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Ferrari 488 GTB among the best car designs of 2016 [UPDATE]

Can't decide whether the Ferrari 488 GTB looks better than the 458 Italia it replaces? A design jury has make up its mind. The 2016 Red Dot design awards are being announced today, and Maranello's latest eight-cylinder, mid-engined supercar won top honors. The Red Dot Awards for Product Design recognize the best new products on the market across an array of categories and industries, including automobiles. This year's panel of 41 experts, including Chris Bangle and Ken Okuyama, evaluated some 5,200 designs. From those, they selected 1,304 for a Red Dot award, and only 79 as the "Best of the Best" – among them the new Ferrari. This is the second year in a row the Prancing Horse marque has been awarded the honor, having been earned an award for the FXX K last year. A full list of this year's honorees isn't yet available, and it's uncertain that other automakers will earn awards. Last year's list also included the Mazda MX-5, Mercedes-AMG GT, and Volvo XC90. The Peugeot 308 SW, if you can believe it, was the only car awarded Best of the Best in 2014, the Audi R8 in 2013, and the Renault Twizy in 2012. UPDATE: The Red Dot organization has released the full list of this year's product design honorees, with the McLaren 570S and Kia Optima also awarded among the Best of the Best. Red Dots were also awarded to the Audi A4, R8, and Q7, BMW 7 Series, M2, and X1, Fiat Toro, Hyundai Ioniq, Kia Sportage, Mercedes C-Class, Skoda Superb Estate, and Volvo S90. The jurists also gave Honorable Mentions to the Borgward BX 7, Genesis G90, Mini Clubman, Qoros 3 City SUV, and Smart Fortwo Cabriolet. The 488 GTB wins the Red Dot award The V8 sports car named "Best of the Best" Maranello, 30 March 2016 – The 488 GTB has won the Red Dot Best of the Best award for its design and innovative lines. This is the latest in string of plaudits garnered by the Ferrari Style Centre which also picked up several IF Design Awards in Munich, Germany, at the start of the month. On the latter occasion, the big winner was the FXX K (Red Dot Best of the Best 2015) which took home the Gold Award, the Hannover institute's top prize. However, the 488 GTB and 488 Spider also scored a double whammy at the same event with a Design Excellence Award apiece.

Gordon Murray, F1-driven production and .. the Pontiac Fiero

Gordon Murray's design and engineering chops are unquestionable. But does his carmaking approach owe something to the short-lived Pontiac Fiero, a scrappy little car program that emerged from GM against serious resistance? Murray had a Formula One career that ran from 1969 to 1991, with stints at Brabham ('69 to '86) and McLaren ('87-'91), that resulted in several shelves' worth of trophies for the cars he was instrumental in designing. He moved on to McLaren Cars, the consumer side of things, where, during his tenure from 1991 to 2004, he helped design the McLaren F1 and the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, two cars that took learnings from his two decades in Formula One. What do all of these cars have in common? Three things: They are light. They were built in limited numbers. And they were (and are) exceedingly expensive—when the McLaren F1 debuted in 1994, it stickered at $815,000. Murray went on to establish Gordon Murray Design in 2007. GMD has created some interesting concept vehicles, such as the diminutive T.25 city car (94.5 inches long, 51.1 inches wide and 55.1 inches high), and the OX, a lightweight truck for the developing world that packs like an IKEA shelf and is working toward realization through a worthy crowdfunding campaign established by the Global Vehicle Trust. Now he has created a vehicle manufacturing company, Gordon Murray Automotive, that will use manufacturing methods that he developed under the moniker "iStream." Unlike a unibody, there are the "iFrame," a cage-like construction made with metallic components, and the "iPanels," which are composite. The panels aren't simply a decorative skin; they actually provide structure to the vehicle. Presumably this has something of the F1 monocoque about it. Going back to the three elements, (1) this arrangement results in a vehicle that can be comparatively light; (2) Murray has indicated that his manufacturing company will be doing limited-run production; and (3) to launch Gordon Murray Automotive they are going to be building a flagship model, about which Murray said, "With our first new car, we will demonstrate a return to the design and engineering principles that have made the McLaren F1 such an icon." Which seems to imply that it will be on the pricey side. According to the company's verbiage, "iStream forges an entirely new production method that defies conventionality with its Formula One-derived construction and materials technologies." It also sounds a whole lot like ...

Say goodbye to the McLaren P1

McLaren just built the 375th and final example of the P1. And with it, production of the hybrid hypercar draws to a close, sealing the chapter on one of the most capable performance machines ever to grace the road. Now that all 375 have been completed, the company is retiring the model entirely. It still has a handful of track-bound P1 GTRs to finish, but expects to complete those early in the new year ahead. Speaking with Autoblog recently at the launch of the 570S, spokesman Wayne Bruce confirmed that no further versions of the P1 would follow – no convertibles, no road-going take on the GTR, nothing. So once the P1 GTR is finished, the production line will be shut down and the Ultimate Series will be no more. He also told us that no plans for a successor are on the table at the moment, a notion echoed by his boss, chief executive Mike Flewitt, in the statement below: "The McLaren P1 has already established itself as an icon and any car that is to continue the lineage of the Ultimate Series will need to be a worthy successor - a significant step change in technology or performance is required to ensure this is the case. The future is undecided at this stage." Envisioned as the spiritual successor to the legendary McLaren F1, the P1 debuted in concept form at the 2012 Paris Motor Show, and in production form at the Geneva show the following year. It was designed around the same building blocks – carbon monocoque, 3.8-liter twin-turbo V8, seven-speed DCT – as everything else McLaren produces, but features a hybrid powertrain to boost output up to 903 horsepower. The result is a 0-62 time of 2.8 seconds and a top speed of 217 miles per hour. McLaren limited production to just 375 examples made available for public consumption (on top of factory 21 prototypes), making it more exclusive than either the Porsche 918 Spyder or Ferrari LaFerrari with which it has invariably been compared. Each of those 375 examples took 105 workers 800 man-hours across 17 days to complete, rolling off the dedicated assembly on the side of the McLaren Production Centre at a rate of one each day. The paint process alone could take up to five days, depending on specification, with yellow emerging the most popular color choice. Every last one was made to order and customized by McLaren Special Operations, ensuring that no two were alike. The first example pictured above rolled off the assembly line in September 2013, finished in silver with contrasting carbon-fiber trim.