Well, it is finally here! Red Dot finally announced the winners of the Cars and Motorcycle category. This segment is very wide-ranging, meaning you can see almost everything here, including a Kia in a Ferrari and Yamaha sandwich. But this actually does not indicate that this award is something to be taken lightly.
The Red Dot Award is one of the highest honors any company can receive in the design world, and the products are evaluated thanks to key points such as “degree of innovation, emotional content, impact, functionality,” among others. But we do not mean to bore you to death with details, because we know you are waiting to see what are this year’s best-looking cars and bikes, at least according to Red Dot. Well, here you go:
#1 Yamaha XSR900
If you are a motorcycle fan, then you know that bike industry design language has been “taken over” by a wave of vintage aesthetics. That is also visible on the new Yamaha XSR900 which incorporates, very nicely if I might add, both the modern design as well as old. It made a fine balance between the two directions, and it actually stands out from cafe racers and scrambler-styled bikes that flood the market lately.
#2 Kia Optima Sportswagon
This is the thing we mentioned just before. Who would have thought that a Kia might end up on this list, it truly surprised everybody, but it seems that Kia is lately all about surprises. The company managed to stand out and find its own identity while playing on their best card – affordability. Thanks to their latest vehicles like Optima Sportwagon and the new Stinger sport sedan it became a company to keep a close eye.
#3 Ferrari J50
The J50 is a Ferrari’s way of celebrating 50 years of sales in Japan. They celebrated that date with one-of-a-kind 488 Spyder-based J50 which caught everyone’s eye. Ferrari even got demands to incorporate the J50’s design into the rest of their lineup, but it remains to bee seen if they will actually listen to the market and buyers wishes. We do not see why not, it would be, without any doubt, good business to them.
#4 Mazda Miata RF
When the new Mazda MX-5 came it was already a beautiful car with even better proportions and an edgy new design. Japanese car maker tried to do a difficult task, at least design-wise, of transferring from a roadster to a hard top, and they made it by blending their design language with the targa architecture, and they came up with the MX-5 RF. What is even more incredible is that they managed to do that in a car that is just shy over $30,000.
#5 Audi Q2
When you try to make a small SUV (which are incredibly more and more popular) you end up with a vehicle that is very difficult to design, at least proportion-wise. That is why many companies that try to make these end up with cars that at best look somehow weird and oblong or are a huge eyesore at worst. Audi, on the other hand, managed to surpass this problem and make their new Q2 in a way that it looks more like a pumped-up hatchback than a re-purposed and re-proportioned SUV.
