With the Porsche 911 one of the most consistent and linear designs in all of automobile-dom, it might be easy to think there are no new ideas for how to make the icon more modern, more svelte and delivering even  more performance.

Ege Argüden is an exciting talent in the car-design world. Studying automotive and industrial design in Pasadena, Arguden has not only created a stunning new Porsche 911 style. But also a story and design rationale, product positioning and brand heritage study.

BIO

Originally from Turkey, Arguden recently wrapped up his second design internship with BMW in Munich. Arguden’s LinkedIn also cites time spent with Ford, Chrysler and Volkswagen design studios. Impressive CV for a young man! How early did he get his start?

While we are totally stalking the guy online, Ege recently did the Bondurant race driving school with his dad — surely a car-guy like us through and through.

From the Bondurant website, a bit of bio highlighting Arguden’s start in the biz with VW at 16.

When he was 12, he met Ekber Onuk, the boat builder who asked him intern on a car project that he started in his shipyard. While working there as an intern on the weekends, he also spent time at the Ford factory in Istanbul, and Yilmaz took him to a number of auto shows in Istanbul and Europe. He also participated in the design competition organized by the magazine AutoZeitung and won second prize.

He met Murat Gunak, head designer of Volkswagen Group, when he was 16 and showed him sketches. This led to an internship in VW Design Center in Potsdam/Germany that summer; he followed the next summer with a Bugatti project in Potsdam. The next summer, he completed an internship at BMW in Munich. These three experiences reaffirmed his goal of becoming a car designer.

~2018 Porsche 901 by Ege Arguden

His latest work in the Porsche 901 looks back to Butzi Porsche’s first name for the 911, but looks far into the future for how to breathe new life into the much-loved rear-engine silhouette.

PRODUCT POSITIONING

Where in the Porsche range does Ege see this design fitting? He cites a smaller size and cheaper price point than you might expect – with a ballpark figure of about $75,000 half-way between the 911 and the Cayman. This is where we disagree with his strategy, as the 901 he penned seems like a more logical fit above the current 911 Turbo S, to our eyes.

As a basis for visual comparison, here is the new Porsche 911 Turbo with bodywork mods by Porsche Exclusive.

Lower, leaner, more aggressive and much faster — but sharing the 911’s rear-engine platform, the 901 would be a very logical step up the price bracket for Porsche, and put some carbon-fiber in the big price vacuum between $200,000 911’s and the $950,000 918 Spyder.

Might these designs just be a perfect look at a next-gen Cayman? Not exactly. So much emphasis is in the back – making clear this is a 911 relative and not a mid-engine model.

DESIGN ANALYSIS

NOSE

So what makes Arguden’s 901 so sexy and appealing? He takes a deconstructed look at the 911 design, and massages its proportions heavily to be less practical and more exotic. A lower roofline and shallow glasshouse still pairs with a very upright windshield and twin-gun-barrel fenders leading to the circular lamps in front. These cut-out and shallow body-colored areas include a free-standing and external triple-LED lighting setup.

PROFILE

But it is below the beltline where the real action starts happening, even up front. From the wheel-hubs downward, the Arguden 901 flips the bulging surfaces from convex to concave. These intersect and overlap, creating functional-feeling ductwork for air intakes and outlets. Completely stripped fender-backs front and rear are a racing-inspired way to reduce lift and drag, while also drawing focus on the giant over-flared look of the fenders on all sides.

TAIL

A shallower and more raked rear windshield removes what little headroom a factory 911 has in favor of an extreme slope down the tail of the machine. The 901 ends with a long-tail extension point and circular vent outlets in the engine cover. An ultra-slim rear lighting setup maximizes the heat escape of the venturi tunnels, also mounting the twin circular exhausts outboard of the lighting and at bumper height.

Overall, the style and ethos of the car feels like an excellent way to move the 911 both onward into the future, and upward to compete effectively in the $250,000-price-ranges of the Ferrari 488 GTB and McLaren 650S.

We wish Arguden the best with future employment, and hope to see his eye for design influencing and shaping the hottest new cars in the near-term future.

NEXT STEPS?

Stay tuned for more coverage of his design studies.

Ege, if you read this… get in touch!  We’d love to know your latest projects.  Tom (at) Car-Revs-Daily.com

Check out Ege’s other projects over on Adobe Inc.’s design hub Behance.

https://www.behance.net/ege