ford is the latest to do so. "There will be no more timid cars," said Ford number two Jim Padilla at last year's Frankfurt Show. And it was tempting to believe him as he was standing in front of the swoopy losis concept car at the time.
Ford's pretty much got its design sorted at its luxury brands, largely due to the dynamic, if not at times despotic, presence of Wolfgang Reitzle. Aston martin, Land Rover, Volvo and now even Jaguar have some stand-out designs. All of which look a lot like the fabulous concept cars that spawned them. - to be continue...

Christmas Party

 
 

Debbie and Dave