   Blog entry written by David Celdran ABS-CBN News Channel Link: www.executive-class.blogspot.com Wini Camacho. When we first heard the name of the designer of the latest generation Mercedes Benz E Class, we knew he had to be from the Philippines. Of course, Camacho could also be Mexican or from any former Spanish colony, but Wini? Only Filipino men have this penchant for shortening or rearranging their names to come up with a nickname like Wini. Well, we were right, Winifredo Camacho is one of our own, and he's the same man behind the widely-applauded exterior design of the 2009 E Class. Wini's rise to the elite design team of Mercedes Benz in Stuttgard was a process that began in his homeland, the Philippines. His first job after graduating from the University of Santo Tomas's design program was with the now defunct modern furniture company Mobel Systema. Knowing that furniture design wasn't exactly his passion, Wini moved to Hong Kong where he took on a job designing toys for a company that supplied the world's biggest department stores. All the fun he had designing toy cars was what made him realize his real calling- designing luxury cars for the world's top carmakers. Wini must have been so good at designing concept cars that right after finishing a design course in California, he was immediately spotted by Mercedes Benz and recruited to join the German company's legendary design team. The rest is history for Wini, and in our case, national history, as Camacho is currently the only major Filipino car designer in the world and the only Filipino in the elite Mercedes-Benz design team. Wini was recently in Manila for the holidays and he agreed to an exclusive face-to-face interview with us at the Mercedes-Benz showroom in Greenhills. We talked about his career at Mercedes, the future look of cars and most of all about designing the E Class, the Executive Class top choice for luxury mid-size sedan of 2009. |
| Here are excerpts of the interview: |
| Executive Class: A lot of designers talk about creating cars with an emotional connection. What does that mean from a designer's point of view? WC : It's a lot. When you go near a car, one of the things you appreciate is the sculpture of the car. You see how the surfaces connect, how the shapes, the convex and the concave shapes, how stuff like that connect. And the other thing which is always there in a Mercedes Benz is the proportion of the car. Mercedes Benz, normally being a rear drive car is an advantage. You have a long hood which really gives the car a nice presence out on the road. EC: What is your personal style? WC: I prefer a very pure and very timeless looking car. But it's not easy. Some people say do a clean car and then it gets to be a boring car. This is not easy. It's like designing a very simple thing that the less elements you put in it, the more difficult it is. And the challenge is to make a pure clean car interesting. But, there's many ways to do it and it's really a very very tough thing to do. You can easily do a car with a lot of elements like some of the cars coming out from Asia. But the more mature looking cars or the cleaner ones, those that have enough confidence to stand up and say I'm clean and pure - that's a Mercedes Benz. EC: What makes a car timeless in design then? WC: I think one of the things that makes a Mercedes Benz timeless is the proportion. Most of the cars now that are out on the road are front wheel drive cars with a short hood. And this makes the car look modern. But they don't have a timelessness of the rear wheel drive car like a Mercdes. The other thing is the form language. We try not to be too trendy. We do things that are modern but not too trendy so that in a few year's time it's going to just be a fad. This is something we're very careful with. But at the same time, we have to compete with what's out there in the market. EC: What about the E Class? How did all these elements you speak of come together in the E Class? What kind of design were you looking for? WC: First of all, the previous generation of the E Class was criticized for being a bit too soft and feminine and this was a reaction to the 80s when the cars tended to have too much presence out on the road and the previous E Class was kind of like watered down a bit as a reaction. But they realized this went a bit too far in that direction. With the current model we made a point that the car is supposed to be the foremost luxury business sedan in the world. And one of the things that makes it that is the presence out on the road. So you see that the edges are sharper, the volume is bigger and the grill is bigger. Everything about it is about presence and of course this is to convey the technology and luxury behind it. |
| EC: What were your influences for the E Class? WC: I think my style as a designer is a bit different from the others. Some designers they look for inspiration like in beautiful furniture or a beautiful piece of architecture. I tend not to be like that. I tend just to be instinctive about what I do. I sketch something, I develop it, and I try to be creative in a way where my influence comes from within. So I don't consciously try to be influenced by something. Of course, we were briefed right from the start about what we want the car to be, which in the case of the E-Class was for lots of presence, more masculinity and stuff like that. That was always at the back of my mind. EC: How does the E Class achieve the objective for more presence? WC: I think it's a combination of a lot of things. First of all there's the proportion of the car, a rear-wheel drive and its long bonnet. Second is the volume, it's a car with a lot of volume but not fat. Lean muscle, you can say that. And then also there's the form language. The crisp lines and some subtle negative surfaces. So there's a lot of subtleties here that contribute as well to the overall presence of the car and, of course, there's tradition like the grill which we mentioned before and the four-eyes headlamps, these are like a trademark for E Class. It's a combination of all of this and of course the typical Mercedes quality as well, shot lines that are very even, nice reflections of the car. These are little things that a man on the street won't be able to recognize but maybe somehow he will see there's something about this car that I cannot explain, that makes the car stand out. EC: What is your favorite Mercedes Benz? Aside from the E Class, of course. WC: I have to say the race cars from the 30s and 40s. I really like them because they have the timelessness that you don't see in other cars anymore. They are very clean, and they don't have anything extra to make them flashy. They are what they are. And they are very honest. They're really beautiful sculpture. I would say the original SL is the most beautiful car ever built. And I think a lot of auto enthusiast agree with this. DC: And what is your dream project for Mercedes Benz? WC: First is the production car we have. The SLX would be my dream project. The next generation one. The other category would be like a blue-sky car project where there would be no limits, just do what you think would be your dream Mercedes Benz. There would be no reference to history or to existing cars. It's just to do the most beautiful car you can do. |
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