Honda Bulldog
by Sam Livingstone

So named because it looks like a 'metal bulldog' this car boldly illustrated a potential new type of niche small car and thus conforms to Honda’s 'The Power of Dream' global brand slogan. Dimensionally similar to a standard small European car such as the Polo or Fiesta, Bulldog is a 2+2 chunky coupe with its production sister Insight’s hybrid powertrain.

Its most innovative feature are the two electric commuter motorbikes which recharge when in the car and double as rear seats. This feature enables the typical commuter journey to be done more efficiently by driving the car to a typically urban destination and then continuing the journey on the motorbikes, and goes some way to justify why Honda refers to the Bulldog as a search engine SUV.

But this concept car is exciting also because of a number of unusual exterior aesthetic design elements. Bulldog‘s tapering body in plan is supported by a rising wedge of lower body side that counters the apparent depth of the car’s side that the crisp, but exceptionally shallow, DLO creates. This wedge intersects with a robust rear wing that wraps around the wheel and then flows around the rear to hold up the low opening boot.

At the front of the vehicle the sheer surfaced wing pushes round to meet the central bluff nose in a similar way to the S2000 and then creases before becoming an upper surface on which the headlamps are sit. Rear lamps similarly float on the rear wing surfaces and leave the upright shut lines of the boot hatch to dictate the rear graphics.

Blue plastic inlays in the alloy wheels, side mirrors and front lamps lend the otherwise serious identity of the car some relief and are echoed by the subtle blue tint to the windows. But what most simply distinguishes this design are the soft but strong horizontal bends in surface across the bonnet and at the rear of the roof. These unusual forms fit comfortably with the car despite being far from typically automotive, and are intrinsic to the car genuinely seeming to be a metal bulldog.

As an urban compact tough coupe concept the Bulldog is a solution to a latent market want of the young minded city dweller. With is hybrid powertrain and integral commuter bikes it is a practical and ecologically sympathetic form of transport that delivers beyond all other existing types. But even as a mere concept car the Bulldog delivers, with a rare aesthetic freshness.