The demand of the CSI design competition was to create a car realisable on the Lotus Elise chassis, and nothing else. Nonetheless, Stefan Schulze didn't feel impelled of making a futuristic vehicle in this case and focused upon attaching interesting details to a body which looks like one of these days' production roadsters. Most striking element are the black surfaces which are conspicuously contrasting with the white body paint. The wedge-shaped stripe connecting an air outlet behind the front wheels and the door handle at its opposite end, constitutes a theme that is echoed by the car's headlights. These ones, exactly their shape's similarity to a hornet, has given the vehicle the insect's name. The front's appearance is aggressive but not threatening, especially because of the bent-downward-air inlet that gives it an almost smiling facial expression at the same time. The lamp's form was inspired by a motorbike: the Honda Fireblade - whereas the inspiration to the vehicles rear end was an automotive example: the Stingray-Corvette. Remarkably another sting, in addition to that of the hornet, which has an influence on the concept car's look - although this context isn't a visible one, admittedly! But, the hardtop has similarities to the American sports car legend. The origin of the site blinkers is doubtlessly more obvious. This copy of Chris Bangle's BMW-logo-covered Z4 side blinkers adds a tiny orange spot to the black side stripe, as well as the indicator section of the headlamps to the front, and relieves the Hornet of being a dreary black-white appearance that way. All in all this roadster points out that a well-done design doesn't necessarily have to be a matter of creating an unusual shape but sometimes simply one of combining fresh details and new partitions on conventional forms. Related link: www.csi-online.de [ only in German ] < menu Click on the image to see how the Hornet looks with a hardtop