When Tesla first unveiled the Cybertruck back in 2019 almost everyone had the same odd burst of visual recognition: it looks like a low-polygon 3D vehicle from some late-1990s video game. This sort of look for a vehicle actually has a precedent, most famously in a car called the Lo-Res Car, designed and built in 2016 by who you think is architect Rem D. Koolhaus but is actually his nephew, who runs the fashion and shoe brand United Nude.
When the Lo-Res car came out, I remember it sparking a lot of interest because of how striking and minimal its design was; it was never intended to be an actual car-car, though it is capable of being driven, with a 5 kW/6.7 horsepower electric motor from golf cart motor supplier KDS, capable of getting this mass of polygons up to about 31 mph.
The fundamental design of the Lo-Res Car, which United Nude calls a “conceptual design experiment,” came from taking a 3D model of a Lamborghini Countach and progressively reducing the polygon count until it was only made up of 12 basic polygons, which were then brought into the physical world as the 12 polycarbonate panels that make up the Lo-Res Car’s body.
United Nude has a nice animation of the polygon-simplification process:
…and you can see how the final car is like the most simplified, low-poly form:
The panels are actually semi-transparent, which you can see especially well in this music video that features the car in a song, I presume, about someone delighted with their purchase of a new freezer:
This is all just to give you some background so you can appreciate why the seemingly-unremarkable sight of a truck towing an exotic car got so much attention. It’s because this is the car, and this is the truck:
https://t.co/6NKEsUj0Ds pic.twitter.com/YGajSEtpqF
— syd @ car week (@deerfella) August 18, 2024
We actually saw this as we were driving up to Pebble Beach but were unable to get a photo; luckily and unsurprisingly, many other people did manage to get some pics.
???? The Cybertruck towing the Low Res car looks like a big bro riding with his lil’ bro. pic.twitter.com/wvQd6ZtID3
— Tesla Newswire (@TeslaNewswire) August 18, 2024
It’s pretty easy to understand why this Lo-Res Car’s owners (four of them were built) chose a Cybertruck to do the towing – really, it, like most electric trucks, isn’t an ideal towing vehicle as range gets slashed so dramatically – but you just can’t argue with how the whole thing just looks.
People have been comparing the Cybertruck and Lo-Res Car ever since the Cybertruck came out in 2019, so it’s strangely satisfying to finally see them together like this.
It has the feeling of a parent beast and a child, or being in some low-polygon video game or something like that. It’s one of those sights that, when seen, takes your brain a moment to process because it feels like a glitch, something that shouldn’t just be out there existing in the real world.
And yet, there it is!
It’s strange; fundamentally, this is just a truck towing a car. But it’s more because it’s a truck and a car with such distinct and related visual styles that the meeting of the two feels significant. It’s like if you were to see Nick Nolte and Gary Busey hug one another; it’s not like the event itself is so shocking, but the two entities involved have so many related visual and conceptual traits that somehow that mundane thing becomes an event.
And this was an event. A low-poly towing event. And in some strange way, perhaps the world is a better place for it happening.
We have some great footage of the Low-Poly car below, plus lots of other Wedge cars from Monterey Car Week!
It bugs me that the polygon truck is hauling the polygon car on a regular old utility trailer. I understand why, it’s just a regular tow-job, not a carefully matched show rig, but it still looks bad. They need a minimalist polygon trailer.
I had no idea there were multiple low res cars
This is like the cars that make a trailer out of a second identical car
Didn’t Doug with peyronie fingers and thumbs drive Lo Res Car in one of his countless videos?
Slightly off topic, but did I have a vision of the future or did this article get posted and de-posted temporarily yesterday?
Everyone complains it looks like “low-poly PS1 models” but honestly it looks like a PS1 LOD model. /pedantic “achksually” voice
I just want to say thank you to JT for this design-historical post and to so many commenters for their astute additions to the story. Gives me so much enjoyment.
ummm…is that car on trailer behind CT “form following function”?
Oh boy, two CT articles in one day! These comments gonna be good!
I still think Joey Ruiter should get at least a little credit for Lo-res seeing how he actually engineered and built the car and shaped Rem’s vision. JR has (had at various times) THREE more cars at the Petersen, all in the same minimalist vibe that defines his work. He’s like a Franz Von Holzsausen except he can weld, rebuild an engine and fold metal.
*Not affiliated with JR, his estate or extended cousins*
The Petersen Museum has a Lo-Res Car and, apparently, it is what inspired the design of the Cybertruck. Elon sent his design team to the museum a few years ago to get inspiration for future Tesla cars and the one thing that inspired them the most was the Lo-Res.
So, you might say the Lo-Res Car has now come full circle
it reminds me of one of my favorite memes from a long time ago:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/5b/2c/42/5b2c42b539144104fd52d8c3118d084f.jpg
I think DeMuro missed the main quirk of the Lo-res car: that the seed form was a countach, at least an abstracted one.
The main reason I stopped watching Doug. He’ll completely gloss over the most interesting part or fact while going apeshit over a typo in the owners manual for 8 minutes.
There could be a big red button on the dash labeled “BOINGUS!” and he won’t even mention it because he’s ranting about the sound the blinker makes.
He mentioned in the video that it’s based on the Countach design.
D’oh, welp shame on me for forgetting that detail from the video I watched a year ago 😉
Geez, always with the math. When some says polygon to me, I think someone’s let my parrot out.
XYZ
Cartesian coordinates of three-dimensional space sure, but can also mean examine your zipper.
Isn’t that only when followed by PDQ?
“Find X? But it’s right there, it’s already been found!!”
How many times does mom have to tell you? Two wrongs do not make a right!
Not even a right angle.
But three left turns make a right, was the smartass answer.
But sometimes they make an isosceles.
Loved Doug Demuro’s review of the Lo-Res, 1 massive quirk that is it’s main feature.
Tangent, someone should wrap a Cybertruck in Musou black to give that real video game polygon vibe, if it hasn’t been done already.
That GIF brought back strange memories of that cartoon about the kid who could change into a car.
Turbo Teen!
https://youtu.be/j18e_ID-DpA?si=56RDmM6LRna0jPRW
“The fundamental design … came from taking a 3D model of a Lamborghini Countach…”
Seems to me that you could come up with very similar outcomes from a 1988 Ford Probe, a 4th Gen Honda Prelude, a Formula 1 car, a Chevy Cobalt with a rear wing…
I would like to watch Gary Busey and Nick Nolte hug. Now I want that.
Have they ever been seen in the same room together? Are they really two people?
I fear that they are matter and antimatter. If the two of them ever appear in a movie together, the world as we know it would cease to exist.
Similar to what would happen if the Bears played the Bulls (according to Bill Swerski’s Superfans)
Circa 1991, maybe. Da’ Bears vs Da’ Bulls.
Today it would simply form a giant ball of suck that implodes the greater Chicago area into a vantablack void of darkness, devoid of hope and happiness.
In other words, few people would notice the difference.