Photo: Porsche
Even though he has a truly unforgettable name, there aren’t many people who can pinpoint the exact time when they first heard of car designer Pinky Lai.
UPDATE: the patented concept pictures have been removed at the request of Mr. Lai's lawyers.
Born in Hong Kong, Lai first started his endeavor in production car design at Ford Germany, where he worked on the Ford Sierra, Escort, Fiesta and the Scorpio projects.
After that he also had a short and fruitful stint at BMW, where he was in charge of penning the E36 generation of the BMW 3 Series.
By far Pinky Lai’s most successful work took place at Porsche, where he stayed from 1989 until 2014. Among plenty of other successful design projects, his Magnum Opus is probably the design of the first water-cooled 911 in history, alongside its smaller mid-engine brother, the first-generation Porsche Boxster.
With such an impressive resume you’d think that Pinky Lai’s next job would be with another German carmaker, or at least a global one, but so far that hasn’t been the case as far as we know.
What has become known recently is that the Hong Kong designer may be working on a mid-engine supercar, with some initial sketches having been patented earlier this year.
AutoWeek Netherlands were the first to dug up the design patents, which were posted on the Japanese Patent Office, of all places. The air surrounding the project is rather mysterious, since Lai doesn’t seem connected to any known car manufacturer at the moment.
The patents only say that they were submitted by the designer himself, so they could symbolize a personal project for Lai.
Apart from the mid-engine layout there is no clue as to what will power the finished product except the two ‘fuel caps,’ one on each side of the car. We speculate that the production model may be a plug-in hybrid supercar of some kind, not unlike the Porsche 918 Spyder, which was completed when Lai was still working for Porsche.
In fact, the general outline of the car is pretty reminiscent of the 918 Spyder, which may or may not mean that it could be a coach-built version of it.
Either way, what we know for sure is that the project is a pretty long way from completion, so we’ll keep you posted when we find anything else about it.
Born in Hong Kong, Lai first started his endeavor in production car design at Ford Germany, where he worked on the Ford Sierra, Escort, Fiesta and the Scorpio projects.
After that he also had a short and fruitful stint at BMW, where he was in charge of penning the E36 generation of the BMW 3 Series.
By far Pinky Lai’s most successful work took place at Porsche, where he stayed from 1989 until 2014. Among plenty of other successful design projects, his Magnum Opus is probably the design of the first water-cooled 911 in history, alongside its smaller mid-engine brother, the first-generation Porsche Boxster.
With such an impressive resume you’d think that Pinky Lai’s next job would be with another German carmaker, or at least a global one, but so far that hasn’t been the case as far as we know.
What has become known recently is that the Hong Kong designer may be working on a mid-engine supercar, with some initial sketches having been patented earlier this year.
AutoWeek Netherlands were the first to dug up the design patents, which were posted on the Japanese Patent Office, of all places. The air surrounding the project is rather mysterious, since Lai doesn’t seem connected to any known car manufacturer at the moment.
The patents only say that they were submitted by the designer himself, so they could symbolize a personal project for Lai.
Apart from the mid-engine layout there is no clue as to what will power the finished product except the two ‘fuel caps,’ one on each side of the car. We speculate that the production model may be a plug-in hybrid supercar of some kind, not unlike the Porsche 918 Spyder, which was completed when Lai was still working for Porsche.
In fact, the general outline of the car is pretty reminiscent of the 918 Spyder, which may or may not mean that it could be a coach-built version of it.
Either way, what we know for sure is that the project is a pretty long way from completion, so we’ll keep you posted when we find anything else about it.
Google News