I signed up after my bud Robo sent me a link. He thought I may want to chime in, as I went through the same auto design program as he.
First off, I want the make it clear that I am not calling out the abilities, panel fitment, track times, etc of this car. This is purely an aesthetic critique of the car from a trained eye.
Overall there is little to tie the design together. There are conflicting design elements throughout. The biggest issue that immediately struck me when I first time I saw the Apollo was the conflict between soft and hard-edged forms. Almost all of the surface transitions are extremely soft (i.e. the crown where the transition from cockpit to body side is made), while pretty much every graphic detail (headlights, tail lights, ventilation cutouts, etc.) consist of sharp lines and crisp edges. That's not to say that there is no way to mix organic surfaces with sharp lines. Hell, the E92 does that just about perfectly. The problem here is lack of cohesive design. The car looks like it was made by sorting through a parts bin from about every manufacturer and then using what was found to slap a car together.
On to the details. Cheap gutter guard mesh abound. No thanks. Again, I understand that it serves a purpose, but there's no reason that something with a little more visual flair couldn't be used. Remember, this is a road-going vehicle, no matter how much of a track beast it is. Being that it's a road-going vehicle, it will inevitably be compared to other cars on the road, and that's probably not a good thing for this fugly beast.
One of the other more obvious flaws that make me think this was CAD modeled in a weekend by somebody's brother-in-law ("who knows how to design cars") is the sloppy resolution of the graphic layout. The headlights look pinched at the top by the quarter panel and the silly, bulbous fender flares giving the impression that tacking headlights on was more of an afterthought rather than an actual part of the design process. The flares themselves could easily have been more integrated into the front quarters. There is no narrow body version, so why make the flares look like slap-on Autozone parts? Surely it’s not to help its ability to cut through air. A simpler, seamless part would be a better choice for both aesthetics (and I imagine drag reduction).
The tail lights and headlights themselves look to be the work of an inexperienced one-off car builder. Headlight projectors slapped into a make-shift housing, with the tail lights consisting of what look like eBay LED bulbs with hardware store reflectors. On an ugly or plain looking car, the graphics can really be a saving grace, but not in this case.
F1 cars, LM prototypes, and all other purpose-built vehicles made EXCLUSIVELY for motorsports have absolutely no need to take aesthetics into consideration, unless their makers feel that it will add equity/notoriety to the brand. To those that say “hey, the Gumpert
is a purpose-built vehicle, the aesthetics don’t matter”, I say you’re wrong. Here’s the reason; When an attempt is made to style a car and it fails (in the case of the Apollo), then questioning its design/styling becomes Kosher. If they had simply abandoned all styling and built it almost exclusively to appease the wind tunnel gods, then we wouldn’t be arguing about this and we’d all be staring at an F1 car. In fact, I’d rather they had done just that because at least there would be an excuse for any ugly bits. The truly sad part is that cars that are designed in a wind tunnel like F1 and LM actually look
better than this Frankensteinian abomination.
There are plenty of purpose-built road cars that still look great. The Viper ACR (whoever said that the Viper looks like crap should seriously just buy a Corolla and move on), the Ferrari Enzo/FXX, The Murciélago SV, etc. Yeah, they all have tack-on aero parts, but their styling underneath is great. You don’t have to like them, but they are all successful designs from a technical standpoint (yes, styling can be critiqued from a technical standpoint). There are “rules” in design folks, and the Gumpert breaks almost all of them. For goodness sake, even the badges look frumpy.
I'm sure Robo will chime in and give his .02 as well. There are plenty of things to call out on this car still. I only touched on a few.
BTW, you guys have some great smileys on this board
