This photo shows a comparison of the front ends of three generations of Terrafugia Transition prototypes. The vehicle on the right with wings fully extended was the baseline from which the Industrial Design effort commenced.
Photo credit and copyright : Julie Henion-Richardson
A close up view of the third generation prototype's front end. The air intake was not correctly aligned with the intended position of the front 'grille'. The nose attitude of the vehicle in flight also resulted in insufficient air flow over the radiators seen inside.
Additionally, the front of the vehicle had a hole through which the front bumper jutted out, and this made assembly and disassembly cumbersome for the maintenance technicians.
Photo credit and copyright : Julie Henion-Richardson
The design process involved getting buy-in from company leadership on high level direction, and working with mechanical designers and computational fluid dynamics engineers to generate and refine concepts. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards also informed some of the design choices. These were then taken back to the chief engineer and company leadership to evaluate trade-offs and pick a final design.
This rendered image shows the final approved industrial design for the new front end. The form was simplified for easier manufacturing, with air intakes split into two and placed above and below the bumper which was now an integral part of the nose reducing the part count and saving weight. The crash beams are concealed by the integrated bumper. The bumper itself would be stickered over to distinguish it from the surrounding white, and a similar approach was adopted for the headlamp surrounds. This resulted in further reduction of part count and greater weight savings. LED turn signals were to be incorporated into holes trimmed on the carbon fiber surface. An elongated design was chosen for the turn signals to give us the best chance of meeting FMVSS regulations without significantly re-working the nose profile.
This image shows the production version of the nose that made it on to our first FAA certified vehicle. At the time I left the company, stickering had still not been completed, therefore the parts are still white. Turn signals were also not incorporated on this vehicle as it was not road intended to be used to driving evaluations.
Front End Redesign for Flying Car (2020-21)
On the 3rd generation of Terrafugia's Transition flying car, a need arose to redesign the nose to include a more suitable air intake. The existing intake was supplying insufficient amounts of air to cool the radiators for engine oil and coolant. This project consists of the industrial design effort that I led resulting in a new nose design for the Transition flying car.
In the past, industrial design approaches for the Transition involved trying to add aggressive styling and surface elements to the existing shape. The Transition is an awkwardly shaped vehicle, whatever way you look at it, and the addition of aggressive design elements neither fit in well with the rest of the vehicle nor did it improve the aesthetic. My proposal, accepted by the company leadership, was 'to embrace the goof' - we cannot change the shape of the vehicle (often described as goofy) without incurring prohibitive costs, but we can embrace its quirks. As a result, styling approaches that accentuate the goofy anthropomorphism of the 'face' of the vehicle were adopted.
The turnaround time for the Industrial Design effort was approximately four weeks.
