In a recent interview given to the Automobile magazine, Hyundai USA CEO John Krafcik put some light on the company’s future plans, about how their next generation vehicles will take an evolutionary step forward from the current ‘fluidic sculpture’ design philosophy with a creation of more understated and mature model range. “You’ll see even more maturity with the new Santa Fe, and future cars will feature something we’re internally calling Fluidic Precision, where the forms might be a little less extroverted,” Krafcik said. “You’ll see that with the next Sonata, the design of which has just been frozen.”
Following this interview, Hyundai revealed its upcoming ‘fluidic precision’ design language, which will be “less extroverted” and more conservative as compared to the current styling theme. With their next Hyundai i45, they will also be the first to sport the new look. Hyundai’s latest fluidic sculpture design theme first appeared at the 2009 Geneva motor show which was based on the Hyundai ix-onic concept. The showroom debut happened in the form of ix35 compact SUV later that year. From then onwards the theme has been applied to all the ranges including the upcoming Santa Fe, which is incidentally the last mainstream model to accept fluidic sculpture in Australia in the final quarter of this year.
Although Hyundai is put on the map from a design perspective, not everyone seems to approve of Hyundai’s idea of fluidic sculpture design language. One for instance is Ford group vice president, design, and chief creative officer, J Mays opined that Ford’s next generation of vehicles would have a lot more premium look than Hyundai’s. “I’m not criticizing Hyundai,” Mays said, “it’s just a different philosophy, but their [fluidic sculpture design language] is really all over the map, it’s really loud and fussy. I don’t think that’s premium and I really don’t think it’s sustainable.” This design has worked for Hyundai Australia, around 45,306 new Hyundai’s have been sold in Australia in the first half of this year whereas Ford had 43, 430 sales.
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