Narrator: Car designers draw inspiration
from the places you would least expect,
using nature and scientific concepts
when constructing their designs.
But if there are design elements that guarantee success,
why have iconic designs like the Mustang
been able to adapt with the times,
while others like Pontiac's GTO
have completely fallen off the map?
Where do they succeed and where do they fail?
I wish I knew the answer to that one,
because I'd be rich.
Narrator: That's Frank Stephenson,
designer of the Ferrari F430, McLaren P1,
BMW X5, and the 2001 Mini Cooper.
Frank: A lot of people do think that
you just pick up a pen or a pencil
or whatever you're using and just start,
but that's kind of like starting a race
without knowing, how far are you going to run.
I much prefer doing a little bit
of what we call due diligence, or research,
before I start a design project.
You're being asked to design something
that originally probably started
in the marketing department
as the response to providing
your suggestion for a certain segment.
Narrator: But while car designs often are the response
to an identified segment or a targeted market,
that doesn't mean automakers want them to stay the same.
Frank: They pay us to innovate, not to replicate.
Most designers, when they draw, like I said,
are probably drawing cars
that are going to be coming out
in five years, not next year,
because it takes about that long to develop a car.
Narrator: One of the ways car designers
keep their designs looking fresh
is by using nature as inspiration.
Frank: What that basically shows,
what I call biomimicry.
Basically take what nature gives you,
and you sort of take the best of what it has
and interpret it into a design.
So I did that with the P1,
where it's more influenced by speed.
The cheetah is a strikingly efficient animal
when it's at full speed.
So trying to capture that dynamic proportion
of it in certain elements.
It's the stance that makes it look like
it's pulling at the leash,
even when it's standing still.
A lot of the stuff that I use
is called the golden ratio.
Just to achieve the right proportions
of the vehicle, so it looks right.
That ratio, by the way, is 1.618.
You find it everywhere in nature.
Narrator: But using nature in design
isn't always about motion.
Sometimes it's about giving the car character.
Frank: The Mini had always reminded me of a bulldog.
If you looked at the original Mini,
it had that low squat, kind of cute,
but also not too aggressive, but it wasn't silly.
It was kind of like the little dog
you'd walk up to and ask,
"Is it all right if I pet him?"
Like, "I'm not asking you, I'm asking the dog."
And I wanted to capture that with the Mini,
because the Mini, for me, being iconic, British iconic,
and the bulldog being British iconic,
and both of them being that type of proportion,
I thought it was the perfect inspiration.
Narrator: When it comes to the 2001 Mini,
a vehicle that hadn't been redesigned in over 40 years,
Frank had a difficult situation on his hands.
How do you make the Mini look recognizable,
like it belonged to the Mini family,
while also adding a natural progression to its look?
Frank: What I did was I basically took the Mini,
the original Mini,
and I did a theoretical evolutionary cycle to it
where, if it had changed every 10 years,
what would it have looked like?
And that's why people recognized it
and had that familiarity feeling when they saw it.
Narrator: That familiar feeling Frank is talking about
is what car designers call "the family look."
Frank: So if you walk into dealership,
you're not expecting to see just the same car,
just in different proportions or shapes or sizes.
You want common elements, design elements,
like the headlights, like the grill,
like the lines on the side of the car,
like the stance of the car,
to give you sort of this feeling
that they're brothers and sisters.
Narrator: The family look is just one
of the key elements to the success of a design.
And radically changing the look of a car too quickly
is one of the worst things a brand can do.
Frank: Suddenly, you bring in
a completely different-looking relative into the family.
It kind of makes you think,
"Well, where did you come from?"
And so we try to avoid that in the car industry,
because it doesn't help us to develop the brand,
to develop the design language of the brand.
Narrator: Figuring out what will make
a new car design successful is a complicated process,
but there is a simple way to understand
why new designs might fail.
They either fail by not trying hard enough
or by trying too hard.
That's definitely been proven
many, many times in the past.
When they don't try hard enough,
customers get bored and jump ship
and go to something that's a little bit more,
at least from an emotional point of view, more exciting.
When people ask what makes a car design timeless,
I prefer to call it long-lasting,
the most important elements to achieve
what we would call a long-lasting design
are natural proportions.
As we see oftentimes in nature, there's a ratio,
a scientific ratio to that.
I think also you have to establish
a very unique character
so that it's definitely recognizable as being unique.
There has to be also an element
of dynamism or tension in the design.
Nobody likes boring designs.
Nobody likes overcooked designs.
So I think you have to find a complete balance
between what feels natural
and perhaps love at first sight.
That's definitely one of the main ingredients.
You have to have that instant spark of attraction.
Narrator: While no one can guarantee
the success of a new car,
designers do their best to create
innovative vehicles that have a lasting appeal.
But the only way to truly know if a car is timeless
is to see if it passes the test of time.