Design Study

Bentley wowed us all when it flooded the internet with images of the glorious Bacalar, an aggressive two-seater based on the current-generation Continental GTC with design strokes signed by Bentley’s famed coachbuilder Mulliner. Now, we’re getting a peek at how a coupe version might look but you should withstand the urge to throw money in Bentley’s general direction as this is merely an unofficial render.

From the ashes of the canceled 2020 Geneva Auto Show rose many models that were supposedly slated to make their debut in Switzerland and Bentley’s eye-catching Bacalar would’ve surely attracted every and all camera lenses. As it happens, a web reveal is all we got but, alas, we’ve been drooling at the $2 million roadster ever since we laid eyes on it so we do hope Bentley’s short-term plan includes a Bacalar with a fixed roof arching over the heads of the driver and his very special companion sitting in the passenger’s seat.

Few BMW cars of old and new trigger as much fire in a gearhead’s belly as the 3.0 CSL. Developed under Jochen Neerpasch’s close supervision, the light coupé provided a splendid base for racing and BMW was quick to capitalize on that.

So was Khyzyl Saleem, with another unique interpretation of an iconic race car that rightfully earned its nickname: The Batmobile.

When Bugatti brought the Chiron-based Centodieci in Pebble Beach back in 2019, a lot of jaws dropped. Yet as it always happens whenever a new car/special edition breaks out, naysayers were quick to comment that the Centodieci was just another glorified Bugatti with no connection to the original EB110 other than some styling cues.

The thing is, it’s hard not to be subjective when it comes to Bugatti. It’s also pretty hard not to love the brand once you learn its history. But for those who raised their eyebrows at the sight of the Centodieci, here’s a motorsport-y twist on the EB110.

A truck is all that Porsche is missing from its current lineup. Even so, it’s extremely hard to imagine that even in its wildest corporate dreams the carmaker would think of coming to the market with a pickup truck, even in the context where a lot of brands are rushing to jump the e-truck market.

You’ve go Tesla, of course, with the Cybertruck, then there’s Rivian and its R1T, Bollinger B2, and the future all-electric Ford F-150, plus some other equally interesting contraptions. So, where would a Taycan-based pickup truck slot in, then?

Just so we’re clear, Lamborghini isn’t keen on jumping head-first into the electrification bandwagon. So far, Sant’Agata Bolognese has been keen on tipping its toes into the ocean with the Aventador-based, V-12-hybrid Sian FKP 37, but the company’s officials are adamant that an all-electric Lambo won’t arrive earlier than 2026.

If that’s the case, then let’s play the following scenario: the year is 2090, Lamborghini has a couple of EV supercars on offer, yet an extremely affluent and eccentric collector decides to retrofit his Lamborghini Countach with an all-electric powertrain and a cyberpunk-like appearance. What would that look like?

Ford’s Mercury arm sold the Grand Marquis between 1975 and 2011. It was initially a more upmarket version of the existing Mercury Marquis, but come 1983, it became a model in its own right.

Initially, the Grand Marquis was offered by Mercury in three body styles: two-door coupé and four-door sedan. The five-door station wagon came in 1983 and was nothing else than a Mercury Colony Park without the acres of wood trim.

But now, thanks to a very gifted pixel manipulator, our eyes are spoiled with a V-8-powered, low stance Grand Marquis Wagon.

The name Alfa Romeo has always been tightly tied to the world of motorsport. The 8C-R Tazio design study fully reflects that bond, as its name itself is a tribute to Italian race driver Tazio Nuvolari, who manhandled grand prix Alfas back when you could hardly find faster vehicles on the planet.

At the same time, the Alfa Romeo 8C-R Tazio is both a nod back to one of the most intricate designs to come out of the brand’s studios - the Disco Volante – and a celebration of the company’s 110th anniversary. And the best thing about it: it was imagined by an independent designer who’s had a long-lasting crush on Alfa Romeo.

If Bentley and coachbuilding were people like you and me, they would be inseparable best friends. Take the Bentley Mulliner Bacalar or the Continental GT Convertible Equestrian, for example – they are overly luxurious and highly custom thanks to Bentley’s Mulliner division. These examples show just how far Bentley will go to tailor its vehicles to customer desire, and with the whole automotive world shifting like never before, what does the future hold for a company like Bentley? Well, modular coachbuilding could become the next big thing, and automotive designer Joseph Robinson drew up a project to represent just that.

2019’s most notable event in the car world must be, without too many doubts, the debut of the mid-engined 2020 Chevrolet Corvette C8. Chevrolet has been brewing one for such a long that that it must have come as a relief for everyone involved in the project.

But what if Chevy tricked down the mid-engine blueprints to the Camaro? Would it enrage its fan base or will it send everyone jumping for joy? Well, that’s hard to anticipate although such a move could definitely split the camps. But design-wise, a mid-engined Camaro could end up looking like a Lamborghini Huracan, if we are to take for good a rendering that’s been shared on the internet over the past days.

Back when BMW unveiled the Concept 4, it managed to polarize the whole gearhead community. Then the Bavarians did it again at the 2020 Geneva Online Motor Show, with the Concept i4.

In all fairness, we were already accustomed to the ginormous grille from the Concept 4, so the astonishment was of a lower intensity. But what if BMW launched a concept car that stayed faithful to the good old, normal-size kidney grille?

When most people hear the words ‘Mazda’ and ‘RX-7,’ their minds instantly project the image of the third-generation FD model. And for good reason. This was the last chapter in the RX-7 saga, the best-looking of them all, and at that time, the ultimate interpretation of the Wankel rotary engine.

There’s no wonder that so many gearheads love the third-gen Mazda RX-7. It’s beautifully designed, lightweight, and it handles like a charm out on the open road. Plus, it makes for a mean donor vehicle for drift cars and as you’re about to see, for a time attack car, too.

Bugatti is no stranger to building fast cars with four-digit horsepower figures and excessive high-speed capability. The best so far was that “longtail” Chiron that hit 304 mph and later became the Chiron Super Sport 300. Soon, the company will venture into the super SUV market as well, although we’re not holding out hope for a 300-mph SUV. But, what will Bugatti be doing in the future? Imagine a world where highway speeds approach the speed of sound or when moving a package (or people, for that matter) from one coast to the other takes a matter of hours. When that happens, maybe Bugatti will have something similar to this overly intricate Hypertruck concept.

Hyundai is one of the first carmakers to make a move and unveil a vehicle that was supposed to take the stage at the 2020 Geneva International Motor Show. Of course, the coronavirus had other plans, so we’ll have to settle for the online debut of this sleek-looking, all-electric prototype.

Over the past decades, luxury has been associated with what we could call analogue concepts: fine leather, wood veneer, exquisite quilting, and silky-smooth fabrics. These days, however, luxury goes hand in hand with technology, too.

Sure, not everybody approves of that, but even the most fanatical skeptic might have second thoughts after getting a glimpse of the DS Aero Sport Lounge. We’re gonna offer up a lot more than that in the words below.

With Geneva knocking at the door, we can’t help but look back at the 2013 edition of the word’s largest motor show, which say Ferrari introduced the game-changing LaFerrari. The thing is, though, the LaFerrari is a bit long in the tooth right now and in dire need of a worthy successor.

No, don’t jump for joy just yet, Ferrari hasn’t laid out any plans of launching such a hypercar, but there’s one designer that let his creative juices to flow freely and the result is what he calls the Ferrari Stallone.

We’re expecting a new-generation Ford F-150 pickup truck to make a debut this year as a 2021 model, after 2019 taught us that FoMoCo sent a full fleet of pre-production prototypes out in the wild for testing purposes.

While the test mules didn’t exactly throw a lot of light onto the new F-150 topic, we spotted a new mesh grille design with a single cross-bar splitting it in half horizontally. There’s also talk about a Raptor-badged 2021 F-150 and it’s this one that led to one particular pixel manipulator coming up with his vision of an incoming F-150 Raptor.

It was a sad day for Dodge fans when the Viper was officially discontinued. We’re still not sure exactly why it was discontinued. Some said it was because the now-required side curtain airbags couldn’t be integrated into the current model and it would be too expensive to implement a redesign. Of course, Dodge has become a fan of running models to death – more than 10 years in the case of the Challenger and Charger – so it’s not all that surprising. Others speculated that it was just a scheme to make money – once it was discontinued they could run-off a bunch of over-priced special-edition models and make some extra cheddar (they did,) sell off some memorabilia (they did,) wait a few years, and then bring the nameplate back. Regardless of the real reason, it’s now 2020 and we still don’t have a new, sixth-gen Dodge Viper. A new rendering, however, shows us what could have been.

The tuning world isn’t short of widebody kit options ready to imbue the Ford Mustang’s aesthetics. Just have a look at past SEMA shows. But sometimes it’s the work of freelance pixel manipulators that excites the eyes.

Take this attempt at rendering a Ford Shelby Mustang Super Snake. It keeps all the elements that make the current Mustang a Mustang, all while adding beefed-up bits and bobs here and there without going over the top with it. Almost everything’s right about this rendering, from the overly aggressive front end to the sharpness of that rear wing.

To say we love the Italdesign GT-R 50 would be a severe example of an understatement. It takes all the good things the GT-R has to offer (which is like 99.9% of the car) and rearranges them in a futuristic-looking package that’s hard to beat by anything else the supercar world has to offer today.

Italdesign’s work, however, will not have a say in the design of the future GT-R. There will be a new Godzilla at some point, have no doubt, but Nissan is taking its time with it. Well, here’s some motivation: why don’t they make it mid-engined, so it can look like this rendering we stumbled upon.

The Mazda RX-7 revival is a delicate topic. From what we’ve seen from 2016 onwards, the Japanese brand seems confused, with some of its staff quietly rooting for such a sports car to happen and others adopting more reluctant stances regarding a potential model that would slot above the nimble MX-5.

In the meantime, the Internet’s pixel manipulators are hard at work, coming up with renderings that depict what a modern RX-7 interpretation (call it an RX-9, if you please) would look like when dressed up with Mazda’s current styling cues.

These days, tuners will slap a wide body kit on pretty much everything that has four wheels, and while some cars are suited for such a treatment, other are not.

The Lexus LC500 falls in the first category, but fitting it with wider wheel arches and beefier bumpers might not be for everyone. I mean, should you ask for our two cents, we’d tell you that the LC500 is design perfection in stock guise. However, we’re glad that there are voices who beg to differ.