The Pasadena Art Center College of Design held its annual Car Classic this past weekend, an event that has been a must-attend on our calendars for the past few years. While rain hampered last year’s Car Classic, this year’s event benefited from a typically beautiful Southern California day.

Anyone from the Art Center will tell you that the Car Classic is not a concours event, but rather a display of automotive art. As a result, the selection of cars is fairly eclectic and the vehicles are strewn about the campus lawn in a rather unorganized fashion. While the layout may not be as photogenic, it makes it easy to wander through the sea of cars and simply enjoy each and every one.

Each Car Classic does have a theme, though, and for 2011 the event celebrated Southern California’s influence on automotive design. In addition to the Art Center producing some of the world’s most famous automotive designers, more than twenty advanced automotive design studios call the area home, several of which brought recent concept cars to display. There were also special displays for California hot rods and California beach culture as well as cars designed by Peter Brock. The Petersen Automotive Museum and Mullin Museum also brought out cars from their impressive collections. You can see a sample of the cars in attendance in the high-res gallery above.

2011 Art Center Car Classic celebrates Southern California’s influence on automotive design originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Korean-made cars of the 1990s and early 2000s looked very… Korean. Not exactly a bad thing, mind you, but it’s tough to sell vehicles around the globe that cater to a specific region of the world. That’s likely one of the reasons why Kia hired former Audi designer Peter Schreyer to inject some much needed style into its lineup.

Schreyer tells Automotive News that there is no “Koreaness” about the Kia lineup, adding “to be honest, we don’t want the cars to look Korean.” A quick look at the 2011 Optima and you can see Schreyer is succeeding, but what about the Naimo EV concept? AN tells us that the jade color is reminiscent of Celadon-style pottery. The interior is covered in Korean oak. Schreyer tells AN that, at least in this case, the Korean factor is strong, adding it has design cues inspired by art specific to that country.

While the Naimo concept is a definite change of pace versus the rest of the Kia lineup, we’re thinking the little concept doesn’t mean to reveal a new styling direction. The show car was, after all, designed with the Seoul Motor Show in mind. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with playing to the home crowd.

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req.]

Followup: Kia design head “caves” to Korean influence with Naimo concept originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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