Hasta La Ideas

pimg alt=”0culturcardes.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/0culturcardes.jpg” width=”468″ height=”682″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pYears ago when I was a car nut, most of the car magazines I pored over agreed that the Germans made the best suspension systems. The reasoning was that cars designed in Germany, specifically for German use, had to contend with the no-speed-limit Autobanh–where rock-solid steadiness is important–as well as the centuries-old cobblestone streets of many villages, where the suspension had to provide enough cushioning to avoid a teeth-rattling ride. The Germans, it was said, had best managed to strike a balance between the need to accommodate these two extremes./p

pAn article I read in the American magazine ICar and Driver/I put forth a fascinating hypothesis about Japanese suspensions. The author suggested they were more comfortable for Asian people, as opposed to (typically larger) Americans, and theorized that this was because the up-and-down motions of suspensions in Japan were tuned for people of average Japanese height–that is to say, a 5’9″ Japanese man, while walking, was used to his head traveling up and down at a particular rate according to his size-determined stride; and that an American man of 6’2″ had a different head-bouncing gait, one that a Japanese suspension did not feel quite right for./p

pI never saw anything like scientific proof of either of these points, but it always stuck with me that situations specific to a particular nation could influence their product designs in surprising ways./p

pSo it was with great interest that I read the obituary of Charles S. King, the designer of the original Range Rover, which mentioned the Rover’s specific, culture-based function. I never paid much attention to what I considered trucks, being interested more in performance cars; to me a Range Rover was something that hip hop stars or people who lived in SoHo drove. But A HREF=”http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04king.html?_r=1src=busln” the ITimes/I piece on King/A points out that it was designed in the 1960s for a very specific, and very British, purpose:/p

blockquoteEquipped with a powerful V-8 engine, huge tires and coil spring suspension…the Range Rover was made to leave London on a Friday night for a 100-mile-an-hour sprint to a country estate, and rev up Saturday morning for a pheasant hunt across the rocky English countryside.

p[In] the United States…it became prized less for its superior performance than for its exclusivity. To a generation of rappers, professional athletes and striving suburbanites, the Range Rover became the ultimate four-wheeled status symbol, which Mr. King regretted./p

p”Sadly, the 4×4 has become an acceptable alternative to Mercedes or BMW for the pompous, self-important driver,” Mr. King told The Daily Mail in 2004. “To use them for the school run, or even in cities or towns at all, is completely stupid.”/blockquotebr /
/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/how_cultural_regional_and_physical_differences_can_influence_car_design_16874.asp”(more…)/a
pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/JRU7nvEWfsf8RrHmmMxcLzuimI0/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/JRU7nvEWfsf8RrHmmMxcLzuimI0/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/
a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/JRU7nvEWfsf8RrHmmMxcLzuimI0/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/JRU7nvEWfsf8RrHmmMxcLzuimI0/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p