Vehicles

Honda Motocompo Upgrade

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From the Office of Wheels

In a effort to redesign the Honda Motocompo (​LINK​) into something contemporary, industrial designer Mitch Silva created a cassette-futurism masterpiece.

His idea is to take a Honda Monkey (​LINK​) and give it a sleek angular look that evokes the Honda Elite scooter (​LINK​).

I think this is such a solid design and would love to incorporate more of this aesthetic into the spaceships and robots I'm working on.

More designs here: ​LINK​

-Jake

When the Twingo Goes Wild

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From the Office of Wheels

There's a a 2,500-Mile Dakar-Style Rally That’s Only for the Renault Twingo and it looks unbelievably fun. It's called the Twing Raid and it's giving me Toriyama vibes: cute cars, fantastic locations, and fun characters. I think there's a comic story here.

More about this on the official Twing Raid website: LINK​

Instagram: LINK​

-Jake

The Blue Bird Russian Cosmonaut Retrieval Vehicle

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From the Office of Wheels

The Russians had a problem. Launching a man in space, having them orbit earth and reentering the atmosphere was all figured out. However, since Russia really doesn't have an ocean it controls to easily ditch a spacecraft in, the landing site had to be somewhere on their vast sub arctic continent.

That means the returning capsule could land in almost any kind of terrain: mountain, tundra, snow, or lake. What kind of vehicle could race out to them in any of those situations, and in any kind of weather?

Enter the Blue Bird, a beautifully ugly artifact of Soviet design and engineering. I love this truck's utilitarian look with hints of retro futurism.

More photos and info here: LINK and LINK​

-Jake

1985 Nissan Com Com

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From the Office of Wheels

How can something 39 years old look so fresh and be so perfect for this moment in time?

Debuted at the 1985 Tokyo Motor Show, the Nissan COM COM concept van was Nissan's answer to another quirky delivery van designed by Mazda. This thing has it all: straigtline styling. GPS. Car Phone. CD changer. But the think I love the most is the sliding front door.

It's a shame it never went to production.

-Jake

Electric Porsche Dakar Racer Concept

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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

1980's Futuristic Motocycles (Akira)

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​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

Benoit Tallec's L’Intrépide Cafe Racer: Ooh là là!

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​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​

The Flying Jeep

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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

Pre-Ware Motorcycles

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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

The M-15 Belphegor is a Wild Cold War Civilian Aircraft

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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

The Honda White Fox Snowmobile

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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

The GM XP 512E

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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

The Boulder Mobile

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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

3D Tour of the USS Drum

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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

SPACE LAMBO

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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

Are you in the market for a very large ship?

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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​

Filper Beta 200

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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

The MAUTO, Italy's Greatest Museum

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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