At the Hyundai Kia design and research center in Irvine, south of Los Angeles, Joel Piaskowski, the chief designer, and his staff created the NTT - the name is a play on 'entity' - a wild fantasy that exists only on paper and in computers.
It's a surfboard! It's a skateboard! It's a vehicle for beach parties and a boom box on wheels, with folding speakers for doors and running boards shaped like chrome baguettes. It's a Cinderella carriage gone wild.
The description that accompanied the NTT could be read as a parody of the standard auto-show presentation for a new design study: 'It's more than a vehicle, it's a lifestyle.' The surfboard fin on top mimics the shark-fin-shape antennas that have appeared on some recent cars.
At other design centers, imaginations were similarly unfettered...read on
