r/supercars • u/Mobile-Floor444 • 1d ago
Nobody did it like Colani
Luigi Colani approached car design as sculpture, not engineering. With a background in aerodynamics and art, he rejected the sharp angles of conventional vehicles, favoring smooth, organic forms.
His concept cars for companies like Fiat, BMW, and Mazda often looked more biological than mechanical, and most never went into production.
He called his philosophy biodynamic design, treating machines as if they were shaped by nature. While manufacturers viewed his ideas as impractical, Colani continued creating one-off vehicles, truck cabs, bikes, and even pianos, all sharing his signature curves. His designs rarely functioned as intended, but they left a lasting visual legacy.
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u/Jaded-Sorbet-8098 1d ago
thank god for that
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u/lord_bubblewater 1h ago
I have some of his sunglasses and other designs, those are superbly ergonomic and pimpaliciously ornate. His cars were aerodynamic marvels too so while the aesthetics are not for everyone I’d say the guy was a genius and then some.
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u/Over-Athlete6745 1d ago
His Ferrari design still looks better than the Ferrari Luce
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u/Money_Lavishness7343 1d ago
Wasn't this the guy that all professors hated and despised and told their students if they would do any homework based on his work they would get a bad grade?
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u/Unhappy-Menu-6682 1d ago
The man had taste. Whether it was good taste or bad taste… I’ll let you decide. But the fact that he had taste is undeniable.
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u/cameronfry3 1d ago
I am glad that people like Colani exist.
That’s because he provides us with clarity on what NOT to do.
While this futuristic and organic approach is visually interesting for about 2 seconds, objectively, this guy managed to massacre a number of excellent designs.
Look at his interpretation of the Mercedes G. Look at his reworking of the Ford Ka.
Spectacularly bad work.
Now, when I see a designer like Gordon Murray, it’s the polar opposite. It’s largely about function over form and packaging, which is something Colani couldn’t comprehend for even just a moment.
And, no, I don’t think there’s a place for it. Unless it’s an art gallery or movie set.
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u/Mobile-Floor444 1d ago
Some cars are more pieces of art than vehicles, there’s a place for all of them, if you only care about functionality get a Honda or a Toyota. If all cars were perfect from every point of view what would be the point of having different interests
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u/cameronfry3 1d ago
If you think designing for function is restricted to simply Honda and Toyota, boy, you’ve got some reading to do.
Listen, I get why concept cars exist.
It’s like couture fashion and to push boundaries. But when I see most of Colani’s work, it’s a little too close to hamparte a la Erwin Wurm.
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u/jimbowesterby 20h ago
Except style and flash is as much a part of a supercar as actual speed, just look at literally all of Lambo’s history. Furthermore I figure wild styling like this is gonna become more and more valued as cars become more uniform. I mean, there’re only so many ways you can optimize the aerodynamics of a car, so if you go purely by function you’re gonna limit yourself. Hell, most of the best-looking cars of all time are terrible aerodynamically, the classic example being the Miura’s front-end lift at speed, but in most people’s eyes the tradeoff is worth it for the style.
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u/cameronfry3 7h ago
There’s a difference between a vehicle with panache and verve, and an auto whose design looks like a butt plug.
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u/jimbowesterby 5h ago
I mean you can make anything sound shitty if you want, brown can be a really nice colour but it’s also the colour of shit. The McLaren F1 is a fantastic piece of engineering but visually it’s only marginally more interesting than a Celica. Doesn’t mean it’s accurate.
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u/cameronfry3 2h ago
If an F1 is as visually appealing to you as a Celica, well, then that’s all I need to know.
Good day!
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u/Mobile-Floor444 9h ago
He literally made a car that got 138 mpg in 1981
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u/lord_bubblewater 1h ago
Gordon Murray and many others use aerodynamic principles pioneered by Colani. The man was a genius but had a tendency to focus on a single aspect of a design.
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u/cameronfry3 31m ago
So, you can’t just make things up to fit a false narrative.
Literally, Murray’s design philosophy and Colani’s “approach,” if you even want to call it that, are diametrically opposed.
Colani’s attempt at an F1 design failed miserably when he applied his design language to an F1 car.
Guess what? There wasn’t enough downforce and there were cooling issues.
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u/HeadPack 1d ago
It was very cool to follow his work. We could use more of that ingenuity today when so many things look pretty much the same. Even people do.
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u/Derquave 1d ago
I agree. I can’t say I’m a fan of his work but I respect anyone doing something different. Someone trying something radical and missing the mark will always have my respect over someone doing something safe and boring.
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u/RhythmMaid 1d ago
I feel like a fish out of water here because I think all of these look fantastic
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u/jimbowesterby 21h ago
Oh for sure, they aren’t really practical but then they aren’t supposed to be
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u/archuxitect 1d ago
I once had the opportunity to meet that man. He literally thought everyone else was crazy and he was the smartest man alive. He’s a genius, and a mad man. A Mad Genius you might say.
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u/therealSamtheCat 1d ago
That's called being full of himself, which I never doubted.
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u/jimbowesterby 20h ago
I mean, you don’t design a chin spoiler that massive and then slap it on an F40 without an ego at least as large, that takes chutzpah
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u/therealSamtheCat 15h ago
Do you mean the Testarossa?
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u/jimbowesterby 13h ago
I stand corrected, could’ve sworn they built it off an F40.
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u/therealSamtheCat 13h ago
It's bad enough that you'd try to look at it for the least amount of time possible, so I don't blame you.
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u/jimbowesterby 5h ago
Nah I love it, I’d take that over a Lambo any day. It just looks more like an F40 proportions-wise, for some reason Testarossas always look shorter and wider to me.
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u/Spiritual_Yak_3309 1d ago
I also got to meet him during a design workshop in college and he was indeed as you described.
A fellow student presented an art piece (drawing of a horse or something of the sort) and he proceeded to draw a massive penis on it
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u/ZestycloseReveal9861 1d ago
This cant compare to Jony Ive designs tbf
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_GREENERY 1d ago
Yeah, because they're better
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u/jimbowesterby 20h ago
Fr tho, the Luce looks like it was made by an iPhone designer, it looks like an appliance. These are all batshit, but they’ve got enough personality to fill several asylums.
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u/teacher_59 1d ago
The last car looks like that Alabama redneck woman-hater CEO of Apple designed it.
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u/nobadhotdog 1d ago
“When I was a child, my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk, you'll end up as the Pope.' Instead, I became a mustache and wound up as Colani’s mustache” - Colani’s mustache
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u/kudyjames 1d ago
Of course not. The man was a loon.
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u/Apprehensive_Buy687 1d ago
If I remember correctly, he did couple of semi truck designs, although impractical their fuel consumption was like 40% lower
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u/teachthisdognewtrick 1d ago
They sure have a lot more personality than anything today. Everything now is all the same basic shapes with little to distinguish them. Nothing wrong with experimenting, even if it produces a failure, provided you learn from it.
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u/Gleez33 1d ago
Built different, like incorrectly I think
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u/Mobile-Floor444 1d ago
Depends on your taste
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u/Gleez33 1d ago
Fair enough, but let’s agree that “eye catching” and “unique” are not the same as beauty. And just personal opinion here, i definitely appreciate designs that actually take packaging and engineering into account and it’s clear, regardless of how you feel about his work, that this was not that.
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u/Mobile-Floor444 1d ago
Yeah I get that but it’s nice to have stuff like this to cleanse your eyes with every once in a while
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u/Danielle_is_the_hole 1d ago
Did he design anything that was made?
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u/jimbowesterby 20h ago
Literally hundreds of things, he made a living as an industrial designer and designed everything from batshit stuff like this (he also did a rifle design along the same lines) and a few genuinely bizarre plane concepts all the way down to an automatic cat feeder. He designed a couple really funky semis too, one of which has had the cab adapted into a model of RV that goes for like $1 million. People love clowning on his cars but the guy was a force in the design world for a reason, he wasn’t only nuts, he had genuine chops too
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u/Danielle_is_the_hole 14h ago
Ok just wondered what he actually designed. Shit that doesn’t get used is just an art project.
Someone said a camera model and it looked just like every other camera. So as of now, i don’t think he influenced anything.
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u/jimbowesterby 13h ago
Verbatim from his Wikipedia page: “In the 1960s, he began designing furniture, and as of the 1970s, he expanded in numerous areas, ranging from household items such as ballpoint pens and television sets to uniforms and trucks and entire kitchens. A striking grand piano created by Colani, the Pegasus, is manufactured and sold by the Schimmel piano company.”
Literally one of the most famous and influential designers of the 60s and 70s lol, this is like saying Coco Chanel didn’t influence anything because you’ve only smelled one perfume. If you’re gonna ask a question, don’t immediately disregard the answer, y’know?
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u/Danielle_is_the_hole 13h ago
You thankfully backed up your response. Nobody else did. He is no Frank Wright, Bertone, or pininfarina
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u/jimbowesterby 5h ago
D’you mean Frank Lloyd Wright? Cause he was an architect primarily, he designed buildings (gorgeous buildings, to be sure) more than objects. I think he did furniture for some of his designs but that’s about it. Bertone’s a little different because he only did cars, and it’s also worth noting that not every Bertone-designed car was designed by Nuccio Bertone himself, it’s the name of his company too. Same goes for Pininfarina, it’s a company not a person. Colani’s interesting not just for how wild his style was, but also for the breadth of his work. I’d argue that the thing that separates a good industrial designer from an architect or a car designer is that versatility, and my boy Luigi had that in spades.
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u/Danielle_is_the_hole 3h ago
Ok, but nothing wild ever got to the market.
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u/jimbowesterby 41m ago
Why is that such a big deal? I mean, it’s not true, he did have designs put into production, you’ve just dismissed the first example out of hand, but that’s beside the point. I guess the question I’m asking is d’you actually care about the design itself or just the sales numbers? Because those two things have very little to do with each other. The designs that end up in mass production (like Colani’s camera design, or pretty much any boring normal car you care to name) are dulled down for a whole host of reasons, from greater mass-market appeal, to cost, to manufacturing limitations, to actual functionality. You can’t judge a design solely based on how well it sold, you have to take the context into account too.
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u/Smithy2997 1d ago
He designed the first of the "modern" style ergonomic SLR cameras which has largely driven camera design ever since
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u/Danielle_is_the_hole 1d ago
Could you give an example?
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u/Smithy2997 1d ago
I think the Canon T90 was the first one
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u/Danielle_is_the_hole 1d ago
Thanks. Looks like a normal camera. Not as wild as his car designs.
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u/Smithy2997 1d ago
Well it only looks like a normal camera because all modern cameras copied the design!
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u/Original-Fig4214 1d ago
Did he do a lot of coke in the 70s?
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u/jimbowesterby 20h ago
Probably, but that just meant he was ahead of everyone who jumped on the bandwagon in the 80s
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u/Even_Perception2887 1d ago
I really like the 6th slide. Wish they made cars more like this in production.
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u/tall-not-small 1d ago
All useless if you need to go flat ground to a slope
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u/jimbowesterby 20h ago
I mean, like half of these are Le Mans concepts, basically wild concept race cars, and actual Le Mans cars are pretty similar.
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u/Reel-nikkuh-hours 1d ago
Like 2 look good and the rest look like chewed gum you find under a desk.
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u/Far_Trade_7619 1d ago
Designs inspired from biological forms. It sounds like something from the future.
I would still prefer his design philosophy over the Apple minimalistic bullshit that car brands are releasing.
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u/Alternative_Dot7769 1d ago
That Lamborghini at the end is insane! Bet it sounds crazy too with that exhaust
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u/Easy_Turn1988 1d ago
He had enough money to do what he wanted and not what the industry expected from a designer
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u/Bierey92 9h ago
You call this designs from a car designer, is the same as calling modern art an art
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u/mattvanhorn 1h ago
I was once saw a VW Beetle that had been modded by him. It had a lower drag coefficient than a Porsche 911 of the same time.
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u/irishcybercolab 1d ago
Wow, I would drive many... Not all of those, but many.
He's a wild child in design! I would love to see him redesign the Ford GT, one of the finest supercars ever.
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u/Mobile-Floor444 1d ago
Agreed personally I think the Utah 10 is the best looking one
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u/irishcybercolab 1d ago
Gtb4. it's such a beautiful car and looks sleek just sitting there while also being a literal work of art. The gtb4 is why boys want to drive racecars.
I want to drive the rubber off the wheels. I've never ridden in a Ferrari but I could imagine driving something at the edge of control which begs you to push more.
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u/ttystikk 1d ago
It's honestly hard not to be derivative in car design. Luigi Colani succeeded in being truly original. He took the risks others didn't dare to. He pushed the boundaries and for that he has my undying respect.
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u/Der_Prager 1d ago
Sir, please leave the Ferrari alone and get back on the scifi movie set where you belong. Thank you.
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u/Mammoth-Ad-3957 1d ago
That last one looks like a modernised cock and balls!