RETRO
doesn't even exist

David Obendorfer - Designer

I graduated with a degree in industrial design from MOME Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design of Budapest.

I have been working for the Officina Italiana Design of Mauro Micheli and Sergio Beretta for 12 years now. For over twenty years the studio has been dealing with the design of the Riva and Sanlorenzo yachts, as far as both the external and internal design features are concerned.

Considering the particular attention on the part of editors and readers of various web portals, printed and online magazines regarding my Fiat 127 Concept, and previously on the shortlisted competition project 'Renault 4 Revival', I have decided to set up this website which will have the task of documenting a personal course through virtual car concepts telling stories of the past in contemporary language.

* All the illustrations on this site are independent projects that are neither endorsed by nor related to any car company.

Retro?

MINI, Fiat 500, VW Beetle, Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger, Chevrolet Camaro. The most successful examples of the kind which the term 'retro design' is being used for.

According to my personal point of view the re-introduction of historical models neither means turning back, nor going against progress. Retro cars are not copies of their predecessors, rather they are carefully studied reconsiderations strongly rooted in contemporary style. They are interpretations obtained via a creative process, similarly to any new models. From the designer's point of view, it's easy to see that 'retro' as such, does not even exist. Car designers always try to create new products by maintaining stylistic continuity with the rest of the production of the same brand, recycling, re-proposing and reconsidering features of previous models. The example perfectly illustrating this logic is that of the Porsche 911, which throughout 50 years undergoing an evolution of perpetual changes, has always remained the same. Today's Porsche 911 can be considered a retro model, the up-to-date reinterpretation of the 911 of 1963. It's all just a matter of continuity.

My aim is to try to find possible crossing points between the past and future, studying and proposing stylistic solutions that are able to reconstruct the continuity interrupted decades ago.

DESIGN

YACHT DESIGN
AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN
CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

MODELLING

VIRTUAL 3D MODELLING
STILL IMAGE RENDERING
ANIMATION

VIDEO

VIDEO PRESENTATION
CONCEPT ANIMATION
VIDEO FOOTAGE