Does the Hyundai Obsidian Represent Both the Past and Future?

• Hyundai Obsidian concept is a design study created by transportation design student Dominik Anders from Hochschule München.
• The Obsidian imagines a four-door electric car with an aerodynamic exterior influenced by design trends of the 1970s and 1980s.
• This design trend appears to be picking up momentum, with the Honda 0 Saloon concept that's roughly similar already headed into production.

Science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s often pictured cars of the mid-21st century as low-poly wedges with boxy outlines and corners sharp enough to give you a paper cut through your TV screen.

That vision of the future is slowly coming true thanks to a number of recent designs, not the least noticeable of which is the polarizing Tesla Cybertruck, though the much better-received Lamborghini Gallardo also comes to mind.

The latest entry in this retro-futurist genre is the Hyundai Obsidian concept.

Created by transportation design student Dominik Anders from Hochschule München, or the Munich University of Applied Sciences in Germany, in collaboration with Hyundai, the Obsidian is a design study imagining an electric four-door that is undeniably retro, but also feels particularly prescient.

"The Obsidian blends pure driving passion with a new standard of luxury and style. The design is guided by the principles of minimalism and a dynamic monolith, featuring clean lines, reduced complexity, and bold proportions. Innovative highlights include active aerodynamic elements and distinctive pixel lighting," the design team says.

If it feels like you've seen this concept before somewhere, you're certainly thinking of the Honda 0 Saloon concept, revealed earlier this year at CES along with an SUV twin.

The Obsidian reflects well the current moment in synthwave or stealthwave car concepts, echoing the days of Citroen Karin and other, more practical applications of low-slung wedge designs, including the Aston Martin Bulldog.

The 1974 Hyundai Pony concept, styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro, can also be counted as an influence of this aesthetic, while Gandini's Volvo Tundra concept spawned the production Citroen BX, though these were perhaps not as radical as some of the others.

As whimsical as these recent reinterpretations look at the moment, the Honda 0 Saloon concept is actually headed into production next year, believe it or not, so there is very real aerodynamic research behind this shape, as the 1980s tried to tell us.

The aerodynamic shape and boxy proportions should buy the concept quite a bit of room inside.

The Obsidian concept takes the basic wedge shape and adds a ground effects kit, including a front apron, while keeping the boxy and roomy fuselage intact, thereby buying the occupants plenty of room inside.

There is practicality in this design even though it looks like something from StarFox on SuperNES, from the aerodynamically efficient nose to the vast interior space.

Our favorite detail is actually out back, with pixel dot taillights incorporated into the C-pillars.

But overall, the Obsidian distills the futurism of one particular era, a future that didn't quite arrive until now.

"Positioned as a five-door sports car with an emphasis on spaciousness, the Obsidian represents a new generation of performance vehicles—emotional, modern, and confident," the design team adds.

And it feels like a 1975 idea of the cars from the year 2025.

The fact that more than three or four automakers, not counting Hyundai, are now thinking about designs like this, should be a sign of things to come as auto design moves into a new phase of revisiting themes and shapes from decades past.

Vertical pixel dot tail lights add an extra touch of retro 1980s futurism.

If you think the market for unapologetically cyberpunk designs could be thin once cars styled like this hit dealerships, we'd be talking about kids of the 1980s, who are now approaching the age of 50, being the main money-spending audience of these brands.

So at the very least, it's not easy to picture an automaker being on the wrong side of a trend by pandering to nostalgia of one of their main demographics.

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The Hyundai Ioniq 5 hatch was one of the first modern-day previews of this design direction, though not as uncompromising, and overnight it has managed to make other cars look a bit dated.

Whether the Obsidian concept is bound to translate into a production car in the near future remains to be seen, but it's clear that the Honda 0 Saloon is a bit ahead of it in the pipeline when it comes to this general shape.

Will this design trend make its way into more production vehicles before 2030, or is this too whimsical of a design direction with a narrow audience? Let us know what you think in the comments below.