Has anyone noticed that we as humans tend to compartmentalize everything, regarding all aspects of our lives? That basically happens with the automotive industry, as well.
Although the sector is not very old compared to other human trades, people have quickly filed segments and niches into their proper sliding trays, no matter how many times the OEMs or the aftermarket realm tried to reinvent them into something new and enticing.
As such, we have stuff like passenger cars and crossovers/SUVs plus trucks, for example. And then everything is divided into smaller bits as if we just wanted to hold the entire automotive world in the palm of our hand and then compress every single different item into Matryoshka stacking dolls or something along those lines. Luckily, there is one automotive bit that blurs many boundaries.
That would be the imaginative realm of digital car content creators, who usually trade logic for innovation and curiosity. They rose to fame and prominence with the advent of computer-generated imagery and until very recently they all used just their ‘CGI brush’ and their human imagination to come up with compelling digital creations. Alas, unless you have been living under a rock somewhere outside the Solar System, you already know that we are currently going through yet another revolution caused by the arrival of Artificial Intelligence.
Not the Terminator Skynet artificial general superintelligence system kind but rather of the OpenAI ChatGPT variety – whereas design tools now also have their AI aids that some automotive pixel masters intelligently use or abuse. As always, that is for everyone to decide and for us to give eloquent examples – sometimes with hilarious results. Such is the case here with the virtual artist better known as automotive.ai on social media, who brings AI automotive designs from a parallel universe and always loves to give us plenty of choices, even if almost always there is something a little off with these projects.
Photo: automotive.ai / Instagram
For example, the CGI expert loves to AI-imagine how both long-gone or contemporary nameplates may (or may not, again, depending on your POV) deserve a much longer lifespan than they already have or had. He also loves to redesign car brands into something else, like those times when Porsche built nothing but trucks after its initial heavy WWII tank and subsequent tractor days or when Rolls-Royce made a posh semi-trailer truck that haulers probably would have loved if it ever turned real. Oh, yeah, he also dabbles with CGI revivals, digital redesigns, and even virtual mashups – of both models and entire brands – but that’s too close to classic automotive artist credos for us to care about right now.
Instead, one of the recent feats of courage has to do with retconning a set of dedicated automotive segments into something that general mass-market and premium brands would adopt – aka the specialized police vehicles, school bus, and fire truck sectors. Let us take them one by one. First, the hypothetical ‘cop cars’ flew across ages, from old 50/50 Bronco-Wagoneer SUV hybrids to VW Bus minivans, and from VB Subaru WRXs to Toyota GR Supras. Naturally, people found a way to make fun of them – like noticing how the German minivan does not actually have police lights because “it wasn't going to catch anything anyway!”
Secondly, “it’s time for school, guys” in Nissans, Hummers, dual-axle Corvettes, Toyotas, Caddys, and even Kias! Funny enough, someone quickly noticed the conundrum of “why does the Nissan Juke look better as a bus than a car!” And thirdly, just in case there is a fire somewhere, you would better not count on a bundle of fire ‘cars’ to extinguish the peril. Instead, they arrived just in time to hear people laughing out loud instead of smelling something burning, to the tune of old Porsche 911s, VW Amaroks, Lambo Urus super-fire-SUVs, Range Rover emergency off-roaders, vintage yet big BMWs that still have kidney grilles smaller than on the M3/M4s, or posh Lexus ambulances.
On this cool CGI occasion, people could not stop laughing at the sight of those Land Rover or Blue Oval SUVs after trying to call to aid the “REWCGYR REVIONR” or “BERICR BONOR.” That goes to show that no matter how good the AI designs are – and some of these set pieces sure looked ready for police, school, or emergency duty – it is still decidedly easy to make them out as fakes. For the time being, at least.
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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