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Red Dot Awards

Ferrari has received the Red Dot: Best of the Best Award for the ground-breaking design of the Portofino, Ferrari’s most recent V8-engined GT car. This is the consecutive fourth year that the Prancing Horse receives this prestigious honour for one of its new models. The Ferrari Portofino (below) is an elegant and versatile convertible which features a retractable hardtop together with class-leading performance and luggage space.

Its styling impressed the international judging panel which stated: “Embodying an impressive evolutionary advancement, the Ferrari Portofino fascinates with an exciting design language. It comes across as a fascinating sculptural statement. The integration of the retractable hardtop presents an optimal solution. The haunting elegance is further underscored by the uncompromising quality in material and workmanship. The Ferrari Portofino is the perfect embodiment of novel approaches that point to the future.”

During the Gala ceremony on the 9th of July at the Aalto Theater in Essen, Germany, the jury of international designers also assigned two Red Dot awards for outstanding design quality to Ferrari for the 812 Superfast (above) and the FXX K EVO (below). The awards are testimony to the unmistakable design and ground-breaking technology that are at the basis of Ferrari’s production.

The 812 Superfast redefined the formal language of front-engined V12 Ferraris without altering either the exterior dimensions or interior space. With a distinct fastback sleekness to its silhouette, sharply slanted crease lines and impressively muscular wheel-arches imbue the 812 Superfast with the power and aggression warranted by its imposing 6.5-litre V12. Here’s our friend GC Mah from Autobuzz.my and his take on the 812 Superfast at Maranello!

The Ferrari FXX-K Evo (arf arf, snigger, snigger.. still find this name quite epic! – Ed.) marks a significant evolution of the XX programme launched in 2005 with cars developed specifically to play an active role in this exclusive research and development programme. The FXX-K Evo features an evolved aero package developed by Ferrari’s engineers in synergy with the Ferrari Styling Centre’s designers, to push to the very limit the performance of a model that already represents the state-of-the-art in terms of track-only supercars. Watch F1 ace Seb Vettel punish one around a track below!

 

It’s quite well known that Hyundai vehicles have become far more desirable over the years thanks to the impressive work of its design team and the company’s improved use of quality materials. The improvements haven’t gone unnoticed as the Korean automaker has been awarded with the Red Dot Award for outstanding design for the fourth year in a row.

Winners of the award are picked out by a panel of 21 international design experts, professors and journalists who review over 5,000 product design works from more than 50 countries. The cars that bagged the award for Hyundai were the Azera and i30 in the Product Design category. In previous years, winners of the Red Dot Awards were the i10 and Genesis in 2014, i20 and Sonata in 2015, and IONIQ in 2016.

Criteria that made the Azera eligible for the ‘high design quality’ award were it elegant looking design, the originality of said design its desirability among younger car buyers. , The i30 received an ‘Honorable Mention’ for its competitive looking design. Prior to this award, the i30 had already bagged two other similar accolades from the PIN UP Design Awards and 2017 iF Design Awards.

The Red Dot Awards is organised by Design Zentrum Nordheim Westfalen, which reviews new and interesting works from a wide range of categories to determine each year’s most praised designs.

Over the years, Hyundai has managed to transform itself from being a mediocre econobox manufacturer, to one that makes some of the best looking cars that are within reach of the average Joe. It’s clever use of materials, manufacturing processes and killer designs have attributed to the brand growing in popularity around the world.

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