The car, as we know it, may well be facing oblivion in a world trying to convince itself that it is committed to reducing carbon-dioxide emissions, and rescuing its cities from the endless sprawl that comes from suburbs at densities that can survive only with car commuting. Yet for a century, the car has been a remarkably powerful catalyst for change, whose influence can be compared easily with that of the aeroplane or microchip.
From its earliest incarnations on, the car has demanded consideration – and indeed attracted veneration – on multiple levels: as sculptural object, as the product of avant-garde industrialism, and as a remarkable piece of engineering. Thus early cars borrowed their formal expression from their nearest relatives, the horse-drawn carriages; Ford famously modelled the first car production line on the techniques of the Chicago meatpackers; and the first steps towards self-propelled mechanical motion can be found in the eighteenth century. Equally, the car has been used as a measure of national prestige – hence the successive attempts of Iran, Malaysia, Turkey, Brazil, India and China to establish themselves as global carmakers.
At the Design Museum we believe it is important to take these wider contexts into account, and not simply to focus on formal issues, no matter how seductive the stylistics can be. Our collection includes, for example, a wooden prototype of the car designed by Le Corbusier in 1928 and a Nissan S Cargo from 1987, one of the first examples of a car made by a mainstream carmaker that acknowledges the playful, emotional aspects of car design.
Deyan Sudjic, Director, Design Museum
The Jaguar E-type – a British icon in car design.