Concept motorcycle

One of the nice things about having two young sons, is that you get to relive your childhood through their toys. I was admiring one of my sons fighter jets recently, and started to wonder why modern motorcycle design is well, so old and boring.

Why don't motorcycle riders demand that their bikes look as styled as modern cars? Or even look like a fighter jet?

The result of these musings was a design for a reclining, aerodynamic, agressive motorcycle concept. New market segment - new generation of riders that want more security than traditional motorcycles, wouldn't be seen dead riding a baby-boomer sixties throwback Harley (it's only pot-bellied retires that buy Harleys these days), still want excitement, but also want double the fuel economy and three times the acceleration of a Prius.

Some of the design ideas (hard to read the scribblings on my sketch)...

- Supercar style (or fighter jet intake) air intakes either side of the rider

- Aluminim rollcage goes provides visual cue of strength and safety

- Fuel tank at the back above the wheel

- Very low CG due to the rider being reclining in front of the engine.

- Utilize existing bike mechanicals as much as possible

- Lockable, integrated storage behind drive and in front of the fuel tank

- Aluminium box frame gives visual cue to strength

- Optional 'Targa' top fits over driver for more enclosed feel

- Partial door gives sense of security while maintaining a bike feel

As far as I know, only the Swiss have been venturing into this market niche with the slick and very expensive Monotracer. The Monotracer actually has quite a long history, most of them horrifically ugly from design perspective. The new one is very contempory, but priced way out of range except for possibly the Knomes of Zurich on their weekends.

My design is a lot more close to existing motorcycles - semi exposed rather than completely enclosed. Exposed engines and mechanics are really part of motorcycle magic, as is fresh air. Also, having the rider be able to put their feet down gets around the tricky problem of retracing stabilzer wheels that fully enclosed motorcycles will always need to solve.

New life for GM, new car for Buick, new job for Lutz

The new GM yesterday, a new old job for Bob Lutz, the new Buick Lacrosse today.

Being in Michigan has some benefits...like seeing the latest GM and Chrysler vehicles before everyone else does. I live in leafy Rochester Hills, home to lots of auto engineers,managers and so on, so you see a lot of new vehicles that they are getting to drive on their discount schemes.

So when a spotted a nice new car by the gym the other day, I thought, oh, nice new Lexus. Not a Lexus. Not a Hyundai Genisis even. A Buick? I did a double take, then walked around it.

Then walked around it again. Now, when you have loved cars and good design for years, you create a little protocol for checking out new cars. Walking right around a new car twice, is something that I think I did the last time in Germany when I first saw the Mercedes SLK. And that was a good eight year ago.

It's special, this car. Everything is tight. The curves are tight. The chrome swoops, the bonnet slices, the interior makes the even the S-Class (my usual standard for luxury interiors) look dated and fusty. The historic references like the air-intakes on the bonnet add to the overall design, not detract.

With the Cadillac CTS, the Lincoln MKX, MKZ, and the new Chevy Camaro, US auto design is finally showing it can blend design elements from the heyday of US auto design, into relevant 21st century cars.

Hopefully, bringing back Bob Lutz into the new GM will make sure we keep getting great American design like this.

Solar Powered Paraglider

Interesting idea for solar cells on paragliders that caught my attention while researching paragliding near HP locations globally.

My wife and I are trying to figure out where the best location in the world for us to live is. Not that we don't love our classic colonial in Rochester Hills, Michigan, its just that we are ever on the search for perfection...And, there is no local paragliding site. The closest place to fly is 3.5 hrs.

I'm thinking of crowdsourcing the search for the perfect place to live.

Konigsegg sets up Saab deal

What a curious turn of events. A Norwedgian industrial designer and a Swedish financial whizzkid pull of an audacious coup to convince the Swedish government to invest hundreds of millions of dollars/crowns/euros to pick up one of the world's more interesting auto brands at a firesale price.


Check out Baard Eker's design company. He owns 49% of Koenigsegg. As an trained industrial designer long ago, this outfit makes me drool. Small creative studio set in the sylvan Norwegian countryside, turning out the design for one of the world's fastest production cars (although it is debatable whether 18 cars a year can be called production), and other cool products and now presumably to play a big part in the remaking of Saab. Perhaps they might even persuade Saab to productionize the cool AeroX concept car.

In another curious turn of evens, 350 million in stimulus for Tesla motors was announced from our physicist in chief, Stephen Chu. Lets hope Better Place has filled out their application form too.

Maybe Gen-X is finally starting to wrench control of the world away from the insane and greedy industrial politics of the twentieth century baby boomers, and towards the world I've been dreaming about seeing for the last twenty years.