ROVE ZERO, Spring 2006

*premier issue of car/design magazine

Z.Car by Zaha Hadid

Gentleman and Gentlewoman, Start Your Engines

Though the antiques market has crashed (post 9/11, 2001), and impressionist and old master paintings gone soft, modern and contemporary art and post war design are through the roof. Frothy even. From some cursory research, it appears collectible cars are the next segment poised for a dramatic upward shift. In a nutshell, million dollar sales are up astonishingly today, since the auto market experienced its own precipitous drop in the early 90s. From 16 in 2004 to 41 in 05 and already 21 in just the first quarter of 06, the increase in seven figure sales is nothing less meteoric and signals a fundamental shift in the landscape of car collecting. And its not only the hyper high ticket sales of concept prototypes and rare Ferrari’s galloping ahead, but also the average sales value has climbed from $37,813 in 2004 to $44,071 in 05, and pointedly, to $72,063 in the first quarter of this year. From Geneva to Arizona sales of vintage and collector cars alike are soaring and the breadth of the market, like the art market it is beginning to resemble, is international in scope, and in the throes of a major expansion.

Effectively, we are about to witness a near doubling of the market in two short years. Thus after a long channel of flat sales, cars seems to be aligning themselves with other sought after tangible assets such as real estate and commodities, all experiencing strong price inflation due to the lackluster performance of many other financial asset classes in the recent past. When hedge funds have arisen with art as their stock in trade, and financial indices charting not only art market segments but creating technical analysis of artists themselves, this could be the ground floor of an auto boom. Not to mention the flood of hedge fund’s funds fueling the present market rise.

When you think about it now, in terms of present value, what other business model exists where an individual walks into a room in which goods are for sale, plunks down a huge sum of money and leaves with 10 – 20% less in value when the threshold of the entrance is again crossed? For instance, a sizable portion of money expended for a Rolls Royce Phantom evaporates phantomlike without a trace, immediately upon purchase. Where do those proceeds end up? In the coffers of Volkswagen in all probability. But really, what that reflects as much as cynicism about the modern day auto market is the fervor with which successful and (seemingly) clever people pursue cars. There is a healthy amount of elasticity in the high-end car showrooms of the world. The allure of cars is widespread, deep rooted, and with the unfathomable wealth created in the past 10 years, the stage is set for a big rally!

Back to the present. GM lost a staggering $8.6 BILLION last year due to grossly swollen managerial layers producing mass market cars, with no notion of, or care for, what the consumer actually wanted: design and value. The behemoth, bleeding money with lackluster product of poor quality is being tamed by none other than an octogenarian entrepreneur who probably is the only one who can recall a day and age when GM made decent cars that people wanted to buy. With admittedly circuitous logic at its core, this can only bode well for the continued value and desirability of the classics. The designs of current cars are numbingly the same which appears the result of limited cross ownership of the major marques, more stringent safety regulations and bottom line aesthetics killing off any semblance of innovation. Not only do the classics appear as distinct and covetous by comparison, but they are also grandfathered in to evade the paternalistic regulatory climate that mandates the forms of vehicles to be packaged in a nearly uniform platform. Air bags, electronic safety systems, traction control, even seat belts? Not a chance. The classics, the prototypes, muscle cars of the 60s, therein resides the bastion of value in today’s marketplace—a well designed car, with seductive lines, and performance to match, that is distinct, rare and especially not engineered via marketing based focus groups in an out-of-touch Detroit.

Sipp lightly and at your own expense. That is that the radical expansion of the UK’s Self Invested Personal Pension (Sipp) plan to permit “tangible movable property” such as classic cars, fine wine and works of art to be invested in one’s personal pension fund, thus evading heavy taxation at point of purchase, has been scuttled. The chancellor reneged at the last minute after the adoption of the tax break in all probability fearful that the yellow journalists would seize on the notion of a high living businessman, toasting his art collection from his vintage Lamborghini at the expense of the Inland Revenue service, or more importantly, the Daily Mail readership. Tangible movable property does seem to leave a sordid residue. Nevertheless, it is doubtful this plugged loophole will impact materially on recent market trends.

For the market to continue its trajectory and really flourish, what is needed is more transparency in the trade akin to recent manifestations in the art world, via web sites, market oriented research and analysis and printed matter to disseminate the data and findings. With some forward thinking and innovation, GM could be out of the pits, and things could really turn the corner for the car world as a whole, but we are nowhere near the checkered flag just yet—hold on for the ride. Sorry, admittedly I should be pulled over for that.

Design Anorexia/What’s the Concept?

Meet the first green supercar, the striking concept is powered by a twin- turbo 400 horse power bioethanol v6 driving all four wheels. The result? A heady mix of 0-60 in 4.9 sec and no emissions. There are currently no plans to make it...
AUTOCAR, 29 MARCH 2006, VOL 247 No13/5883

The following is a paraphrase of a capsule excerpt on an experimental Saab concept car (yes, Saab) from one of the UK’s highest circulation and most closely read auto weeklies (yes, there is more than one). It’s great looking! It’s affordable! It’s quick as hell! It’s 300 miles to the gallon! And its revolutionary in its utter lack of emissions! So the choice is obvious: why bother?

Shouldn’t prototypes be put on the road by any means necessary? Like the old mantra from Burger King adverts in the 70s: “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special offers don’t upset us. All we ask is that you let us serve it your way.” Why can’t we have our cars in the same bespoke fashion?

What passes for design today are like remakes of classic movies, when no better, newer, ideas present themselves: witness the Charger, Camaro, Miura, and GT 40. While Marc Newson’s 021C concept car for Ford admittedly resembled a boxed lunch to some extent, had it been produced, it probably would have sold bucket-loads. Why are these exercises just that, conceptual exercises with no intent to pursue further when assuredly there is a market for progressive design. How about architect, artist and designer derived automobiles? There was Buckminster Fullers’ Dymaxion 3 wheeler, Raymond Lowey’s designs for Studebaker, and Renzo Piano’s 1978 Fiat VSS prototype which utilized a steel tubular spaceframe with plastic body panels, issues still relevant to today’s auto industry. Threats to the everyday sameness of things are viewed as just that—threats. The Austrian architect Frederick Kiesler, who largely practiced in the US in the early to mid 1900’s, went from designing storefronts, an ashtray, interiors, a gallery, to making art and building Jerusalem’s Dome of the Book. In times considered more conservative, the 50’ s to late 60’s, less conservative feats design-wise were accomplished. We live in an age of niche specialization where straying outside the norm is discounted, and everyone walks around in blinders. Cross-fertilization between related fields is beneficial to all, and like Karl Marx said, why can’t you be an economist in the morning and a fisherman in the afternoon?

Look out for Rove Cars, a company that will offer cars like I-Pod and Motorola snap on cases; change your mood, change your car color or body style. The concept is the concept:  that every car is a veritable prototype for the road. Make cars like art: the painter Jasper Johns described his work as taking something, doing something to it, and then doing something else to it. We just about have the means and technological sophistication with milling processes and such to produce limited, limited volume cars like editions of sculpture.

In the real life world of the auto industry, if its too good to be true, it probably isn’t, its just that the manufactures have too much fear to unsettle the status quo (gas consumption, and lots of it). Like the new Saab, it’s so good its bad. By definition, most production cars are concepts diluted beyond recognition.  Design nowadays is fungible; one man’s Jag is another’s (or the same guy’s) Aston. A good idea need not be followed by a negation, an excuse as to why something formidable will not be made.

Re: the Z. Car, after Zaha Hadid had designed a ski jump, a car factory and a parking lot, the idea of the car was not much of a leap. And rather then just present an idea of a new 3-wheeled car; why not take it to the street.

Kenny Schachter

back to Kenny Schachter Writings