2005 Maserati Pininfarina 75th Birdcage Concept
03-02-2005, 10:39 AM
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2005 Maserati Pininfarina 75th Birdcage Concept
A Tribute By Pininfarina To Maseratis Of The Future
Source: RSportscars
This new creation is based on Maserati's rich heritage, its most advanced mechanics and is realized in collaboration with Motorola.
Pininfarina revives the historical theme of the true dream car in a synthesis of the vision of the three companies, the vision being to combine exclusive design, sports DNA and technological innovation. The prototype is called the 75th Birdcage.
Pininfarina’s prosperous collaboration with Maserati, marked by the great international success of the Quattroporte, is celebrated with this rolling hi-tech sculpture that evokes a new future context, imaginary but possible, while simultaneously paying homage to the strong and distinctive brand characteristics of the Trident.
The integration of Motorola’s technology in the car realizes the seamless mobility concept.
The car itself becomes an intelligent moving network, able to interact with its passengers and keep them constantly and seamlessly connected to all the aspects of their lives.
Source: RSportscars
This new creation is based on Maserati's rich heritage, its most advanced mechanics and is realized in collaboration with Motorola.
Pininfarina revives the historical theme of the true dream car in a synthesis of the vision of the three companies, the vision being to combine exclusive design, sports DNA and technological innovation. The prototype is called the 75th Birdcage.
Pininfarina’s prosperous collaboration with Maserati, marked by the great international success of the Quattroporte, is celebrated with this rolling hi-tech sculpture that evokes a new future context, imaginary but possible, while simultaneously paying homage to the strong and distinctive brand characteristics of the Trident.
The integration of Motorola’s technology in the car realizes the seamless mobility concept.
The car itself becomes an intelligent moving network, able to interact with its passengers and keep them constantly and seamlessly connected to all the aspects of their lives.
03-02-2005, 11:29 AM
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03-02-2005, 12:29 PM
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Originally Posted by MADCAT
Birdcage = :ghey:
03-02-2005, 01:40 PM
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No, just remined me of that movie, The BirdCage.
Originally Posted by Steelers Wheels
Doyou mean the Birdcage concept is ghey, or the birdcage itself? Cause the 1959 Tipo 60 Birdcage rocked- first truely space age frame design
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06-13-2005, 12:42 PM
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Some more tidbits on this interesting vehicle...
=================
Source: topgear.com
The dream car is back. where most modern motor show debutantes need little more than shrunken wheels and the removal of some polished aluminium twinkly bits to be transformed into the next Clio, Astra or Mondeo, the Maserati Birdcage is something entirely different. It's pure automotive fantasy, an uncompromised, uninhibited creation built without consideration for political correctness, the environment or even the need to be driven. It drops jaws, and that's enough.
To give this car its full and lengthy title, you're gawping at the Pininfarina Maserati Birdcage 75th. Seventy-five being the number of years the world's longest-established styling house has been in existence. Its back catalogue is impressive enough - including, as it does, most of the finest Ferraris, the Peugeot 205 and every generation of Alfa Spider.
Save for World War II, Pininfarina has barely skipped a year without bringing us an extravagant, mesmerising, one-off show car. The Birdcage 75th is very much a part of that tradition. It's low, sleek, impractical, optimistic and, in every respect, refreshingly futuristic.
Pininfarina's current Creative Director, Ken Okuyama, headed the team responsible for its inception. With previous design credits including the Maserati Quattroporte and Ferrari Enzo, clearly he's not a man in need of creative release - just, in the Birdcage's case, of crafting something a little different.
"We wanted to do something very special," Okuyama says. "We wanted to give a future vision to a younger generation, to people outside the industry. Also, to those who may consider becoming car designers in the future."
Inspiration partially came from a previous Pininfarina show car - the 1970 Modulo. This insanely low, white-painted plastic wedge forced its driver to sit almost fully reclined on the floor, surrounded by a cockpit canopy that rotated forwards on spindly aluminium struts. It was powered by the most extreme engine then available, a five-litre Ferrari V12.
"The Modulo came out at the Geneva show exactly 35 years ago. I grew up with this car in my mind," says Okuyama. "When I first saw it I said, 'I want to be a car designer'. We hoped to get the same sort of impact with the Birdcage, without directly copying this car."
Which brings us to the other source of inspiration for the Birdcage, and the reason behind its unusual name. This isn't the film starring Robin Williams as a gay Miami nightclub owner, but the Maserati Birdcage Tipo 63 racer, a car even more focused in its intentions than this one. It was built to compete in sports car racing almost 50 years ago, with a lightweight, wildly complicated and - at the time - highly innovative tubular spaceframe chassis, the look of which inspired the name.
For its own era, the new Birdcage is just as advanced. The chassis is a carbon-fibre tub, donated by Maserati from the MC12 race car. If you recall the MC12's lineage, that means it's come indirectly from the Ferrari Enzo. So too has the six-litre V12, here in race-tuned form and laying on in excess of... 700bhp!
The bodywork is mostly carbon fibre, including the large aerodynamic diffuser at the rear and a pair of winglets designed to pop up automatically at speed. A swathe of blue-tinted Perspex runs from low on the nose to just above the twin oval exhaust outlets set in the tail.
"A very large area is transparent,' says Okuyama. "Design goes much further than skin deep. Just to look at the components of a Formula One car is quite fascinating. If we have a choice, we'd rather make each part beautifully. In this car the front and rear suspension push rods are visible and the entire engine unit with its carbon intake trumpets can be seen. The transparency is for functional reasons too; given the angle the driver sits at, the cockpit has to stretch so far toward the front of the car to allow him to see forwards."
The Birdcage's exterior has been sculpted to create more than an unquestionably dramatic first impression; there are some subtly hidden messages included in there too.
"We have successfully designed the Maserati Quattroporte and other future Maserati projects - and we wanted to incorporate some of the graphics and details that can be seen in those cars," suggests Okuyama. Take that as a reference to the work-in-progress replacements for the current Coupe and Spyder.
"If you look at the headlamp and tail lamp, the surrounding graphic is from these future Maseratis," he continues. "So, too, is the overall form of the show car. When you look at the formal language of the body, a Ferrari is basically shaped like a Coke bottle, where a Maserati is more muscular, more linear. Only the cockpit and the tyres break out from this form - known as a 'disco volante' [that's Italian for flying saucer] style form. The tyres especially come out in a very organic form language. This, too, is where the original Birdcage comes in; it had just the same visual structure."
He adds that "where the new car's exterior design is very slippery, the interior is also blended in. But we really wanted to make some of the component support visible from the outside of the car, in a very natural way. Here we could give a direct touch of the Birdcage."
Okuyama is refering to the only area of original-Birdcage-style tubular framework you'll find anywhere in the new one, used to support a secondary screen set behind the sharply-sloping canopy. A head-up display is projected on to this to reveal such info as revs, speed and gear selection; even a virtual image of a traditional Maserati analogue clock pops up here.
"Some devices in the car are from Motorola, such as the head-up display," explains Okuyama. "Also, the centre of the steering wheel is a control device that is very similar to a cellphone due out in the near future. There has been a collaboration between Pininfarina's 'Extra' division and Motorola to create new cellphones. Motorola invented the cellphone and also supplies components to the auto industry; many people don't know this."
In keeping with the tech on board, there's a 'connectivity' theme running throughout the Birdcage's design. "Talking on the phone you feel insecure if you're not properly connected - it will be the same for people in sports cars in the future," says Okuyama. So the driver gets a Bluetooth headset colour-matched to the car, complete with integral shades. Don't even consider wearing them in public. Also included are "numerous cameras to allow you to share your driving experience with others."
A wild dream car it may seem, but Okuyama has an urge to let the Birdcage evolve much further: "We're intending to make it fully driveable by August, when we're scheduled to bring it to the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in California. We need to fine-tune the suspension, and more, first."
Given sufficient expressions of wealth from potential owners - likely to be beyond even the £440,000 asked for the Maserati MC12 road car - Okuyama now seems prepared to transform this slice of fantasy into an ultra-exclusive reality. "There's been a lot of interest," he reveals. "It may not prove to be impossible to buy this car. It could just happen."
=================
Source: topgear.com
The dream car is back. where most modern motor show debutantes need little more than shrunken wheels and the removal of some polished aluminium twinkly bits to be transformed into the next Clio, Astra or Mondeo, the Maserati Birdcage is something entirely different. It's pure automotive fantasy, an uncompromised, uninhibited creation built without consideration for political correctness, the environment or even the need to be driven. It drops jaws, and that's enough.
To give this car its full and lengthy title, you're gawping at the Pininfarina Maserati Birdcage 75th. Seventy-five being the number of years the world's longest-established styling house has been in existence. Its back catalogue is impressive enough - including, as it does, most of the finest Ferraris, the Peugeot 205 and every generation of Alfa Spider.
Save for World War II, Pininfarina has barely skipped a year without bringing us an extravagant, mesmerising, one-off show car. The Birdcage 75th is very much a part of that tradition. It's low, sleek, impractical, optimistic and, in every respect, refreshingly futuristic.
Pininfarina's current Creative Director, Ken Okuyama, headed the team responsible for its inception. With previous design credits including the Maserati Quattroporte and Ferrari Enzo, clearly he's not a man in need of creative release - just, in the Birdcage's case, of crafting something a little different.
"We wanted to do something very special," Okuyama says. "We wanted to give a future vision to a younger generation, to people outside the industry. Also, to those who may consider becoming car designers in the future."
Inspiration partially came from a previous Pininfarina show car - the 1970 Modulo. This insanely low, white-painted plastic wedge forced its driver to sit almost fully reclined on the floor, surrounded by a cockpit canopy that rotated forwards on spindly aluminium struts. It was powered by the most extreme engine then available, a five-litre Ferrari V12.
"The Modulo came out at the Geneva show exactly 35 years ago. I grew up with this car in my mind," says Okuyama. "When I first saw it I said, 'I want to be a car designer'. We hoped to get the same sort of impact with the Birdcage, without directly copying this car."
Which brings us to the other source of inspiration for the Birdcage, and the reason behind its unusual name. This isn't the film starring Robin Williams as a gay Miami nightclub owner, but the Maserati Birdcage Tipo 63 racer, a car even more focused in its intentions than this one. It was built to compete in sports car racing almost 50 years ago, with a lightweight, wildly complicated and - at the time - highly innovative tubular spaceframe chassis, the look of which inspired the name.
For its own era, the new Birdcage is just as advanced. The chassis is a carbon-fibre tub, donated by Maserati from the MC12 race car. If you recall the MC12's lineage, that means it's come indirectly from the Ferrari Enzo. So too has the six-litre V12, here in race-tuned form and laying on in excess of... 700bhp!
The bodywork is mostly carbon fibre, including the large aerodynamic diffuser at the rear and a pair of winglets designed to pop up automatically at speed. A swathe of blue-tinted Perspex runs from low on the nose to just above the twin oval exhaust outlets set in the tail.
"A very large area is transparent,' says Okuyama. "Design goes much further than skin deep. Just to look at the components of a Formula One car is quite fascinating. If we have a choice, we'd rather make each part beautifully. In this car the front and rear suspension push rods are visible and the entire engine unit with its carbon intake trumpets can be seen. The transparency is for functional reasons too; given the angle the driver sits at, the cockpit has to stretch so far toward the front of the car to allow him to see forwards."
The Birdcage's exterior has been sculpted to create more than an unquestionably dramatic first impression; there are some subtly hidden messages included in there too.
"We have successfully designed the Maserati Quattroporte and other future Maserati projects - and we wanted to incorporate some of the graphics and details that can be seen in those cars," suggests Okuyama. Take that as a reference to the work-in-progress replacements for the current Coupe and Spyder.
"If you look at the headlamp and tail lamp, the surrounding graphic is from these future Maseratis," he continues. "So, too, is the overall form of the show car. When you look at the formal language of the body, a Ferrari is basically shaped like a Coke bottle, where a Maserati is more muscular, more linear. Only the cockpit and the tyres break out from this form - known as a 'disco volante' [that's Italian for flying saucer] style form. The tyres especially come out in a very organic form language. This, too, is where the original Birdcage comes in; it had just the same visual structure."
He adds that "where the new car's exterior design is very slippery, the interior is also blended in. But we really wanted to make some of the component support visible from the outside of the car, in a very natural way. Here we could give a direct touch of the Birdcage."
Okuyama is refering to the only area of original-Birdcage-style tubular framework you'll find anywhere in the new one, used to support a secondary screen set behind the sharply-sloping canopy. A head-up display is projected on to this to reveal such info as revs, speed and gear selection; even a virtual image of a traditional Maserati analogue clock pops up here.
"Some devices in the car are from Motorola, such as the head-up display," explains Okuyama. "Also, the centre of the steering wheel is a control device that is very similar to a cellphone due out in the near future. There has been a collaboration between Pininfarina's 'Extra' division and Motorola to create new cellphones. Motorola invented the cellphone and also supplies components to the auto industry; many people don't know this."
In keeping with the tech on board, there's a 'connectivity' theme running throughout the Birdcage's design. "Talking on the phone you feel insecure if you're not properly connected - it will be the same for people in sports cars in the future," says Okuyama. So the driver gets a Bluetooth headset colour-matched to the car, complete with integral shades. Don't even consider wearing them in public. Also included are "numerous cameras to allow you to share your driving experience with others."
A wild dream car it may seem, but Okuyama has an urge to let the Birdcage evolve much further: "We're intending to make it fully driveable by August, when we're scheduled to bring it to the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in California. We need to fine-tune the suspension, and more, first."
Given sufficient expressions of wealth from potential owners - likely to be beyond even the £440,000 asked for the Maserati MC12 road car - Okuyama now seems prepared to transform this slice of fantasy into an ultra-exclusive reality. "There's been a lot of interest," he reveals. "It may not prove to be impossible to buy this car. It could just happen."
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