Interior Motives Summer 2021: GAC Enpulse

“We’ve never seen this car,” says Pontus Fontaeus executive design director GAC Advanced Design Los Angeles. “For us, everything exists in the virtual world.” The admission is a sharp illustration of the digitally-led methodology of Fontaeus’ Californian studio and a concession to the frustrations of Covid times. The designer refers to the Enpulse concept – a sportscar first unveiled at the Beijing Auto show in December 2020. Designed in LA, built in China, the Enpulse garnered a great deal of attention on launch. Now, like most things in the world, it sits in a kind of limbo, awaiting a potential shift to production at an as yet unspecified date. Assuredly a cliche to describe a design as being defined by contrast, in the case of the Enpulse it holds true. Within the vibrant interior there are all manner of forms and ideas playing off one another: structural expressionism, postmodern irony, a Generation X fascination with Star Wars, Pop Art, you name it.