Well, strictly it was written with Novas in mind, but other than that, this was written by
Neil over on the Euro Nova Forums.
One thing that's strikingly obvious about the Nova shape is that it's a thing unto itself - it's not a copy of anything, it's not a homage - it's not false. Being its own thing is a very important part of its appeal. This goes deep since recreations lack courage, they are inauthentic and ‘impure’. The parallel in the software design world is something called skeuomorphism – interfaces that are made to look like other things – trompe l’oeil such as the leatherette stitching on the Apple calendar or the wooden Billy bookcase iTunes books sit on. It’s a design aesthetic that is entirely parasitical – it has no purity. The Nova shape has purity. (By contrast, to pick an aunt sally, the Rover 75 has none; it looks like a thatched cottage with an inglenook dashboard and horse-brass controls) and yet the Nova also looks backwards and has nostalgia for an unfettered past.
Its authenticity goes into every detail. It wouldn't be impossible in a world where anything can be made on a flat screen to have digital dials that look like Smiths or Veglia clocks – like the ones in the new Jag, but that would be sort of inauthentic. I’m in awe of the electronic dash you’re building for the Green Machine – it’s geeky, it’s authentic, it’s simultaneously nostalgic and original and it’s ‘beautiful’.
I work with geeks – some of the brightest are in thrall to Apple. Apple’s industrial design genius has been to make products desirable even when they are turned off. I think the Nova has some of this quality. There’s a brilliant critique of Apple by one of its influential early employees which uses a Nova Stirling to demonstrate the idea of borrowing an aesthetic while ignoring the limitations
http://asktog.com/atc/the-third-user/ I think this is spot on – the Nova shape hides its limitations – especially to novice dilettantes like me.
There’s another way in which Novas seem like software to me. The Nova hides its underpinnings under an amazing shape, but makes those underpinnings available to expert users who can configure them as they please. It's open source backed by a community of hackers who freely exchange ideas and knowledge.
The great puzzle to me is why extraordinarily capable and knowledgeable engineers love something that is almost comically badly designed from an engineering perspective. A machine in which some of the fundamentals such as the driving position cannot be resolved. A machine which pays no attention to being useable. It’s all about style with pretty much no consideration for utility. I guess the expert hacker doesn't want something that has space or comfort if they can have the freedom to do as they want. Space and comfort are already well-catered for by cars from every manufacturer. It doesn’t need to be well designed; it needs to be exciting – a drama. Too small to get in, no opening windows, inadequate ventilation, limited visibility (I understand that even seeing forward is tricky in the autumn sun) - all of these chronic design failures are challenges to the ingenuity of the experts and in any case worth the pain of something that is beautiful.
There’s something irrational about the Nova, but then rationality is over-rated. The whole impetus of engineering is to make things that function perfectly in a world already predicted – the Nova has no truck with this – it’s a sort of literal dream machine. I still have no idea about its attraction. I like it because it’s fun, but I completely misunderstood it. I had no idea how crazy it is.
Well said. And I hadn't come across that bit my Apple before either. Pretty cool.
