New Mercedes Benz Concept Car - influence of Sci-fi on Cars and Door handles

This post is a departure from my usual topics and a departure from my firmly held belief that all car designs are boring. Many of my friends wax lyrical about their favorite cars cooing over their neat fast back or spoiler but looked at through the eyes of an alien they would be indistinguishable as they all share a basic box on wheels format.

By comparison, the same alien would have little problem distinguishing one species of scarab from another each type and sub-type having marked variations in both shape, size and patterning. The same alien would hopefully also be able to distinguish between the different styles of door handle we make, and I am guessing would find something familiar in our Morphic collection of illuminated handles.

So, given my disdain for existing car models one can understand why my car loving girlfriend was astounded by my praise for the wonderful original style of the new Mercedes concept car. Inspired and designed by the folks who made the movie avatar, the sci-fi influence on this car come creature is obvious and explains why this car is both spectacular and unique. Alas, I am not able to include a photo of this work of art as to do would probably be a violation of copyright laws but I am able to share with you a link to a video of the car.

While we do not at present have an illuminated scarab sculpture we have had fun imagining how this could be created. Our existing existing scarab sculpture is very real weighing 10lbs and measuring 20"W x 15"D x 6"H

Morphic Door Handles - The etymology of Morphic

We are often asked about the etymology of certain words that have been used to name our different door hardware collections and this is especially true of our “Morphic” series. Some of our hardware collections were named early on in their development with names borrowed from a complimentary furniture collection. Such is the history of “Hedgerow” used to describe our furniture as well as our hardware collections with both being named for the man-made hedges of western England.

By contrast the Morphic collection derived its name through an amalgam of different words that included “Morpheus” “Morphing” and “Anthropomorphic”. By synthesizing these words, we stumbled upon “Morphic” a word that is short and easy to pronounce though perhaps not as well suited to describe this collection as the definitions below make clear;

Anthropomorphic – attributing human characteristics to non-humans, a habit we plead guilty to when talking about our beloved Pitbull Iris

Morpheus – God of dreams or sleep would have been a very fitting name as the collection certainly has an unearthly dream like quality and the name would appeal to fans of the Matrix franchise (see accreditation)

Morphing – this term comes from the animation industry and describes how one image can be changed by small steps to smoothly create another image and while this would have been a good choice, we needed a noun and not a verb to name our collection (accreditation below).

Morphic – meaning a specific shape or form

The Morphic collection is an ongoing series whose shapes and form we are constantly stretching and changing so that it’s fretted cells can be made to work for larger door handles and for different hardware and lighting applications. It is also a style that takes on a different character when it is cast in bronze and finished with a charred patina. The charred appearance is created by applying the chemical patina M20 made by Birchwood Technologies over a satin brushed bronze surface and by burnishing the surrounding surface to create depth.

Accreditation;

Definition of morphing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphing

Morpheus fictional character in The Matrix franchise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheus_(The_Matrix)

Chemical Patina M20 by Birchwood Technologies distributed by Sculpt Nouveau

https://sculptnouveau.com/collections/birchwood-patinas