The Auto Car: designing our own car with Tata Motors

“What if we design our own car?” That got many interested at our edit meet. The thing is, while we evaluate objective stuff like performance and space, we also evaluate a car’s styling; something far more subjective. And thus, when we do so, there’s often the lament from many a dejected car designer: ‘We spend months and years designing a car and then, in a second, it’s loved or dismissed.’

So I thought, why not design our own car and have an automaker critique it? Among nods of excited approval, Gavin – incidentally, the person I had in mind to actually create the designs – had all the doubts. “It’s just random doodles,” he said, but that’s what all designs start with. “What kind of car?” A sportscar, of course. “We know little about productionable shapes,” he continued. We’ll take it to a manufacturer for help, and besides, it’s not like it will make it to production. “But what would we even base it on?” Gavin asked. A car from their portfolio, of course. And so began an exciting journey leading up to the car you see here, which you, too, would no doubt have liked or dismissed the second you saw it.

We all agreed to ask Tata Motors for help; the Indian carmaker’s designs have wowed us, right from the original Sierra to the new Safari, and even the pure and simple Tigor. Much to our surprise and delight, they wholeheartedly agreed to help. Were we lambs being led to slaughter? Was the Tata design team relishing the opportunity to poke fun at the ideas we had? Far from it. While we hoped for critique and help in refining our sketch, we ended up with 3D renders and videos. A scale model would follow, too!

The plan 

At first, we wanted to sketch a coupé based on the Altroz; something compact and sporty, like the Tata Aria sports car concept the company showcased at the start of this millennium. Tata, however, requested us to base the car on the Curvv, given that it was their newest creation. With a striking and edgy style, it would allow us to go wild, and so we sat together and ideated on what our sports car, based on the Curvv, would look like.

It would have to retain some of the SUV-coupé’s essence, Gavin wanted to keep the distinguishable details like the triangulated tail-lights, while a few in the team felt the roofline should be similar. I had one design trait that I really wanted the car to have; the line that – like the gap in a clamshell – divides the body of many classic Ferraris: the F40, the F355, the 348 and the Berlinetta Boxer, to name a few. On Italian cars, it was used to make them look gorgeous.

Here, I wanted to use it to signify the powertrain choice, too. Being based on the Curvv, our car would have both ICE and EV powertrains, and while the top half would remain common, the bottom half’s style and details could change depending on the motive force. For example, while the ICE version would have a traditional radiator grille and exhaust pipes, the EV wouldn’t. It would instead sport some cladding at the side signifying the battery, a la the Audi Q6 e-tron.

And so, with these thoughts in mind, Gavin – who spends all our editorial meetings drawing cars in his notepad anyway – put pencil to paper and drew a few sketches. We discussed them some more and came up with a final one that we would present to Tata Motors. I was due to travel to the company’s UK design studio and would present it to Martin Uhlarik, the head of Global Design at Tata Motors, and his team.

The process 

Mustering up courage, I shared a few of the other sketches, too, and instead of criticism, there was positivity. “I can already see how your car would look like in production,” said Uhlarik. “You retained the roofline; that’s nice. The clamshell line, that’s an idea and that’s a big part of design.” All encouragement, no doubt, but still, it must mean we were onto something. So, would they help us refine this crude pencil sketch?

“For sure,” said Uhlarik, but there’s a broad process he would like to take us through before we get there. “These drawing you have are what we call thumbnails,” like back-of-the-envelope-style doodles used to discuss ideas and possibilities. He would hand these over to a few designers in his team and ask them to sketch some more: looser and wilder.

In our bid to not be laughed back onto the plane, it turns out we kept things too tidy and closer to reality. Initially, it’s best to go wild, loosening the mind and hands, so that’s what the Tata Motors design team would do. Effectively take a step backward with some wilder drawings. Then, from these new options, we could pick one, or elements from different ones, to arrive at a final design direction. This would then be rendered into a 3D form. “We’ll make you a scale clay version, too; it’s your anniversary after all, and so you’ll must have a gift,” said Aurelien Doisy, head of Tata Motors’ European design centres. That made our day. It was easily so much more than we expected. It’s not easy to get an automaker to invest this much of their time and resources, so all of this was simply superb to have.

The proposal 

We met again in Mumbai at the launch of the Curvv EV, and Uhlarik presented three sketches that he had three designers from his team create independently: “You’re like our clients, you gave us a brief with your sketches and now we present you some ideas,” he said.

At first, we were quite confused with the options and began to pick like kids in a candy store, but then, as we began isolating what we liked, we realised one particular sketch was in line with our design thoughts. The triangulated tail-lights – wilder here, of course – the single, arched coupé roofline, the DRL signature and that clamshell line; this particular sketch had it all. And a particularly cool element they added was the ‘A’ pattern alloys. This, after all, was the Autocar India car and would proudly carry our logo.

The meeting was going on swimmingly, and Gavin and I were beside ourselves seeing this moving along, and then Uhlarik bowls us over with a request. “You know how Pininfarina has their logo on the sides of Ferraris they’ve designed? Well, we’d like to have our logo on the side of the Autocar India car.” We were simply speechless. Gavin could not believe a car he sketched would also carry the mark of Tata Motors. And so, with stars in our eyes, we left awaiting the final car. Both of us were no doubt fantasising about it actually making production. I know I was.

The product 

About a week or so later, we had another call with Doisy, where he presented us with the final car you see here. It looked striking, especially so in our signature yellow – a shade that goes well on sports cars. It looked very much like a concept car, and we asked if this was actually productionable. “Think of the first Curvv concept you saw and then the production car. They are close, aren’t they?” said Doisy. “So yes, this is a concept, but it’s easily productionable.”

Indeed, Tata Motors has a good record of keeping its production cars close to its concepts. So what would we require to take it to a final design drawing? A whole lot of time. Like six months or more, so clearly we’d have to stop right here. But we asked Doisy, broadly speaking, what would change on a production version? The car would go a bit taller, the wheels smaller and you need clearance in the arches for suspension travel and for the wheels to turn. The pillars would be more prominent for safety and structural requirements, and the front DRL would flare out into headlights. All in all, it’s the details, said Doisy. “Think Curvv concept and the actual Curvv,” he emphasised.

So, visualising our own car in the flesh; what did we think? Everyone loves the front end that looks simply sensuous with those smooth curves and bodywork. The fenders beautifully flow out into the wheel arches and the bonnet dips; no power bulge here. This is an EV and the power stance comes out brilliantly with the flared wheel arches. At the side, everyone loved the shark-nose profile, which looks sporty and aggressive. I was, of course, elated with that clamshell line. A particularly cool touch was the addition of a light strip within, that could be used to indicate a turn or even light up the surrounding when parked. At the rear, there’s no exhaust on this EV version, but we imagine the central hexagonal area would give way to a set of pipes. So would something like this make it to production? We’d love for it to, of course, but the chances of a mass-segment sports car today are bleak. But, hopefully, we’ve sparked a few ideas back at Tata Motors. Fingers crossed.

Also See:

300th issue special: Cracking 300kph, 3 times

300th issue special: Unforgettable 300km road trips