Afzal Kahn Is a British automotive designer. Mainly known for being the founder of Kahn Design, the Chelsea Truck Company, and Project Khan. As well as owning multiple car design companies, he is also known for creating his own take of an established supercar and made it a reality, the Aston Martin DBS 9. His companies are responsible for producing modified SUV’s and Supercars for rich and famous.
Kahn’s most significant pieces of work the creation of his own supercar, The Vengeance (based off an Aston Martin DB9). This car started out as a sketch, which is important as it allows for the designer to translate their ideas on a format that can be altered. His sketch shows the car in different perspectives, which is useful as it gives a view of exactly how the car is supposed to look. From the design I can see elements of the Aston Martin that it is based on. The element being the front grill, which is iconic from the most car manufacturers as it’s the first thing that is supposed to recognized. However, this is the only aspect that I can recognize, as for the other body panels they are completely different and what Kahn wanted them to be. I think Kahn had done this because he wanted to pay tribute to the car his design is based off. The reason he did this is because he was initially inspired to design car because he has seen the Aston Martins of the 80’s and 90’s and wanted to design his own car from his younger days.
After the sketch was complete it was put into a design software where he could perfect the lines he had made and adjust them to his liking. As well as this computer software if useful in colouring designs in a way where it simulates reflections, which is needed as it can show how the light will make the body panels look. From the sketches and computer-generated renders can see that Kahn focused his design on curved lines. I assume this was done to make the car look sleek and visually please. As well as this I feel it may had been down to juxtapose the name of the car to the design of the car. The name suggests something aggressive, which would translate to sharp and fast lines in terms of design for the car. However, Kahn instead made the lines of the soft and curved which is different from what the name suggests.
To conclude I personally like how the designer has incorporated the original car alongside with his own design choices because it shows that he was inspired by the Aston Martin in the first place and wanted his audience to appreciate both his alteration as well of the original designers’ ideas. One aspect I don’t particularly like about this design is how he didn’t use some sharper lines because it is a common design choice for super cars because of aerodynamic purposes, however the curved line could have been deigned in a way that allows for air to flow in an efficient way. From this design I can learn that I should be using different types of line when drawing car as it can help translate an idea for example how he wanted to show that the car is a sleek and elegant through curved lines, compared to sharp line which would make a car look more aggressive.
Manifesto Project 