Motor Trend Opinions Contradict on Deviant Art Lexus IS
While it’s no easy task to select the top 3 finalists from over 600 art contest entries, it certainly isn’t easy to put together a car in just 10 short weeks from scratch. There seems to be a bit of confusion from the Motor Trend camp as Nate Martinez, associate editor help picked the winning design, but Mike Floyd, Senior Digital Content Director slams it.
From an artistic standpoint, this car is pretty amazing in a sense that one artist (Rob Evans) conception has been transformed into a live object. The builder VIP Auto Salon had only 10 weeks to complete the project from start to finish. All exterior pieces had to be built from scratch and the wheels were milled just in the nick of time. I give a lot of credit to the builder for taking on this arduous task being that they only had two renderings to work off of. As you can see from the renderings, they did a pretty good job of getting it very close without losing the overall look and feel of the concept.
Rob Evans Project Entry:
Press Photos of the Lexus x Deviant Art IS F SPORT:
From an enthusiast standpoint I can understand that the car isn’t practical or makes perfect sense but from an artistic standpoint, the Lexus & Deviant Art collaboration allows the IS to be portrayed as a wild interpretation of the imagination. Critics can nitpick the details all day long but the whole idea of the project is an art form turning into life. It’s interesting that Motor Trend’s Nate Martinez helped select the winning design but their Senior Content Editor Mike Floyd decides to nitpick the details. Perhaps he and Nate did not consult each other in their decisions but it’s very dishartening to see contradictory views coming a very prestigious top tier publication like Motor Trend.
Here is Mike Floyd’s write up below:
Aside from the minor flaws, this extreme build will help spawn different ideas and trends which may trend later down the road. Remember when zealots slammed the IS F and 4th generation LS for not having connected exhaust tips? Check out what BMW, Mercedes Benz and other manufacturers are doing now, they’ve adapted the same look on their cars as well.
Lexus has been actively engaged in SEMA since 2007 and the launch of the F SPORT, Lexus has themed each years SEMA display with the F and F SPORT lines in mind. At this year’s SEMA Show, Lexus has decided to go out of the box, enough to make a bold statement. “Blending Out” was the key term in the new IS’ marketing campaign and the Lexus Deviant Art IS F SPORT did just that. Since this year’s theme was all about IS, Lexus enlisted INDGOGRL’s 1st Generation IS and Andrew Atigechi’s 2nd Generation to represent the different interpretations and generations of the Intelligent Sport sedan.
Source: [Lexus], [MotorTrend]