2008 Chrysler 300 Royale

I saw a commercial for a car yesterday and I was simply blown away. So much so that I literally yelled out “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Chrysler came out with a Model called the 300 in 2003 and it was the hottest production model car seen in years! It won Motor Trends car of the year award in 2003 and 2004. 2008 brought another evolution in the 300 Series. The commercial for this car has African-American people in it and it shows at least 3 different 300’s with this just funked out, 2 tone paint jobs, nicer rims than before, bigger front grills and they are just nice! As usual I thought to myself “Why can’t a bicycle design exude true Urban nastiness like that?” Fear not my loyal readers, they absolutely can and I promise you that I am in the process of sketching something right now that will be the equivalent of this car.

Nevertheless, take a look at this car yall. In my mind, this is not only funky but elegant especially for the price range it is in. The designers could have gone to far and made it look tacky (Remember in design sometimes more is just that-More), but the beauty of this design is they STOPPED adding stuff at the right moment! Ah my heart longs to see a bicycle design that flows with the FUNK like this car. Wait a minute, the time is very near and if you my readers, have just a little patience, I promise to show you some stuff you’ve never seen before!

For those of us who thoroughly enjoy the retro 1970’s style Hood Ornaments, most prominent on Cadillac and Chrysler, this 300 Cerebus with the hood ornament will definitely ‘Float Your Boats’. When I saw this Hood Ornament all I could say was “I saw the funk, and it was good!” Remember I told you all in an earlier post that I had a ghetto style Pee-Wee Herman when I was a kid and the highlight of that was an Old School Cadillac Hood Ornament I fixed to the front fender by punching a hole in it and securing it was a piece of a clothes hang.
Some bad news on all of these pictures that are posted here folks. All of these were presented at an Auto Show so they are known as ‘Concept Cars’. It is very common for a concept car to look a little bit different from the production model of the same cars, which is what winds up at your local dealerships.

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As I continue my Global Search for ‘Pure Funk’ in bicycle design. I again marvel at how 4 of the hottest 5 designs I have seen lately are from foreign bicycle manufacturers. I am sure there is some simple, yet technical reason why European countries seem to be leading the way in innovative and funked out design. My opinion on this issue is simple, after researching American bicycle companies versus their European counter parts; I am of the opinion that bicycles are simply more important to their way of life than it is to ours. I read a statistic the other day that said the European bicycle market is growing more rapidly than any other in the world! NBC
Nightly News reported several months back that 1 out of 3 Americans are considered obese while 1 out of 4 of every child in this country is considered overweight. It isn’t hard to guess at the reason for this, ‘Lack of Exercise and healthy diets!’

It is a rare sight in my neighborhood to look out of the window and see a child or youth riding a bicycle or to see anyone (including me) running or walking to get exercise. Innovation tends to rapidly slow down or even halt as something, such as bicycle riding becomes less important to our society as a whole. When something is very important and economically lucrative, the opposite effect happens. To prove this point, there is no end to technological advancement in computer software, online start up companies, video games and systems and even automobile technology. These are all areas where American Business is strong worldwide. The flip side of that is all of these things take very little physical activity.

You can pretty much sit on your butt and do all of these things and you would have a very difficult time burning any calories doing any of them! And you wonder why we are a nation of fat bodies. I said all of that to say this, we are losing ground as a nation within bicycle industry innovation and funk because we are lazy. The companies who do have the lock on distribution to the stores which 73% of people in this nation buy bicycles, at Big Box Retailers are producing uninspiring designs which produce no emotional response other than “Oh, that is nice, I GUESS I can buy that.”

The companies that do have a little funk can’t possibly hope to get their designs in these retailers because they don’t have the purchasing power that the big companies do so they exist on the fringe. Each of them are so busy fighting for the scraps left by the likes of Huffy and Pacific Cycles that they never think about merging their companies to obtain the purchasing power needed to compete with the big boys! Unfortunately, the biggest losers in this drama are you and I, the bicycle buying public, and worst of all, the spirit in the marketplace that made this country great. We as a country can grab the innovation and funk back from Europe, but not until the emotion is put back into bicycle design.

Above Photo: Courtesy of Mzarek

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With the next few posts, I am going to wax philosophical on the very real issue of Americans losing jobs to foreign countries and make a case for the fact that when we lose jobs, we also lose our edge on bicycle innovation. To clarify, many of you may believe that when I say the word innovation, I mean something mechanically different than what came before. That is a valid argument. However, innovation, to me, can mean a different type of paint job, structural configuration, new rim styles, or just something that produces an emotional response that wasn't present before. I have commented on several occasions about my belief that the brand 'Next', produced by Pacific Cycles and sold at Wal-Mart are uninspiring, cheap and basically a piece of junk. I still hold that opinion. Even those bicycles can be reworked to a point that they do produce an emotional response and a need to own by the buying public.

Before I go any further note: I AM NOT SAYING THESE BIKES ARE THE FUNK!

I have posted several pictures that I came across during the research phase of my project for your review. I can't honestly say that they made me 'Freak Out' but they are very nice and different type of designs. The mountain bike in the top right hand corner has a very eye catching paint job, loud attention getting tires and the seat ties in nicely with the over all color scheme. The Design directly below this paragraph is sure to get the attention of any browser looking for something that is different and eye catching. The description says it is a Mountain Bike and my initial thought was "This doesn't look like a Mountain Bike". After further consideration I recanted my statement and thought "Who am I to say what a Mountain Bike should look like." Yes, me! Now if I am on the search for funk and innovation and I thought like that, what are people who design bikes and are in the business thinking?


Anyone can tell a company's overall thought process by the products they produce. A company's culture is determined by those in charge. 4 of the last 5 designs I have seen that emotionally move me have been produced by foreign companies. More about this in my next posting. Back to the title of this post. With the loss of jobs, comes the loss of inspiring thought to produce innovative products in any particular field. The bicycle industry was HUGE in this country during the hey-day of American Cycle Racing in the late 19th century. Bicycle factories where popping up all over the East Coast and HOOOTTT products soon followed. Innovations such as the 'Chain less Bicycle' which was developed specifically for Marshall 'Major' Taylor to smash all velodrome speed records came along.

We went from the old school 'High Wheel' Bicycles to what came to be known as 'Safety Bicycles' which survive even to this day. The auto industry came along a few years later and the hey-day of American Bicycle Racing had passed. Racing was still popular in Europe and Australia during these years but the damage was done to the American Bicycle scene. I do not know if we can get back there and take over the bicycle innovation business, but what I do know is that the American bicycle design crowd (myself included) should really take a hard look at what we are doing and how we are doing it.




Whoever you are, email me and let's get a dialogue going on what we can do to bring the funk back into the marketplace. Sit back and enjoy these CHINESE designs for now. I will post again soon and continue this dialogue. My next post will be a stunner to most of you. It deals with the obesity in this country and unfortunately with the fact that we have become and indoor culture and how this has affected our ability to innovate with bicycles.

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"I Saw The Funk,and It is Good!"

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I was surfing the web a few minutes ago and I ran across this picture that is circa 1946. I couldn't find to much information about what this design is. All I found is that it is called 'Future Design'. As I have said before and I now say again "I saw the funk, and it was good." This design is from 60 years ago and I must say that it is still HOOOOTTTTT!

A Few Things that could make this 2007 HOOOTT!:

- Bring the tip of the head badge area backwards towards frame, flatten the tip, cut and insert platinum style grill. Chrysler 300 style grill

- The whole frame cover can remain as is but loke it out with platinum (plastic) style, encrusted jewelry appearing bling~

- Larger seat, slick fur style, harvest gold in color with a slight arch on the back

- Loose the spokes! Replace with machete style blades that are accented with harvest gold imitation jewels.

-Fork isn't platinum but is harvest gold to break the monotony in color.

- Front fender length can remain the same, but top-middle of the fender should be cut about .5 of an inch and have a Chrysler 300 style grill in the center. Back fender also.

I won't go any further but just close your eyes and see that this can be HOOOTT even today if a little 'Swagger' is applied to the redesign.

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