The earliest memory of the car in China may have begun from the era of volkswagen jetta and Santana in the 90s, and the square design of the whole car was shaped in that era, and many models in that era were like this. Now, more than 30 years later, the design of automobiles has advanced rapidly, and the appearance created only with straight lines has long been a thing of the past. But with the promotion of pure electric vehicles, it seems that the exterior design of the car has begun to have a new way of playing, which can be avant-garde or retro!
Hyundai, on the other hand, has done just that by launching a concept car with a very retro look, the Pony EV Concept, which is a pure electric concept car.
Seeing the modern Pony EV Concept, everyone may immediately think that this is not a combination of Jetta and AE86, hard straight lines plus slippery design, which is full of age! But perhaps because people don't know much about hyundai's history, in fact, this Pony EV Concept is completely based on Hyundai's first model, the Pony.
The Pony was Hyundai's first model launched in 1975, thus opening the way for hyundai brands to build cars. Before the launch of Pony, Hyundai had been producing Cortina for Ford, and it was from this time that Hyundai accumulated experience in building cars.
The degree of reduction of the Pony EV Concept is still very high, and the round headlights and grille shape of the front face are the same as those of the original Pony. The rearview mirror also uses the same cabin rearview mirrors as the old crown, but the difference is that the two rearview mirrors are actually cameras, of course, this configuration is likely to become the mainstream configuration of future cars.
The rear of the car is also similar to Pony, but the difference is that the taillights of the LEDs are lit like the cars in the movie "Back to the Future", which is both retro and futuristic.
If the exterior is retro, then Pony's interior is the future. Hyundai has carried out a comprehensive technological upgrade to the interior of the Pony EV, the most distinctive of which is that within the penetrating instrument panel frame, six sets of glow tubes are installed, three on the left show the power, and three on the right show the speed. Such an instrument design is something that no car has ever had!
In addition, in the central control part can also see a lot of retro details, the central control design is extremely simple, just like the radio of its old model, the gear shift mechanism uses touch-type shifting, but retains the H-shaped slot design of the manual gear, which is really very flavorful. The door panels are wrapped in vintage leather, the door handle is replaced by a small belt, sitting in it is the future, and savoring it is retro.
At the recent Shanghai Auto Show, Hyundai's IONIQ 5 (Ani Kr) is actually very much like a concept car, and you can see a lot of shadows with the Pony EV Concept, especially the design of the taillights and the use of electronic rearview mirrors, and the IONIQ 5 is already a real production car. In terms of appearance, IONIQ 5 also combines retro and future, continuing the modern 45 concept design previously released.
In addition, the lightning cat and punk cat concept cars brought by Euler also take the retro design route, because the pure electric platform gives the appearance more room to play, without the engine, gearbox and other parts, more space can be left for the car to ride or shape the design. Moreover, for the current electric vehicles, high performance is not a difficult point at all, as long as the car companies want to, they can do more than 3 seconds of acceleration, in the era of electric vehicles, performance is not the most important selling point, the biggest problem is charging and battery life. If the battery technology is broken in the future and the charging pile is popularized, then the greater competition of electric vehicles lies in the optimization of the appearance design and riding space. It is foreseeable that many of the concept cars with sci-fi shapes and huge cockpits inside will soon be born.
The retro styling of the hyundai Pony EV Concept and the futuristic installation make it feel like being in a movie. In the era of pure electric, I believe there will be more cars with completely different designs, but fashion is a reincarnation, not necessarily full of science fiction, retro design can also have a sense of futurism!