How to make a people's car from scratch

Hyundai claims its new i30 is the new 'people's car'

Instead, we chose something immeasurably tougher to build: a C-segment car in the Volkswagen Golf or Ford Focus mould, with its core technology targeted towards the years beyond 2025. That would require us to take a view on powertrain spec and purchase cost, on passenger layout and crash safety, on construction materials and thereby on overall weight. And above all, to speculate on how far ‘ordinary’ technology might progress over the next decade. Our original plan was to build…

- A C-segment saloon car that can serve the needs of most European motorists in 2025-2030. In effect, a new ‘people’s car’.

- An affordable range-extender – but discuss powertrain options.

- Unmistakable modern styling capable of making an instant impact but resisting aggression – the way a Volkswagen VW Beetle is distinctive, only new and appropriate to the market.

- Electric wheel motors to be proposed and investigated, even if they are later discarded.

- Simplicity to be a major theme, inside and out.

- Instruments to be carried on a ‘driving pod’ that can move left or right at the production stage, depending on the market, avoiding the ‘looming’ dashboard treatments of recent years.

- A potential for seven seats, including an occasional pair that pop up out of the rear floor. This facility to be dropped if it corrupts fundamentals like compact overall length and weight.

- A notional price of £30,000 to £40,000, while acknowledging that most owners in 2025 and beyond will lease or hire these cars.

- A witty, memorable name.

- Flexibility that can support various configurations – private ownership, shared use and commercial applications.

- Following the above, a number of simple interior design options.

Our creative team

The idea of proposing a completely new car was born in the boardroom of Coventry-based engineering services company Envisage Group. Headed by CEO Chris Devane, Envisage has built dozens of cars – including some we all know well – and it possesses all the car creation skills the modern industry requires.

However, such is the secrecy under which such companies operate that Envisage has never produced a car of its own. The closest that it has come is to play the leading role in the creation of the David Brown Speedback GT, the super-exclusive £600,000 supercar reminiscent of a modernised Aston Martin DB5, employing the underbody structure of the recently discontinued aluminium Jaguar XK.

Read about another 'people's car' - the Tata Nano

Proud of its capabilities but gagged by confidentiality, Envisage instantly saw the beauty of becoming the brains behind our embryonic Autocar project, instantly allowing us generous time to work on the concept with engineering director Bill Walsh and designer Oliver Le Grice, a consultant with a wealth of experience at Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar Land Rover. Also along for the ride came engineer Gary Skeggs, whose job was to assess the legality and feasibility of our proposals. You don’t just have random ideas in the design business nowadays. They have to work.

To make matters better, Le Grice had been running an Envisage summer school for four young designers from Coventry University – Aadil Hafiz, Michael Mills, Ben Martin and Danny Alvarez – with a view to hiring future talent. What better way to test these adventurous spirits than setting them to work on a brand-new car?

Our young design team

Aadil Hafiz 

Hafiz, from Glasgow, is a lover of Porsches and BMWs. He believes it’s the young designer’s duty to find design solutions that inform the future.

Ben Martin

Loves cars, citing his favourite as the 1972 Aston V8. Has also studied engineering and graphics and is interested in “a connected urban society”.

Danny Alvarez

Came over from the US to study design at world-renowned Coventry University. Enjoys pushing the boundaries “stylistically and fundamentally”.

Michael Mills

Designer of the chosen theme for our car, Mills admits he has unrealistic expectations that buyers will want sci-fi-like cars in the near future

First discussions

Devane set the creative ball rolling the moment we’d finished outlining our catch-all wish list. “Sounds like this car needs to be called 42,” he said. “It’s aiming to be the answer to every car owner’s needs.”

That number 42 is, of course, the famed solution proposed by author Douglas Adams as the answer to “life, the universe and everything” in his fivebook comic science fiction series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. From that moment, our job became Project 42 and, as you’ll see in a moment, the number survives in the car’s official name.

When conceptual talk begins in earnest on a project like this, hobnobbing with experts like Walsh and Le Grice makes you aware just how very much needs to be decided before a meaningful line is drawn. Your creative team needs to know how impactful the styling needs to be (very), how big the car should be (4.3m overall length, 1.8m width), the precise duty you’re proposing (private and shared ownership, perhaps with a commercial offshoot) and what the required crash safety package is.

Our seven-seater idea died quickly. None of us wanted to build an MPV – and the market no longer likes them. Minutes later we decided on our first really radical action: that the car would use an active, deployable crash safety system of a kind under development in automotive back rooms right now. “In effect, this car will know by radar when it’s having an accident,” said Walsh, “and will deploy a crash structure to cope. This decision affects a huge amount, he pointed out: the wheelbase, the overhangs, the wheel sizes, the body construction, the cowl height, the fascia design, the lot. The car could be more space efficient and petite. We felt good about our decision.