A return to the chassis design?
09/14/2019
If you walk through the IAA or read the latest press releases from major manufacturers, you might be reminded of the 1950s, when car manufacturers built completely drivable chassis without a body and offered them to independent designers and coachbuilders so that they could build an elegant shell on them.
The electric car in particular seems to be giving chassis construction a new lease of life.
Volkswagen is talking about the MEB platform as the basis for the ID.3, but also the ID Buggy. Toyota has just presented the GA-B small car platform.
Another of these platforms can be seen at Bosch at the IAA.
However, these new platforms are normally only functional and, above all, safe with a self-supporting body. The idea that small companies will now put hundreds of body versions on these chassis is an illusion. The registration costs alone would present compact companies with insurmountable financial problems.
This was also confirmed to me by Erich Bitter at the IAA, who weeps many a tear for the 1970s, which made it possible for him to build the elegant Bitter CD on the Opel Diplomat chassis.
