It’s a pity that Auto Expo didn’t try being a hyperbole that characterises any Motor Show worldwide. But it is like a car that is only as good as its tyres (besides the countless other things) just like the show and its participants and the politics and so on and so forth, which include the name of the show itself. Presumably the organisers are portraying it as a ground for networking and showcasing new offerings of vehicles and components, and the opportunity for exhibition designers to make merry with this wonderful object with a motor and wheels.
Being still in its formative years when compared to Paris, or the others, one could be forgiven to be happy to stretch the meaning of the word "concept" that extra bit than it would permit. As, at the end of the day the cars designed by and for the major makers serve up to boost sales and sales only like the very reason an exotic programme like Formula 1 racing would find its place in those companies chief’s diary and linked by name alone to their production models.
The overseas constructors would generally present a car or two that is almost identical or part of a family to a model that would arrive in showrooms within a couple of years, the key objective being to familiarise the new design language of the manufacturer to prospective customers. Most of us are happy to see cars different from the ones we drive or see on the road, which even if they are nothing but makeovers of production models finished long before they go into production, is novel to us all the same. Thus us car fans (pun intended) would substitute ‘leisure fulfilment’ to the ‘trade show’ title of this event at Pragati Maidan where we can collect mugs, pens, note pads, umbrellas, T-shirts, hats, glossy polyethene bags and product literature (that would have been discarded before we’ve exited onto Mathura road).
In the neighbourhood of Pudong, the last Shanghai Auto Show had the makings to be an influential and a large-scale international show, with local auto makers not only stepping up their presentation quality but also exhibiting the development of Chinese conceptual auto design, admittedly with the stretched meaning of ‘concept’. But that alone is a big start from one of the two emerging superpowers of the east, which is why as the second one even an exaggerated expression about vehicles that are pure styling exercises and categorically not conceptual watersheds would only benefit our own car makers and their vendors. Consequently Indian Design emerges as the biggest gainer by establishing an identity that is resolved around our environment and us. Important this, when we realise that we are approaching a stage where design would be the prime differentiator and not one of the ingredients of the success formula for the car makers, the other ingredients are quantitative in nature and will soon be arrived at.
Surely the people who make the decisions in Pune and other motoring cities will demonstrate that intellectual honesty sooner or later and acknowledge the prospect of moulding the Indian Automotive Design. It is to see how and when those who know what needs to be done and how to go about it will make it happen, when presently conscienceless careerists who are not concerned with what rolls out from the assembly line outnumber them.
The New Delhi Auto Expo would be thought provoking in this and many other ways. The coming years of this biennial will demand rephrasing of certain key words in columns like this one.