Hi guys, I'm glad to provide a talking point like this. What is really interesting is that nobody camos a wind tunnel test model as they are always indoors under lock and key. It's not like they are going to drive it outside where prying cameras will see it. So we can assume that GM WANTED this model to be seen and examined, but not too much detail. Why? To manage expectations.
The model clearly shows that the packaging has changed and by letting this model be shown GM is trying to avoid expectation shock when the real Volt appears. If people were ignorantly expecting something very like the stylish Volt Concept then they could have a negative reaction to the release of a new model that GM wants a lot of support for. So now that the Concept has done it's job of exciting so many people to the IDEA of the Volt, it's time to nudge those expectations a bit to realign them with what the actual Volt will look like. And so people know what to expect.
I am sure there will still be some interesting styling surprises, as all I have done is give a basic shape and packaging to the model. There is no way I can show fine and subtle surface treatments, which the final car will undoubtedly have. The devil and the beauty are often in the detail.
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Originally Posted by ral1960
The camouflage may be fooling me, but it looks like it has a much more vertical rear window with large sail panels.
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I initially thought that too, but with close examination and the benefit of being able to zoom in and study every detail it turns out that 'effect' of what looks like a flying buttress or sailplane on the far side is cause by the cream tape across the top of the rear window being cut at an angle at the far end, and it is emphasised by the whitish smoke trail flowing over the car.
But if you look closely at the cream tape on the trunk, which forms a ‘V’, you will see that it follows a curving plane up the truck and rear window that is consistent with the window I rendered and which the Volt Concept had.
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Originally Posted by cincygoblue
I'm not sure how you managed to interpret where the cutlines, glass to body lines and fender flares end up, looking at that vidcap, so I don't buy into your premise yet.
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There is a reason for every detail and cut line I put on the rendering, but it would take pages to explain each detail. The door cut lines though are consistent with the Volt Concept and are consistent with many recent GM cut line designs like the G8 and Insignia and given that GM has to change the general Volt shape so much from the Concept I have assumed that they would take every effort to carry over as many design cues as they can where function does not dictate they need to change it. As to where the cut lines for the door go this was taken from the position of the door handles which can clearly be seen on the model.
The front door handle is the most obvious as the light and shade reflects off its bulge under the cream horizontal tape covering it. Travelling back from there the light reflected off the black tape over the rear door handle bulge is less obvious but still clearly there.
As to the side window shape. At the rear of the side windows you can see a piece of white tape which half way down it has a shadow caused by it indenting into the recess of the rear side window. That indent shadow is consistent with the shape of that rear window line on the Concept. The lower side window line is set by the obvious horizontal light reflection that appears across all the various color tapes at that point and you can see the angle of the side of the tapes changes consistent with that slope out from the lower window line to the side door crease above the door handles. The top of the windows is set by the roofline and the front by the wrap around front windscreen intersect at the A pillar.
The wheel arches are clearly shown and the fact there are no large flares are obvious, but one can assume that GM would not go to a complete slab side when they have not done this on any recent design, especially when they can have a subtle wide flair which uses light to give its effect rather than substantive shape. And a close examination of the subtle light shade changes on tape around these areas is consistent with such subtle large area flares, similar to those on the Invicta Concept.
So there is some of my reasoning, there was a lot more……..
