The design Work is All-Israeli on the new Meteor luxury touring coach, produced by Merkavim – Israel principle manufacturer of buses and based on the Volvo platform. The project was assigned to Alex Padwa, since 1992 a self-employed designer in Tel-Aviv following five years spent at the Citroen style center, where he worked on numerous projects including the interior design of the active show car (presented at the 1988 Paris show) and the exterior of the ZX Ralley-Raid Paris Dakar (1990).
Meteor is not Padwa's first experience of the bus sector; he designed the front tend of the new bus for DAF in 1993. The project developed for Merkavim was total although completed in only eighteen months departing form the from the initial hand-drawing stage, moving on to the transportation into 3D with a 1:10 model and then execution of the full size model which was utilized as 'master' for production of the moulds. The same procedure was adopted for the dashboard and interior paneling, for which a 1:1 clay reference model was made… "My main objective was to create a strong image, capable of clearly identifying the bus from every viewpoint." Says Padwa. "I tried as much as possible to avoid the all-square look so typical of this vehicle typology, so I worked hard at finding new solutions for the movement from the frontal area to the sides and from the sides to the rear."… |
