EDGES OF REASON

As far as shapes go, few cut deeper than these sharp machines

-  Kartik Ware

Pattern recognition is one of our species' strong suits. It's what allows us to connect memories with what's in front of us and predict what comes next. Patterns make us good at science, and they make us believe in magic as well. As with anything human, with patterns there is scope for both expanding our minds as well as developing needle-point myopia. This apparent dissonance may well be evolution's way of giving us a choice, so that we may either survive or pull up a beach chair next to the dodo wherever it went. Nonetheless, this time around, when faced with the Car us Bike special, two patterns popped up immediately in my mind the Suzuki Katana and the Hyundai Ioniq 5. As far as patterns go, there are few as retinaimprinting as these.

The fact that the motorcycle is an inline-four and the car is the latest EV in town wasn't really a consideration, though it added a welcome layer of contrast to proceedings. The only similarity between them is that both anchor their appearances to lines drawn in Europe back in day; the Katana is a born-again rendition of the original from 1981 by German outfit Target Design led by Hans Muth; the Ioniq 5 is a hyper-modern interpretation of Hyundai's first car, the 1975 Pony, which was shaped by Giorgetto Giugiaro's Italdesign.

Looking at history to shape the present is a dependable sequence and has been for some time now. After all, is there a pattern greater than nostalgia?