In my snippets posting from yesterday I mentioned “an appointment” that took me away from the LA Auto Show.
That appointment was at the hotel where I’m staying, along with all of the people from Saab Sweden who are here. The appointment was with Victor Muller and Jason Castriota and they were kind enough to give me a look at the computer design renderings of the car that will replace the Saab 9-3 in late 2012.
Yes, I saw it.
The hard part about writing this is that whilst I was allowed to see it, and whilst I’m allowed to write about the fact that I’ve seen it – I’m actually not allowed to tell you anything specific about it.
What I can say is this…..
It always takes me a little time to get fired up about new designs. It took me a full year to warm to the Dame Edna Saab 9-5, for example, which is a design that I really, really like now. My first reaction when Jason opened the lid of his laptop wasn’t overwhelming, but I definitely warmed to this vehicle over the course of the half-hour or so that we were looking at it and talking about it.
It was a little larger than I expected, but one of the things about seeing a flat, white 2D rendering on a computer screen is that you can’t see the contours that you can see with a painted, 3D model.
The car was in a very desireable and marketable body style and definitely carried the current design language in many respects, but also extended it quite considerably in others. The front, in particularly, painted a very nice portrait – even in this flat 2D form.
As mentioned, it takes me a while to warm to new designs. I don’t have a particularly good imagination. But I warmed to this and as I sit here now, a day later, writing about it, I’m very much looking forward to seeing it in the metal some time in the future.
It pains me to say it, but I won’t be able to answer any of the many questions that I’m sure are going to fill comments to this post. It’s the price I have to pay for being able to say anything at all.
All I can do is quote one of my favourite musicians and say: I’ve seen the future and it works.
Comments are closed.