While automotive design creatives seem to be training their sights more and more intensely on Suv and crossover silhouettes, the PSA group’s luxury brand is exploring a less conformist approach: “One of the basic assumptions for the Aero Sport Lounge was to start from a shooting brake-inspired bodywork, while retaining the raised driving position that is so popular”, says Thierry Metroz, styling director at DS Automobiles.
Modern proportions
So the steeply raked roofline takes nothing away from the presence of generous 23-inch wheels, with which it engages in a resolutely modern play of proportions. “The second axis of the design is aerodynamics: essential for containing consumption even with electric propulsion, in this case it becomes a veritable styling guideline. Aesthetic solutions are usually uncovered in the wind tunnel, here we have gone the other way. To sculpt the forms we started from efficiency”.
Scooped-out front
The most pointed signs of this approach emerge at the front as if by subtraction, with the scooped-out treatment of the volumes creating two suspended profiles that channel air on to the bonnet and generate an intriguing graphic, functional evolution of the previous DS Wings: “As if our hallmark motif, limited in the past to shaped mouldings on the grille, has now migrated higher and at the same time taken on real usefulness”, explains Metroz. Below are the new DS Light Veil lights, split into splayed fringes and previewing the brand’s future lighting identity, with two deep vertical slits to further reduce Cx.
Anticipating the future
Even the rear light clusters are involved in airflow management by way of two flat-surfaced side sections that eliminate unwanted turbulence: “This is a preview of what you will see on production cars some time in the future, just like the front bonnet that is black to match the roof. Although a bit grandiose, the Aero Sport Lounge still offers a concrete foretaste of what’s to come”, says its designer, smiling.
Less screens and sustainable materials
The cockpit, with its fluid lines reflecting the aerodynamics of the exterior, sets out a vision that projects authentically into the future. “I asked my team to comply with two criteria which, when first mooted, aroused no little amazement: reduce the number of screens as much as possible and do away with leather altogether. With a view to absolute well-being on board, it was necessary to limit visual pollution and maximise sustainability”.
Gesture controls
There are therefore only two digital viewers that look like side appendages of the dashboard, with rear view and adjustment of comfort parameter functions, while the front armrest developed in collaboration with the American company Ultraleap allows hand gesture controls to be used with a revolutionary haptic feedback: “An ultrasound device gives tactile feedback for the first time ever”.
(Full article in A&D no. 242)
