After looking at this thread (Future images from Autobild [BMW, Mercedes]) it suddenly hit me that an inventory of bad Photoshops is long overdue.

For the past several years we've made lots of assumptions about future vehicles based on what hits the covers of German periodicals; Auto Bild in particular. Aside from being the Germany's premiere automotive weekly the magazine is regularly graced with illustrations by the now famous or infamous Huckfeldt.

Not only are Huck's renderings good, and often convincing, but sometimes he hits the design on the nose with what appears to be insider information.

On the other hand his feats of clairvoyance have put him in such good graces we forget that he's usually wrong. That's what this thread is about.

I want us to dig into our memory banks of the past 5 or so years and scrounge up Photoshops where Huck was just wrong.

I don't mean to pillory or defame Huck; he's arguably the best in the business. I just want this to be a reality check. We've strung ourselves along and have created hundreds, if not thousands of pages, debating the merits of an upcoming BMW or Mercedes thinking full well that a Huck impression is more than a dart thrown at the wall. Ovbiously he has his sources, but sometimes he's way off the mark and we fool ourselves into thinking otherwise.

I'll kick it off with these two bad impressions of the E65 that Huck did back in 2000:






There's been some obvious gaffes from magazines like Auto Motor und Sport over the years, but they're usually taken with a grain of salt. I want us to focus on Huckfeldt Photoshops.

In recent memory - He was wrong about the E70 X5 and was constantly wrong with the E60 5er. There's a slew of others, but none come to mind right now.

He was wrong MANY times. But still he has the best record amongst other artists.

He is usually wrong with the initial impression, unless he gets some inside info.

But when the first spy pics come out his impression gets more accurate. And become very accurate when tha cars are in the FEP phase - comoed with tape only.

I guess he gets very prcise spy pics which are never published - but are used as a base for his CGIs. Also sometimes AutoBild gets some info from people included in focus grups - where final design is shown. And sometimes manufacturers leak the info intentionally (very rare).

So, lately Huckfeldt has been perhaps a bit more spot-on on MB models, while on BMW models he was not so successful.

I remember his initiall CGIs of E90 3er, E92/3 3er coupe & cabrio, E60 5er, E85 Z4, E70 X5 were way off. But he nailed E87 1er! Also his latest CGIs of new models are way off (Z8, Z2, LC5, X6, V5, V3, 3er SB???, 7er etc).

But the CGIs of facelifted X3, facelifted 1er, and upcoming facelifted 5er & 6er are very accurate - since they are based on spy pics from FEP pahse (comoed with tape only).

Stumbled across a thread on 'autoweek.nl' forums (here - ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER) they are talking in a language I do not speak but there is a massive amount of Huckfeldt impressions. And while some, like those below, are way off, there is a scary amount of truly accurate impressions; it seems, obviously, the impressions closer to the release date get more and more like the real things; the ones in the beginning are a little more than fantasy. Anyhow for the purposes of this thread (the idea of which I've always been interested in, so thankyou Osna).....


Audi A6


E90 Sedan




E70 X5


S Class




GL





Golf MkV




VW Eos

Osna: karma for you! Sweet thread. It proves Huckfeldt inability to do something correct. Most of his impressions are utter garbage. I could have done better myself I think!

Germaniac; they're speaking Dutch, so if there's anything you want translated, ask me and I'll do it for you!

From all those pics, only the Golf V was done kind of correctly. But then again, maybe he made those impressions when it was easy to make them (meaning just before the car launched, when there was little camo left)




vs.

Some of those GCIs are just plain nasty!

Nice post Osna!

Huckfeldt tend to be pretty dead on with his chop made one year pre-launch of the car in question.

I always felt this S-Class photoshop was kind of attractive although it had some Lancia elements in it.

Same here cawimmer, I was really looking for the new S to have some radicle changes. I felt this impression wasn`t on target for some reason as it felt like a modified E, and the S (except for the W140) almost never follows the E-Class in design.

Btw Osna, great thread!

If anybody can scrounge up some E60 impressions, there was a slew of them. I remember being totally convinced by the 1st one which was published early 2002.

I remember Huckfeldt's E60 CGI in dark blue color - and it was based on these sketches:





Very close.


AutoZeitung also featured a nice CGI in silver color (way off, but nice), while AMS presented something awful in maroon color: way off & ugly as hell. I hope we could find those issues & scan the pics.