While I don’t always see eye-to-eye with the design philosophy of Ugur Sahin, I cannot help but admire his spirit. He sees the world of luxury and high-design automobiles and think, “you know, I could do that better”. The Ugur Sahin Aston Martin Gauntlet Conceptis the latest in this designer’s vision for world class automobiles. While it is hard to improve on anything Aston Martin, Sahin has shown his own perspective on this legendary auto brand. The Aston Martin Gauntlet is a lovely facelift on the One-77 and the DB AR1 by Aston Martin, and the result is certainly worth a good, hard look. If Sahin succeeds in challenging the design philosophy of Aston Martin, we can at least hope to see a future product from this brand that represents the progressive movement of auto design culture. Like it or not, Sahin’s takes on luxury cars provides an interesting perspective on what these cars could be, and may just be in the future.
Back in the late 1990s, when Lamborghini were starting to realise they needed a replacement for the ageing Diablo, they started reviewing design proposals from various automotive design firms. Zagato’s offering was the Zagato L147 SuperDiablo, or as it was to be later known, the Lamborghini Canto. The Lamborghini Canto first appeared in 1998, it arrived only two years after another Zagato designed Lamborghini concept had been unveiled, the Diablo-based Raptor. The cars shared a number of similar features, including the wraparound windows, triangular lateral air intakes, and trademark double-bubble roof. However of the two, the earlier Raptor was probably the better looking. Clearly Ferdinand Piech – head of the Volkswagen Group – thought so too. After VW bought Lamborghini in 1999, one of his first decisions was to review the Canto’s development and redesign the concept. The car was re-engineered and the rear extensively restyled to include smaller air intakes. The engine was also up