Click for a hi-res gallery of the Bentley SenseS concept
An outside perspective can do wonders for an automaker. In this case, we're not sure ourselves what to make of this concept, let alone what Bentley would do with it. The British luxury marque actually commissioned Arturo Peralta, a Spanish automotive designer, to come up with this concept that he calls the SenseS.
While pursuing his second MA in vehicle design, Peralta interned at Pininfarina, where, judging from the striking similarities, he either had an integral part in designing the Sintesi concept or else made off with the blueprints in his briefcase. Peralta waxes poetic about the relationship he envisions that the Bentley SenseS would share with its driver and the environment around it, thanks in part to – wait for it – Genetic Engineering, but offers little in the way of actual details aside from the translucent body panels and suggesting that the vehicle would be powered by the wind. In the end, don't expect to see this design shaping the direction of the next Continental... somehow we don't think the twin-turbo W12 would quite fit in there.
Click above for hi-res gallery of the Pininfarina Sintesi Concept
Even prior to Pininfarina CEO Andrea Pininfarina's untimely death while out riding his scooter, the market for coachbuilt automobiles was shrinking fast. To wit, the Italian car design firm had recently just managed to sign an agreement with its creditors to reschedule the company's debt and is now asking for an extra one-hundred-million Euros from shareholders for future product development. Pininfarina is also planning on designing and building its own electric car using batteries and technology supplied by a French company known as The Bolloré Group. Currently, many questions surround the storied Italian marque. As of today, for instance, Pininfarina is without a leader as the company has yet to announce its next CEO, despite the fact that it is knee-deep in a turnaround plan to bring the company back to profitability. Can the storied design firm and coach-building company survive these tumultuous times without a leader? Time, as always, will tell.
Click above to view the Pininfarina Sintesi concept in hi-res
Pininfarina. Just the name evokes thoughts of sheet-metal rendered into curvaceous works of art. And at Geneva this year, Pininfarina did not disappoint, unveiling one of the most achingly beautiful four-door concepts we've seen to date. In fact, we were so taken with it, we had to bring you more after our own Jonathon Ramsey brought you the first live pics yesterday.
The Sintesi, whose slow reveal we brought you incrementally as the studio released details week by week in the wind-up to this year's Geneva Motor Show, takes the notion of a four-door coupe, crumples it up and ever so elegantly throws it in the face of just about every passenger vehicle that has come before it, including Pininfarina's own Maserati Quattroporte. Come to think of it, the QP is due for a replacement, and if the Sintesi previews the next Trident sedan in any way, we just might have to mortgage our homes.
Click on the thumbnails below to view all our best live shots and a host of new press pics.
Click above for more images of the Pininfarina Sintesi
With one week to go until the Geneva Motor Show and counting, Pininfarina has finally done the "Full Monty" by revealing the overall design of its new Sintesi concept. And as you can see, it's a striking design.
We particularly like the window treatment, with a contemporary take on the classic window-within-window. Meanwhile, if the windshield were any more steeply raked, it would be completely horizontal. The opposing scissor doors swing up like on a Lamborghini, but hinged forward on the front doors and rearward on the rear ones. The mouth gapes wide open to gasp for air like a whale sucking down plankton, and the sills tuck under the body like on the Maserati GranTurismo, giving the Sintesi a rakishly athletic stance. And once again, Pininfarina has worked its magic on the flowing forms, with novel takes on the roof pillars, air vents and assuredly many more elements that will become apparent when we see the concept live, an experience we're looking forward to already.
Check out the gallery below to view more, or follow these links if you need to catch up:
We're another week closer to the Geneva show, and you know what that means... no, not chocolate. That means we get another sneak peek at the Pininfarina Sintesi concept, which the famous design house has been slowly and agonizingly revealing bit by bit, week by week. And uh-oh, what's that? Looks like a teaser shot of the Sintesi's profile. There are a few more new ones, just check out the images in the gallery below.
We always knew it would be the Italians who would figure out a way to do away with traffic lights and stop signs. The latest in the slow reveal of Pininfarina's upcoming Sintesi concept highlights what the design firm calls Clancast. The system – which, as it strikes us, would need to be fitted to every vehicle on the road in order to work at all – communicates automatically with other cars on the road to coordinate traffic in a decentralized manner, thereby obviating the need for stop signs, traffic lights and all manner of roadside signalization that we all studied so hard to learn for our driving exams.
We presume Pininfarina will have more details when the concept is fully unveiled at the Geneva show, now just three weeks away. But until then, you can check out the Sintesi virtual magazine online to see what Pininfarina is on about.
As we promised last month, Pininfarina has hit us with a teaser sketch of the upcoming Sintesi concept car. The show car, which will be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show this coming March, is the first concept the famous Italian design house will have shown in three years.
Sintesi is Italian for "summary", and the concept ties together themes from its last two design studies: the Maserati Birdcage 75th that stopped the Geneva show in 2005, and the Nido city-car from Paris '04. The design for the new Sintesi was directed by Lowie Vermeersch, head of the company's design department. We'll look forward to bringing you more as Pininfarina doles it out, but you can check out their nifty cyber-mag in the meantime by following the link below.
Pininfarina has been responsible for some of the most fantastic road-going vehicles of the 20th and 21st century, most recently the Ferrari Enzo and 612 Scaglietti, not to mention countless concepts over the years. Being the go-to design house for Ferrari says as much, and when we make another trek across the Atlantic to cover the Geneva Motor Show in March, we'll be on hand to watch the unveiling of a new concept from the Italian design firm.
The Sintesi will be the first concept the company will have shown in three years and according to Andrea Pininfarina, the vehicle will incorporate everything from advanced safety innovations to groundbreaking design. We're sure the Sintesi will be all things to many car cognoscenti, and keep an eye out in January when Pininfarina releases a teaser of the concept ahead of its reveal the first week of March.
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