Auto Makers Go for the Sleek in Chicago
The sleek, streamlined look is migrating from passenger cars to compact and large trucks. It’s starting to show up in some vehicles, and is promised for others under development.
A variety of production and concept models unveiled at the Chicago Auto Show last week reflected this latest attempt by auto makers to develop products to stand out in an increasingly me-too market.
Examples included the Kia Sorento, an SUV that will go on sale in the U.S. later this year (Highway 1, Feb. 6) and a “step-side” version of the Toyota Tundra--a design that softens the slab-sided truck with wide flared rear fenders and a step molded into the side of the bed for easy access.
Auto makers aren’t ignoring their cars, either. Even Pontiac, long noted for its widespread use of ribbed plastic body cladding, is shedding its skin--at least that was the promise Robert A. Lutz, General Motors Corp. vice chairman and product development guru, made in Chicago.
A trio of vehicles that illustrate the new direction came to Chicago from Detroit, Tokyo and Seoul.
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A Less Boxy
Subaru Forester
First up, Subaru’s completely redesigned Forester: the latest production SUV to show sleeker lines, with stylish, trapezoidal headlights reminiscent of the new Chevy Trailblazer, though the two were designed independently.
Slightly less boxy than its predecessor, the 2003 Forester’s body is strengthened with a reinforced frame but made lighter with use of aluminum. Although the external dimensions are the same, it has more interior passenger space than its predecessor.
“It’s on the same platform, but it handles much, much better,” said Kyoji Takenaka, president of Tokyo-based Fuji Heavy Industries, Subaru’s parent.
Subaru is aiming to sell about 5,000 more cars in the U.S. than last year’s 186,000 mark. To do so in what is expected to be a declining market, it will have to take its share out of competitors’ hides.
It is expecting to do so with new or redesigned models: the Forester goes on sale in May and will be followed in August by the all-new Baja, based on the Legacy Outback wagon but with a small pickup truck bed instead of the wagon’s enclosed cargo area.
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Terra4 Features
Contoured Wells
Although General Motors Corp.’s GMC Terra4 is industrial looking in keeping with that division’s design themes, its appearance is softened by a swept-back windshield and contoured wheel wells.
The Terra4’s name comes from a convergence of “fours:” four doors, four-wheel drive, four-wheel steering and four ways to load the cargo bed--through the top, sides, rear or mid-gate that separates the bed from the rear seat.
The concept truck “challenges the conventional idea of what a truck is,” said GM North America President Gary Cowger.
Its theoretical power plant is a hybrid gasoline engine-electric motor combination that saves on fuel but provides V8 power, a system GMC has been showing on its recent concepts.
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Airplane Inspires
Hyundai’s Entry
South Korea’s Hyundai Motors showed a super-luxury concept built off the Equus luxury car sold only in South Korea.
Designed at Hyundai California Design in Irvine, the sculpted concept for a large coupe is “our vision of what a luxury car can be
Hyundai, which has seen sales soar in recent years because of an aggressive warranty program and an equally aggressive effort to introduce new vehicles such as the hot-selling Santa Fe sport-utility and to redesign existing vehicles such as the Accent, Elantra and Sonata passenger cars to reflect modern tastes, also reiterated its plan to start building some of its vehicles in the U.S.
Byung-ho Sung, Hyundai’s chief operating officer for international operations, said the company has narrowed its search for a factory site to four states: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio.
Building Hyundai cars in the U.S. will help Americans become more familiar with them, he said.
