Vehicles
From the Office of Wheels
Industrial designer Kamil Kozik's electric off-road Porsche looks rad. It's got all the right angles and curves to just barely convince your brain it's a Porsche, but then it infuses all the engineering aesthetics expected from an off-road rally racer. All of this packaged up in a nice render. Very cool.
More of Kozik's work in Instagram here: LINK
-Jake
From the Department of Wheels
Found this rad write up of iconic two-wheeled rides from the 80's. I'm in this phase now where the stuff that looks futuristic now is so ubiquitous and Artstationy (like a tacticool facade glazed over everything), that when I see actual engineered machines from the pre-digital age there this tangible coolness to them that I want to replicate in my designs.
I love the odd bulges and angles with slick thickline paint jobs. Perfection!
Check out the full article here: LINK
-Jake
From the Office of Wheels
Cafe Racer's always catch my eye, whether I see them on the road or online. But this one, a bike aptly named "L’Intrépide" is something really special. Designed by Benoit Tallec as a personal project. Apparently, Tallec wanted to prove that you could take the uninspired design of a late 70's BMW R100RS and make something that would turn heads on the street. Safe to say that he nailed it.
I love its retro futuristic styling, and would love to see this approach applied to something like a star wars speeder bike.
Tons more photos and a nice write up here: LINK
Benoit Tallec's website: LINK
-Jake
From the Military Vehicles Division
The V-1 Jeep was a concept created by McDonnell Aircraft Corporation in the late 50's. The idea was to have an open fuselage helicopter that you could easily switch out the cargo space with whatever you wanted. It was to be compact, and maneuverable. The design even had ramjet powered rotor which kept the engine compact and low maintenance.
This thing looks like a G.I.Joe toy from the 80's. I love it's utilitarian design. A concept artist I follow online, but forget who it was now, noted that sometimes no thought for aesthetics in engineering actually produces some of the most appealing designs.
More info here: LINK
and here: LINK
-Jake
From the Office of Wheels
Nice collection of pre-war motorcycles by photographer Paul Clifton. These are more utilitarian looking than the overly designed motorbikes of the current era, but there's beauty in their spartan styling.
Lots of ideas here for vehicle design. I may be incorporating some of these into a future comic.
More bikes here: LINK, LINK, and LINK
Clifton's Website: LINK
-Jake
From the Office of Wings
If you've been following what I post here for very long you'll have figured out that I LOVE weird vehicles. Especially failed diesel-punk garbage like this agriculture jet designed in and for the Soviet Union.
The M-15 Belphegor was designed to be a more efficient and modern replacement for the Antonov An-2SKh. However, when they tested it out it was clunky to fly, expensive to operate, slow, and noisy. Consequently only 150 were manufactured out of the thousands that were initially ordered.
What I like about it is the unconventional design that makes it look like it's from Miyazaki's Nausicaa, Mad Max, or a B level sci-fi film.
More photos and back story here: LINK
-Jake
From the Office of Wheels
Saw this online recently: A cool Honda snowmobile that came out in the 70's. Looks like a G.I.Joe toy. Only 2-5 of these actually exist. Honda manufactured 200 of them, and had set up dealerships in the US to sell them, but safety concerns that someone would break their legs riding this thing caused them to recall the vehicles and they destroyed them.
It's a cool looking design though. Definitely some good inspiration for a space skimmer or something. Might us it in a Skull Chaser comic.
-Jake
From the Office of Wheels
I've been revisiting Akira Toriyama's work recently and it's peppered with these magnificent tiny vehicles. Because I've never read Dragon Ball I don't think of him as one of my primary influences, but my tendency to draw cute characters in fun vehicles certainly came from him.
All this to say, if there was ever a car that embodied the Toriyama spirit it is absolutely GM's experimental electric bubble car the XP 512E.
The proportions!
Those little wheels!
The vermillion paint job!
That white stripe!
I love this thing.
Video here: LINK
More photos here: LINK
-Jake
From the Office of Wheels
I'm in love with this little ride inspired by the Boulder Mobile from Wacky Races.
Japanese auto enthusiast Takamasa Segi bought a Ferves Ranger and converted it into this. Ferves was an Italian car manufacturer that made these tiny automoblies as an off-road alternative to the Fiats.
Farmers would buy them because they were easy to make tight turns on moutain roads and trails.
More pictures and info here: LINK
And here: LINK
-Jake
From the Military Vehicles Division
First off, do you know about Matterport? It's a collection of places captured in 3d that you can explore from your computer. I think it's primarily to sell real estate, but the thing that really interests me is that you can visit museums, and interesting locations. Great for reference!
I'm particularly enthralled with the submarine tour LINK!
A few more really cool places to explore:
Lissieu Grande Propriete: LINK
Star Trek Continues bridge: LINK
Air Force One: LINK
(Thanks to Jake Crowe for bringing this to my attention on the Discord)
-Jake
From the Department of Wheels
Why can't we get a car today that looks like the Lamborghini Marzal (1967). Granted I know that side window probably isn't the best protection in a T-bone incident...but that's a small price to pay to look this rad.
The interior is just as cool. Love the elongated console and hexagonal dashboard motif in this thing. And the silver faux leather? Chef's kisss.
Sadly, this was just a one off, but you can see the shape language influence many future Lambos.
A good video here: LINK
-Jake
From the Department of Creative Bank Accounting, Military Vehicles Division
This little guy came across my feed last week and I think it’s a great design, with all the right details.
More images on my blog: LINK
-Jake
Department of Vehicles and ships
While researching spaceships I stumbled on a website for a company the builds ships: Damen Shipyards Group based in the Netherlands.
Their website is a cornucopia of different styles of ships. Here's a list of what they build:
Tugs
Workboats
Pilot & Tender Vessels
Ferries
Dredging
Offshore Support Vessels
Pontoons & Barges
Defense & Security
Research & Science Vessels
Cargo Vessels
Fishing Vessels
Shipyards & Docks
Yachting
Not living next to an ocean makes me forget just how many ships there are out there. As a boy raised in Arizona where water is pretty rare, I'm fascinated with ships like these. Any time I see them in person, they stop me in my tracks.
Damen has a nice style to their ships. Love the shapes and colors going on. Good reference here for spaceships too. Click around and you find neat stuff like these research vessels they build: LINK
-Jake
From the Office of Aerial Design
If history had charted a slightly different course we might be flying these to work today. I love this unconventional design and the optimism of this project from the 60s. Unfortunately, a flight test resulted in a fatality of a pilot and the project was scrapped. The company making these went into making peach-pitting machines. I guess that's important too.
You can read more here: LINK
-Jake
From the Office of Wheels
Leave it to the Italians to have the most impressive automobile museum in the world. Turin Automobile Museum boasts one of the rarest and most interesting collections of its kind, with over 200 original cars from 80 brands from all over the world.
Putting this on my list of places to visit if I ever end up in Italy. In the meantime, their website has a nice gallery of cars you can view from the comfort of your own bed: LINK
I picked some cool ones for the newsletter here:
(Thanks to friend of the newsletter, Laura, for this tip!)
-Jake
From the Office of Wheels
If you know me you know I love unconventional modes of transportation. When I saw the coal fired steam bike I had to share. Designed, engineered, and crafted by Mark Sanderson, it is a thing of beauty.
Well worth the 7 minutes to watch this well produced video on it: LINK
Speaking of steam powered vehicles. You ever see SteamBoy? Intense steam powered action in this clip: LINK
From the Department of Interestingness, Office of Wheels
Luigi Colani was a german industrial designer active from the 1950's until the 2000s. Clearly ahead of his time by pushing the boundaries of design in every project he took on. Looking at his work I feel like I'm seeing a future that never was. I had seen this guy's work for years while growing up. (I wanted to be a car designer when I was a kid) but had forgotten about him until I saw his Super Truck in my twitter feed: LINK
I found a nice online repository of all of the vehicles he designed: LINK
Here's a few of my favorites:
From the Office of Wheels
Found this great gallery of old dashboards on Flickr. I'm always paying attention to this kind of stuff because A) I love industrial design and B) I never know when I might need to design a dashboard for a comic or concept art job. I love industrial design because I think it's pretty cool to see how 100 different designers decided to solve the same problem. Some of these are really spartan with just the essentials (LINK). While others have every gauge, knob, dial, and lever available at arms length (LINK).
Also find it fascinating where some car companies will spend money on interior design, and others look like the interior was an afterthought...something for the engineers to handle.
You can see many many more dashboards here: LINK
-Jake
From the Concept Art Division
From the Department of Interestingness, Office of Wheels
1897 Amoskeag steam-powered fire engine of the Boston Fire Department, ca. 1919. The steamer weighed 17,000 pounds and could discharge 1,350 gallons per minute.
If you really want to dig deep in Boston Fire Truck history, boy do I have a website for you: LINK
-Jake
