Welcome to Fast News Friday – Foxtrot Papa’s weekly selection of automotive news and branded content reviews. This week, we’ve searched the web to unearth a highly entertaining film from BMW as it heads to CES 2021, enjoy the retro-grade car styling and studio work from Renault as it announces the return of one of its most iconic name badges and finally, celebrate the collaboration of two of Europe’s most iconic sports car brands. Enjoy!
We’ve spoken about BMW’s increasingly quirky sense of humour on Fast News Friday before, but the German brand has taken it up a notch this week, with this new tongue-in-cheek brand film. Featuring two talking cars; a petrol-swigging V12-engined 760iL from the early 2000s and the brand’s new iX all-electric flagship, the film could be summed-up as Knightrider meets Night At The Museum – except without leading men Hasselhoff and Stiller. As part of BMW’s involvement with CES 2021, the film, shot in the BMW Museum, highlights just how far BMW has come in the understanding of user intuition, interaction and emotions. Indeed in a world now awash with delicate touchscreens, the iDrive system, introduced nearly 20 years ago, was widely criticised for being too fiddly. How times have changed.
New Fiat Panda – Economically sexy
We nearly did a double take when we first watched this cringeworthy short film from Fiat this week, introducing the newly facelifted and ‘economically sexy’(?) Panda. In fact, if there was a (admittedly rather large) box of items from 2020 that we’d rather forget about, this would be near the top of the pile. Little more than a throwaway advert, this film is one thankfully short mix of stereotypes and cliches. The script alone crosses the line of taste and contains enough pastiche one-liners to last a lifetime. Perhaps like the new Panda itself (we haven’t actually sampled one), this content lacks originality and any sort of creativity.
As these brilliantly vibrant images prove, Renault has revealed that its classic small hatchback the Renault 5 is to make a return as an electric, retro-inspired supermini. Many children of the 1980s have spent considerable time being ferried about in a Renault 5, which makes it the ideal time for the French brand to revive the popular hatchback. Currently known as the Renault 5 Prototype, the concept was designed by Gilles Vidal, who previously penned the stunning Peugeot E-Legend coupe. Speaking at the reveal he said: “The design of the Renault 5 Prototype is based on a cult model of our heritage. This prototype simply embodies modernity, a vehicle relevant to its time: urban, electric, attractive.”
Lotus and Alpine collaborate on electric sports car project
Unexpected but welcome news this week as two famous sports and racing car manufacturers announce what is set to be an interesting pairing. French brand Alpine and British icon Lotus have announced they will join forces to develop new EV vehicles. Starting with a sports car, an endeavour both firms are well versed in, the partnership may extend to the upcoming Lotus SUV too. The partnership will hopefully go beyond tarmac and onto the apex as the brands share their F1 And Formula-E tech. Could this signal Lotus’ return to top-level racing in the not so distant future?
Kia rebrands with new logo and tagline
Kia recently revealed its new brand logo at an impressive unveiling show, which used both fireworks and illuminated, pre-programmed drones to create the new Kia script in the night sky. The Korean firm said the new logo embodies “symmetry, rhythm and rising” and has been designed to appear as a handwritten stamp of approval from the company. The new tagline, ‘Movement that inspires’, expresses the Hyundai-owned company’s ambition to focus on mobility as a whole, by revamping all parts of the business. In our opinion, the new badge is certainly an improvement over the outgoing one. Also dropping ‘Motors’ from its brand name in the process, Kia announced more details on the firm’s strategy going forward, stating that it intends to, “break away from its traditional manufacturing-driven business model”, instead expanding into “new and emerging business areas by creating innovative mobility products and services to improve customers’ daily lives”.