Frankfurt 2017: The Fender-cam Trend
Cameras replacing mirrors has become a concept car trope, but we’ve spotted a difference in their application this year…
Among the bubbling trends at this year’s Frankfurt show was the minor detail of where to put your rear-view cameras, given the assumption that they ought to replace a pair of humble door mirrors.
Most such concept cams are simply placed on stalks where the mirrors would normally mount – at the forward point of the DLO or nearby on the door surface.
Volkswagen I.D. Crozz
Increasingly, it seems, cameras are migrating downwards and forwards to reside on the fender, aft of the wheelarch where you might normally find a side repeater, arch vent (real or imagined) or some other decorative motif.
This was the placement chosen for the Volkwsagen ID shown in Paris a year ago, and its ID Crozz follow up in Shanghai (admittedly, on the Crozz, as part of a feature that stretches back onto the door surface). A bullet-shaped fender-mounted camera featured on the Mercedes-AMG GT Concept displayed at Geneva in the spring. And now at Frankfurt we’ve gained two additional examples of the “fender-cam” trend.
Kia’s lovely Proceed concept featured a smoothly sculpted fender-cam housing, while Honda’s eye-catching Urban EV Concept included a contrasting piano-black camera mount, linking back into the handle of the rear-hinged passenger door.
That the Honda and the Kia were two of the best-resolved concepts at the show is probably just a coincidence.