Bertone To Teach Chinese How To Design Cars
Give it a little while and the snickering about uninspired, or foreign-inspired Chinese car design can end. Carrozzeria Bertone has signed a partnership agreement with the Raffles CU International College, an affiliate of the Changchun University in northeastern China. Next to Shanghai, Changchun is the second-most important auto manufacturing center in China. It is dominated by FAW and its joint ventures with Volkswagen and Toyota.
Bertone and the Raffles College will cooperate in the training of Chinese auto designers. It is the first talent training program the Italian company has launched in China, says Xinhua. The best students will work with Bertone in China, the very best will get a job in Italy.
In April, the Italian car designer had opened a new design studio in Beijing. Bertone had filed for the Italian equivalent of Chapter 11 in 2007. FAW placed a bid for Bertone in 2008, but was out-bid by Fiat in 2009. Fiat wants to build Chrysler cars in Italy at the Bertone plants.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I suppose Bertone is not what it cracked up to be, otherwise they dont need to file chpt 11. So the situation is only place where cars selling like hot cakes or flying off the shelf would be Middle Kingdom. Logically is go there and open another studio, take in a lot of students who're willing to pay thru the nose. Now so many cars & exotics had been designed, difficult to say any new shape had not been explored? Hope he could get a new lease of life again in the Middle Kingdom, can claim his fame & fortune just like his fore father Marco Polo did them.
Although I love Bertones work, I've never been comfortable in any car they've designed. I suppose if you were 5'2" you might. And, if I were building a car today, I would have Microsoft design it. Young people don't care about the looks, they just want to play Grand Theft Auto while driving, and Twitter their location to their groups.
While this sounds like a (sorely needed) stroke of genius - I highly doubt it will prove any more useful than the last couple of BP containment domes. Just looking at it, you know it ain't gonna be a success. All societies have a middle-bell-curve styling ethos that is rather deeply ingrained. The average American will look favorably on a '55 Chevy, or a Dodge Ram. For that matter, a whole lotta Caprices have somehow moved off sales lots into driveways over the last 30+ years. Good luck selling them in Japan. Chinese 'styling' is what it is, because it fits the mass-market taste of the *average* Chinese buyer. (Chinese with a more evolved sense of taste/need for status symbols buy EU/JP imports. Just like Americans.) Intellectually, we can argue that the world be a far more beautiful place if we banned McMansions, and made all mass-market cars somewhat more attractive than AMC Matadors. But reality is that for every person who appreciates a Matisse, there are 100 who prefer the velvet Elvis and/or a variant of the 'Dogs Playing Poker' masterpiece.
Nike should sue them for stealing their design.