By Norihiko Shirouzu / Wall Street Journal

SHANGHAI - One afternoon in late winter, an American automobile designer named Edward Wong strolled through this city's fashionable old French quarter. Something stopped him in his tracks.

It was a Volkswagen Polo, only it might have belonged to Count Dracula. The car was painted matte-black, as if it had been driven through a coal-dust car wash; it had an angular wing mirror on each side. The VW logo was bright red, placed like a drop of blood on the hood. "Wow, see that?" Mr. Wong said, stepping back for a better view. "It's already started."

What has started is this: Chinese consumers are yearning for vehicles that express their feelings about who they are. And car designers from around the world are flocking to China to witness the birth of a style of automotive design that is distinctly Chinese.

Elements of the new style are already visible on the streets of Shanghai and other big Chinese cities. A growing number of automotive-design powerhouses _ Germany's BMW AG, Italian design house Pininfarina SpA, General Motors Corp. _ are starting to throw money and talent at the challenge of creating cars for one of the world's fastest-growing automotive markets.

For nearly 50 years after the Communist revolution in 1949, Chinese consumers made do with black bicycles and boxy black passenger sedans. Now, almost anything goes on the streets of China's big cities, whether it's spiky blue hair or lollipop-red sports cars. In the late 1990s, when sales of cars in China were just taking off, knockoffs of German or American cars sufficed. But Chinese consumers are starting to demand products that cater to their own tastes and desires. And with China now ranking as the world's fourth-largest car market, manufacturers are hiring designers who can tailor cars for Chinese drivers and translate their needs and aspirations into plastic and steel.

Volkswagen AG, long the leader in China, is adapting some of its models to the market, and it is sending Chinese designers to Germany for 18-month training sessions. Nissan Motor Co.'s chief designer, Shiro Nakamura, says he is looking to set up a small design office in China, most likely in Shanghai, to monitor Chinese trends.

This week, the big Shanghai auto show is set to feature models created to appeal to Chinese drivers, including a small two-door car with an ample rear end for a relatively roomy backseat. The car has a retractable hardtop that turns the coupe into a convertible. The coupe was designed by Pininfarina for Chery Automobile Co., of Wuhu, in China's Anhui province. Chery plans to bring the car _ referred to inside Chery as the Chery VV _ to the U.S. via a U.S. partner in about 2007.

Chinese car makers such as Chery have another goal: They want to create distinctive identities they can eventually use to win consumers in overseas markets. In some cases, they are looking abroad, to established design companies such as Pininfarina, for ideas.

"It took the Japanese (companies) 40 years to develop an identity, and the Koreans 20 years; I think the Chinese will get there in five to 10 years," says Ken Okuyama, Pininfarina's transportation design director.

Chery's quest has led it into a legal battle with GM, which has accused Chery of copying the look of its Chevrolet Spark for another Chery car, the Chery QQ.

What makes a car Chinese? Mr. Okuyama, Pininfarina's Japanese-born design director, led the design of the Chery coupe and also was the principal designer of the Ferrari Enzo, the Ferrari 612 Scaglietti and the Maserati Quattroporte. He says Chinese cars need different proportions than European or American vehicles. Chinese consumers need vehicles that marry luxury and practicality: Government officials and rich businessmen have chauffeurs to drive them during the work week, but they drive the same cars themselves during the weekend. Oftentimes, one vehicle is shared among an extended family.

The upshot, Mr. Okuyama says, is that most vehicles in China must be adapted to a wider range of use. Almost all require bigger rear passenger areas and more trunk space. Volkswagen's Audi unit, for instance, has extended the wheelbase of the new Audi A6 sedan by about four inches for the Chinese market.

Tradition suggests other differences. "There are cultural taboos in color choices, for instance. In China, white connotes death," says Verena Kloos, head of BMW's design unit, Designworks USA Inc., based in Southern California. The unit is looking in Chinese cities and elsewhere in Asia to open a studio, where it hopes to get an "understanding of 'premium' for BMW, Mini and Rolls Royce" _ all BMW brands _ in an Asian context, Ms. Kloos says. "It's a big challenge for us. It's a new field, and we would like to explore more."

GM, meanwhile, has introduced a series of vehicles designed and modified at a $50 million Shanghai facility. Now the U.S. auto maker plans to invest $250 million more to improve the studio.

In February, GM introduced a new Chevrolet Sail, a compact vehicle designed to appeal to buyers under age 30. And GM designers are redoing the styling of the business-like Buick Regal, giving it a "slightly more aggressive" look, says James Shyr, director of design at the Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center, a joint venture GM has with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. Buick is a long-established nameplate in China, dating back to early last century when it was the favored vehicle of Shanghai factory bosses and even part of the motorcade of the last emperor, Pu Yi.

Mr. Wong, the American, works in Shanghai heading his own design consulting company, SphereOne Ltd. He has just finished designing a new off-road vehicle for Beijing Jeep Corp, a joint-venture unit of DaimlerChrysler AG, and a crew-cab truck, a sport-utility vehicle and a car for Nanhai Fudi Auto Co., a private auto maker in Southern China's Guangdong province. He also contributed to the design of an athletic-looking compact that Tianjin FAW Xiali Automobile Co. wants to roll out by 2007.

Amid all the international attention, upstart Chinese design houses are seeking to assert their own ideas for the country's next generation of automobiles. "Foreign companies have the technology, but we are familiar with Chinese culture," says Lei Yucheng, chairman and chief executive of TJ Innova Engineering & Technology Co., a design center started by professors at Shanghai Tongji University. "The Chinese don't like Italian design. It's innovative but a little too different," he says. But German design "is a little too conservative."

Last year at the Pasadena, Calif., Art Center College of Design, GM sponsored a China Car design project, with the goal of forging ties with future designers who might one day work at its Shanghai operation. One promising talent it uncovered is Harry Sze, a Hong Kong-born design student. His luxury China Car was inspired by a palanquin, the covered chair fitted with shutters and blinds, slung on poles and carried by four people, which women of rank used for travel in imperial China. Mr. Sze's car, incorporating the palanquin's height and stately appearance, offers a "real big privacy area for rear passengers," Mr. Sze says. "You sit back in the rear, and people outside wouldn't be able to see you."

GM isn't interested in the student designs per se, says Bumsuk Lim, a transportation design instructor who taught the project. "They are interested in fresh, untainted approaches and students' different cultural backgrounds." GM isn't the only car maker to take notice of Mr. Sze: BMW and Volkswagen also have spotted him and now all three are competing to grab him, offering him paid internships.
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12:02 AM - Apr. 25, 2005 - post comment