A dynamic coupé with attractive lines, a sturdy well-proportioned SUV, both from the Chinese brand Chery. Called Lei and Lui, they debuted at the recent Beijing motor show. They are the first models to be presented officially by Torino Design, nine months after it opened for business. “Actually, the development time was even shorter, just a little over two and a half months from Chery’s request last August to the delivery of the models for display at the Show,” says Roberto Piatti, founder and managing director of Torino Design.
Piatti’s team includes style director Giuliano Biasio, former chief of exterior design at Bertone, and engineering director Claudio Villani, who has had years of experience at Idea Institute. For the Lei, a 2+2 coupé measuring 4 metres in length, a dynamic style was defined, with a clean-cut treatment enhanced by innovative detail: “We wanted to create complex surfaces while retaining an uncluttered side view”, explains Biasio. The front view of this compact coupé, like that of the Lui Suv, was one of the key elements of the project. “We have emphasised the logo on both cars by making it larger and by setting it at the point at which all the lines of the flanks and bonnet volumes converge”.
The grilles and lights are the boldest aspects of the overtly SUV Lui, an impression strengthened by the externally mounted spare wheel which characterises the rear view. In the side view, the daylight opening is set into a surface that continues into the sheet metal of the flank and is cut off at the tail by a diagonal line. At Beijing, the Lei and Lui were presented as “see-through” styling models, but the interior design projects and engineering feasibility studies now under way at Torino Design are evidence of the production intentions for both cars.
The article continues in Auto & Design no. 162
