The project, sponsored by Fiat Auto Advanced Design, is known as 'Lancia HPE: A New Concept in Luxury'. The exhibition which includes individual history research and concept tables, drafts, renderings by hand and digital as well as a projection by multimedia CD summarising the whole project.

The exhibition runs daily until 31st August 2003.

BRIEF: LANCIA PROJECT HPE NEW LUXURY

Study of a new concept of Lancia automobile that takes shape starting from the interior design through which it is possible to perceive a new concept of luxury meant as union between estetics and etics. The revisitation in modern key  of the elegance concept through simplicity, other than the possible union with the sportivity present in some past Lancia vehicles (Lancia HPE), should reppresent the guide lines of the project. Secondly it is important  to understand how the non displayed  technology can help to improve the quality of the past time on board of a vehicle, reducing to the minimum the driving efforts or for the reconfigurability fo the abitacle elements. 

Technology that learns to know the people and therefore anticipate the needs or even desires, especially to avoid that these spend time familiarizing with the technology itself. Everything brings to define some strokes tied to the new Lancia lifestyle  and therefore foresee a world in which the vehicle but mainly the Lancia user find a correct location.

To draw near our new luxury to a new tendency concept, we can say that tendency is not what will remain, but being in germ is trying to be affirmed.
Tendency is not the majority percentage, but rather a bet on the marginal latent of a system that required to be affirmed.

POSSIBLE CHARACTERISTICS AND VALUES:

- Greater importance to the active/passive security factor beyond the driver’s capacity/intention. 
- Growing importance on the trustability/quality on technical capacity.
- Growing technological multidiscipline complexity of which the user has no knowledge but great facility of use (ludic aspect tied to the femininity).
- Esthetic innovation playful shapes, materials and colours, for example: Smart, luxury city car.
- Product life that follows trends/fashion times.
- Life quality, more comfort, bigger flexibility, personalization.
- The car is seen as “sensorial isle” and “protective cell”.
- Non distructive and non pollutive car for environment.
- The esthetics respond to transactional esthetics canons (taste concept universally accepted).

NEW LUXURY AND NEW TARGET:

Until now luxury is synonimous of exclusion and elitarism, of costly and superfluous, esthetics without ethics. If luxury is a concept, as such it is constructed and changes like any other. Marketing and advertising are changing the concept of luxury to make it more liveable to a always bigger mass of consumers, we are heading for the mass luxury.

12 TENDENCY VALUES AND 5 CONSTANT VALUES:

- Tendency: Reduced cost, Interiority, Balance, Sober, Recover, Taste, Necessary, Globalizing, Interconnectability, Multifunctional, Flexibility, Continuous
- Constant: Security, Quality, Trustability, Wellbeing, Technology
 

The project “LIMOUSINE PLUS” comes from the desire of a refined and cultivated client that has the pleasure of “possessing” without exhibiting its economic possibilties, a mature and exigent client in respect to the concept  of luxury and comfort.

“LIMOUSINE PLUS” mixes italian style and beauty with leading technology, while clean and technical strokes and a particular architectonic shape offer new geometry in space.

The idea was that of conjugating the typical sportivity italian idea with a new concept of luxury, meant as “full share of the auto experience” through the interior space. The idea of luxury from which this concept is born is that of the english living room, afternoon parenthesis in which time is a pretext for interpersonal relations, to share news and information, in other words put people on the centre of a whirl through the space that rotates around them.

Sophisticated “cross-over” vehicle as synthesis of dynamicity, aggressivity, elegance and composure. The exterior lines are inspired by the mythical “Stratos” underline the strong and determined character blended to typical elements of the big ones, on its wide glass ceiling you get a feeling of mimetism with the surrounding environment.

The three key conceptsin which the project rotates are: luxury, sportivity and comfort. Black is the colour of luxury and austerity it is used in the interior and there is a gaudy recall in the body, that is where the name NERO comes from. The vehicle is a hybrid between a crossover, coupè and a SUV. A dynamic vehicle that does not disdain long highway trips, but neither off road excursions, exalts the sporting emotions of the owner without renouncing to the image that is given by the brand.

Luxury is what we are not able to do normally, for incompatibility with other needs. This conception of luxury is represented by an extreme coupè, where one can sleep or carry object up to 2,70 metres long, where one can easily access to the driving place situated very near the asphalt; a sportscar that can be used every day in the city and during the week end. A vehicle that adapts according to the user exigences and modifies its utilization.

In a reality that is always more oppressing, chaotic and globalized there’s a need for a place where to relax, a place where the self can express itself. That is how Ego is born, a vehicle to communicate to your guests a feeling of airyness that does not seem compatible with the concept of the automobile.

Lancia Desma expresses mainly the concept of elegance linked to sportivity. It has a sporting character and is distinguished from ostentatious design and from the aggressive sportivity without compromising comfort and performance. The details are taken care of, the stylistic elaboration is accurate.

As our lifestyle and our culture change, also our concept of luxury has changed.

Usually luxury is given by the materials used, but except from wood whose value remains throughout times, the value of materials change according to fashion: gold is substituted by titanium; plastic, thanks to Kartell or designers such as Starck and Karim Rashid, becomes a precious object.

Harmonia is the seventh muse in the Greek mythology reppresents the principle of connection and balance among elements apparently in conflict between them. Harmonia, therefore accord between different tones, point of composition and balance between forces that tend to get away from eachother violently. From this idea the concept of new luxury is developed, as the union of contrasting elements such as sportivity and aggressiveness of the exterior volume in opposition to the big interior space.

Greek name to denominate diamond, that means invincible. From the diamond and its working, that since always is a sign of craftsmanship and manuality, I started by searching an exclusive vehicle that seems to be created by the clever hands of a craftsman and not by an assembling chain.

LANCIA “EFFUSIOR” represents a new concept of vehicle derived from the fusion of two typologies of car: SUV and coupè, these two get together creating a car of generous dimension (almost 3 metres long), but lightened by a slender volumeter, characterized by elegant lines and at the same time sporting. The typical coupè shape is put in evidence, lifting it from the ground, creating a compromise between automobile and off-road,

In the past the common opinion of luxury was linked to something that was expensive, conservative and unattractive. The current idea considers luxury as non innovative, as many vehicles take the same lines of the past models. Which elements can then characterize the new luxury? How can we make younger clients to purchase luxury cars? What do they want and expect?

Lancia X is developed on the concept of “visible technology”. The “visible technology” is one of the main characteristics for this specific meaning of new luxury. “Visible technology” means less mechanism and more passenger space, inspired by modern architecture, starting from building structure.