Rivian’s design travels a different road

Despite being founded in 2009, Rivian did not reveal its first products, the R1S SUV and R1T pickup, until December 2017. The smaller mid-size R2 SUV and subcompact R3 hatchback are expected to begin arriving soon.

For now, both Rivian R1 models exhibit a softness form in their surface treatments that had rarely been used on trucks, a market segment that has predominantly appealed to men. But as more women are considering and purchasing them, automakers find themselves having to reinterpret how to build and market them.

It’s a design trend initiated by the 2012 Land Rover Range Rover, one that Rivian expounded upon. The redesigned 2022 Range Rover expanded this vision even further, endowing it with a sense of luxury without forsaking its image as an off-road warrior.

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Rivian heads for the slipstream

“Getting to know some of the guys at the Rover Group in design, they really know their own identity, where they come from, and where they're going. And so when I see representations of Land Rovers these days, it really seems to follow that,” said Chris Chapman, who worked at BMW Group design under Chris Bangle during BMW’s ownership of Land Rover in the 1990s. He went on to run Hyundai’s California design studio for a decade.

These days, Chapman is an Adjunct Professor of Transportation Design at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California.

“It really looks like it's been milled out of a solid piece of billet aluminum and so it's so very integrated. It's very seamless: the ins and outs, the cut lines, and so forth. It's all just one big, smooth, continuous surface. There's not a lot of traditional, rugged 3D in it.”

But there’s more to its soft, slipstream look than mere appearance.

“It wasn't this ostentatious sort of philosophy about putting a lot of muscle in the body. It was really more for the true off-roader being able to navigate tight spaces,” Chapman says, who sees a similar seamlessness to Rivian’s design.

“Being electric and, you know, not having huge intakes and holes and things like that, it takes on that slipstream type of mentality to reduce drag and increase range. I think they've done a lot of great things, and I also think that they've done a lot of great innovation.”

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What’s old is new with Rivian

There are design touches on the Rivian R1T that seem like novel innovations yet are more like modern takes on old ideas.

Consider the visual novelty of Rivian’s lozenge-like headlights. They appear to be a modern take on Woodlites, invented in 1928 by William G. Wood of San Francisco. Rivian’s lights lack the sinister look of its forebearer, instead inhibiting a friendly quality that’s more approachable and endearing yet every bit as distinctive.

That comes from their inspiration: bi-colored aluminum carabiners, originally brought into the design studio to influence the Rivian’s clamp design. Instead, they influenced the final headlight shape, which has grown to be so identifiably Rivian that it gives the automaker a distinctive face. If anyone else were to design anything even near it, everyone would accuse them of copying Rivian.

Then there’s the lockable cargo compartment nested behind the cab and in front of the bed. This design is very reminiscent of the golf club door used on roadsters in the 1920s and ’30s to access cargo at the foot of the rumble seat, but Rivian’s take is far more useful.

Regardless of where the inspiration came from, the design ideas lend the vehicles a modern, innovative freshness that enhances their fresh design.

That's not to say the Rivian and Range Rover are the same

There’s still an important difference between the Range Rover’s surface treatment and that of Rivian’s.

“Land Rover has this sort of very full kind of surface. It feels very, very solid like there's a lot of substance behind the surface,” Chapman opines. “I feel the Rivian kind of lacks a bit of that. It feels a little bit on the anemic side, a little bit hollow, and therefore somehow a little bit stiff and upright.”

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By comparison, Rivian's interior feels remarkably unimaginative and straightforward. Yet that’s just as it should be.

“You know, a good interior is like a good Supporting Actor in a movie. It can't really survive without it, and yet it's not really taking center stage all the time. A good interior is something that allows you to look to the road and out the window, and not at itself.”

Final thoughts

If there’s anything that can be said of the Rivian R1T, it’s that the truck is a fresh take on an attractive yet classic form. This is in strong contrast to the strikingly polarizing Tesla Cybertruck, which seems to have taken its inspiration from a prison urinal.

“If you're gonna do a pickup truck, you’ve got to insert a certain amount of innovation,” Chapman said. “Historically, there's been a lot more innovation taking place on pickup trucks these days.”

And seemingly at the forefront is Rivian, whose seamless appearance lends it a refinement, sophistication, and softness of surface treatment that is truly a change of direction for truck design.

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