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Just kind of an interesting thought I've had. Automotive styling hasn't changed much IMO since the late 1990's Granted everything has gone to crossover form, but hell we had those in the late 90's as well, Rav4, CR-V. Just looking back, its amazing how much the automotive shape changed between the 80's and the 90's. I mean look at these two cars I owned, I can't think of more opposite shapes/styling themes. Still I loved them both, I like driving the Lexus a bit more, but the Cadillac had character all its own. Both cars have been faultlessly reliable in the time I owned them, the Cadillac even more so lol.
1991 Cadillac Brougham D'Elegance, total 80's holdover.
1992 Lexus SC300/5 Speed, the latest, greatest thing Toyota has to offer in the early 90's
Just saying, styling hasn't changed that much in the last 10, 15 years. Not like that total abandonment of the box in passenger cars like we saw in the 90's. Its like overnight everything became curvy, you couldn't find a straight edge on a car in the 90's, at least compared to their 80's cars. Things started to get a bit less curvy and more straight edged(though not nearly as boxy as the late 70's/80's) in the 2000's, but this is when the bland era set in IMO, cars all started to have the same shape, same formula, same dimensions,.
Styling is dictated a lot by regulations of the time the cars are manufactured in past the 1950's.
Styling today only does something interesting when a manufacturer embraces an evolutionary, retro or risky approach... depending on what the category of car is supposed to be.
However a lot the underwhelming autonomous EV show car designs that increasingly look like bubbles are straight out of Syd Mead futurist art and 80's-90's dystopian sci-fi movies.
I don't see car design today so much as total forward evolution of design (although there is evolution in every modern application of classic design such as the Porsche 911, Dodge Challenger, Ford Mustang, etc.) so much as an application of beautiful or interesting designs within the framework of regulatory requirements.
That is, unless, a company for some reason can't accept the fact that some designs and shapes are timelessly beautiful and don't have to be reinvented much.
I feel this way because I see cars as emotional machines and extensions of ourselves.
Now I don't mind some bland-ish designs but the more bland the vehicle's function and driving experience is intended to be the more I'd respect those cars if they weren't designed to desperately cling to a mix of blandness and trying-too-hard sportiness.
Cadillac and Lincoln both showed some beautiful concept cars that evoked the best styling qualities of some of their past models. Fever-dream re-imagined aspirational American luxury cars with many modern touches. Perplexingly they never built them. Instead we got the Cadillac CT6 and 2018 Lincoln Continental. Both look exceedingly boring and not at all worth their price tags. Yawn.
However I do like what Lexus did with the LC500. That's a modern design take on a classic type of vehicle that works very well.
I also like, for completely different reasons, how the recently discontinued Ford Focus RS was styled. It's not "beautiful". It's "cool". That's a different kind of appealing vehicle design that traces its roots back to cars like the factory rally hotrod style of the 1983 Renault 5 Turbo, Lancia Delta Integrale Evo, Mitsubishi Lance Evo series and the earlier Subaru WRX STi's. AND the Ford Escort Cosworths. But making a compact car into a factory turbo rally hotrod is a much easier formula to get right than it is to get an entire singular vehicle design right and make it, in a word, timeless and beautiful.
Here's a curveball for the discussion:
I find most Japanese kei cars with their quintessentially boxy and conservative designs and Japanese utilitarian vehicles like the Toyota HIACE to be exceptionally more good looking and honest about their purpose than any Kia Rondo compact car or any incredibly ugly Toyota Sienna or Nissan Quest minivan. Or the utilitarian timelessness of the Land Cruiser FJ70 series, Mercedes G-Wagen W460's and W461's and Land Rover Defenders compared to pretty much any other big SUV that has curves that look out of place. Or the unobtanium modern Suzuki Jimny (aka Samurai) compared to nearly all small "CUV" vehicles and "crossovers".
It could be argued that the extremely conservative and boxy styling of many of the Japanese market vehicles I mentioned are artificially halted or stunted in the scheme of automotive styling evolution.
I say it doesn't matter. They fit the regulations they need to meet and, at least to me, they actually look good considering what they are designed to be used for. Comparatively any minivan currently sold in the USA looks like it was dated twenty-five years before it arrived off the shipping truck to the dealer.
In the same way, I'm fine with a Porsche 911, Mustang, Camaro, Challenger, Supra, TVR, Aston Martin DB or Vantage, Bentley/Rolls, Cadillac sedan or convertible coupe, etc. taking the approach of extremely conservative evolution with their classic designs. The identity of what those vehicles are and what their personalities are have been so very well understood I rather prefer they keep a good deal of their iconic looks through new model runs.
Even then, there are still so many opportunities to try to design something iconic or blend cool ideas from before. IF a company actually tries to do something fresh.
One thing I do think should go away is this stupid trend of making all the grilles/faces in a vehicle lineup look exactly the same. That is dumb because it doesn't suit every single design if they are all sufficiently different enough to have their own individual vehicle personalities. Look at how different the 90's Toyota and Lexus lineups looked compared to what we see today: very little variation in the faces now but plenty of room for individual personality back then. And people STILL knew they were looking at a Toyota or Lexus. Or if they didn't, they probably wanted to know what it was that they just saw... because it often looked very good and unique unto itself while still wearing a brand badge. All brands do this today and they shouldn't. It stifles the individuality of each car in a lineup. There are few exceptions to this rule and they are usually the extremely well known sports cars and muscle cars listed above.
Moreover that grille trend treats the buying public like idiots... as if we couldn't possibly be left to appreciate a car's individual design and still understand what company made it from the badging unless every... single... face/grille... looks nearly the same.
Yes, I am aware of how manufacturers designing their cars with common grill designs goes back to nearly the start of the mass produced automobile from early Fords onward but I am specifically speaking about this excessive trend I have noticed since at least 2005 onward.
Styling is dictated a lot by regulations of the time the cars are manufactured in past the 1950's.
Styling today only does something interesting when a manufacturer embraces an evolutionary, retro or risky approach... depending on what the category of car is supposed to be.
However a lot the underwhelming autonomous EV show car designs that increasingly look like bubbles are straight out of Syd Mead futurist art and 80's-90's dystopian sci-fi movies.
I don't see car design today so much as total forward evolution of design (although there is evolution in every modern application of classic design such as the Porsche 911, Dodge Challenger, Ford Mustang, etc.) so much as an application of beautiful or interesting designs within the framework of regulatory requirements.
That is, unless, a company for some reason can't accept the fact that some designs and shapes are timelessly beautiful and don't have to be reinvented much.
I feel this way because I see cars as emotional machines and extensions of ourselves.
Now I don't mind some bland-ish designs but the more bland the vehicle's function and driving experience is intended to be the more I'd respect those cars if they weren't designed to desperately cling to a mix of blandness and trying-too-hard sportiness.
Cadillac and Lincoln both showed some beautiful concept cars that evoked the best styling qualities of some of their past models. Fever-dream re-imagined aspirational American luxury cars with many modern touches. Perplexingly they never built them. Instead we got the Cadillac CT6 and 2018 Lincoln Continental. Both look exceedingly boring and not at all worth their price tags. Yawn.
However I do like what Lexus did with the LC500. That's a modern design take on a classic type of vehicle that works very well.
I also like, for completely different reasons, how the recently discontinued Ford Focus RS was styled. It's not "beautiful". It's "cool". That's a different kind of appealing vehicle design that traces its roots back to cars like the factory rally hotrod style of the 1983 Renault 5 Turbo, Lancia Delta Integrale Evo, Mitsubishi Lance Evo series and the earlier Subaru WRX STi's. AND the Ford Escort Cosworths. But making a compact car into a factory turbo rally hotrod is a much easier formula to get right than it is to get an entire singular vehicle design right and make it, in a word, timeless and beautiful.
Here's a curveball for the discussion:
I find most Japanese kei cars with their quintessentially boxy and conservative designs and Japanese utilitarian vehicles like the Toyota HIACE to be exceptionally more good looking and honest about their purpose than any Kia Rondo compact car or any incredibly ugly Toyota Sienna or Nissan Quest minivan. Or the utilitarian timelessness of the Land Cruiser FJ70 series, Mercedes G-Wagen W460's and W461's and Land Rover Defenders compared to pretty much any other big SUV that has curves that look out of place. Or the unobtanium modern Suzuki Jimny (aka Samurai) compared to nearly all small "CUV" vehicles and "crossovers".
It could be argued that the extremely conservative and boxy styling of many of the Japanese market vehicles I mentioned are artificially halted or stunted in the scheme of automotive styling evolution.
I say it doesn't matter. They fit the regulations they need to meet and, at least to me, they actually look good considering what they are designed to be used for. Comparatively any minivan currently sold in the USA looks like it was dated twenty-five years before it arrived off the shipping truck to the dealer.
In the same way, I'm fine with a Porsche 911, Mustang, Camaro, Challenger, Supra, TVR, Aston Martin DB or Vantage, Bentley/Rolls, Cadillac sedan or convertible coupe, etc. taking the approach of extremely conservative evolution with their classic designs. The identity of what those vehicles are and what their personalities are have been so very well understood I rather prefer they keep a good deal of their iconic looks through new model runs.
Even then, there are still so many opportunities to try to design something iconic or blend cool ideas from before. IF a company actually tries to do something fresh.
One thing I do think should go away is this stupid trend of making all the grilles/faces in a vehicle lineup look exactly the same. That is dumb because it doesn't suit every single design if they are all sufficiently different enough to have their own individual vehicle personalities. Look at how different the 90's Toyota and Lexus lineups looked compared to what we see today: very little variation in the faces now but plenty of room for individual personality back then. And people STILL knew they were looking at a Toyota or Lexus. Or if they didn't, they probably wanted to know what it was that they just saw... because it often looked very good and unique unto itself while still wearing a brand badge. All brands do this today and they shouldn't. It stifles the individuality of each car in a lineup. There are few exceptions to this rule and they are usually the extremely well known sports cars and muscle cars listed above.
Moreover that grille trend treats the buying public like idiots... as if we couldn't possibly be left to appreciate a car's individual design and still understand what company made it from the badging unless every... single... face/grille... looks nearly the same.
Yes, I am aware of how manufacturers designing their cars with common grill designs goes back to nearly the start of the mass produced automobile from early Fords onward but I am specifically speaking about this excessive trend I have noticed since at least 2005 onward.
I agree with what you say, but do you think we could make anything like our Lexus SC/Toyota Soarer today??? Pedestrian impact regulations would outlaw that below the shin height hood we have. Rollover regulations would mandate much thicker A-B-C pillars to support the roof.
That is one of the reasons I simply love my 1992 SC300. Just great visibility from every direction. Yet the styling is simply timeless IMO.
I guess there is some truth to everything looking the same, but it's interesting. Nobody here remembers the slogan everything comes full circle, but I do.
Look at the Audi A4, and the new Porsche Panamera, and the tails. If that is cool (and I think they are), then 2012's are square. If the trend continues, tail lights will be 1/4" wide and nothing more. Is that progress? Dunno but I think everyone here already knows Audi is way ahead with tails, meaning they don't simply tell the person behind I'm stopping, I'm turning, I'm backing up....
As far as shapes go, a 2001-06 LS430 has a .26 cd, and .25 with the air suspension. Has this gone lower? I think not. I believe and I could be wrong, a new GS is .33? That coupe is over .3? Yes, I get it, one also should factor in the frontal area, but that cd is not arbitrary, it took engineering to achieve such a low number. It's not really something that sells cars, so I don't think there's much priority on it these days. So in some regards, yes, progress is no longer measured by design, it's measured by features (LCD screens, apps, entertainment and info systems, etc.) my .02
thank govt pedestrian regulations for killing innovation by defining rules in which there is a narrower set of acceptable designs. Thats why all recent cars have the chunky and blunt nosed look
For interior space efficiency, passenger room (especially headroom), trunk-lid size, and outward visibility, the shoe-box designs of the 1980s were far superior to the Jelly-bean look which replaced it. However, the Jelly-bean Aero-look did not come about for nothing. The public also wanted less air-resistance, better MPG, less wind-noise, and better pedestrian safety,...and, to an extent, they got it with the smoother designs.
What HAS gotten out of hand, though, is the continuing insistence of some automakers on huge, oversized, in-your-face grilles, which, IMO, look more like they belong at Niagara Falls than on a car.
Not sure if my history is correct, from memory the MB CLS was the first 4 door coupe? I think in its time, it was beautiful. But today, this notion of a 4 door coupe is overplayed and non-functional. As far as space goes, just imagine a brand new Suburban comes in at 119 cu. ft. of cargo space, whereas a Chevy Traverse (original) was 115 cu. ft. Talk about seemingly wasteful use of exterior dimensions. We had a brand new Suburban for about 4 days--it was difficult to navigate. The fuel economy, was, excellent.....24-25 on the highway with AWD engaged.
For interior space efficiency, passenger room (especially headroom), trunk-lid size, and outward visibility, the shoe-box designs of the 1980s were far superior to the Jelly-bean look which replaced it..
I think you are incorrect on this. A Cadillac Fleetwood is not more space efficient than an Lexus LS of the same year and era. Even a Chrysler LH in the late 1990s would have more interior room than a Fleetwood.
I think you are incorrect on this. A Cadillac Fleetwood is not more space efficient than an Lexus LS of the same year and era. Even a Chrysler LH in the late 1990s would have more interior room than a Fleetwood.
To an extent, apples and oranges. You are comparing FWD vs. RWD, and, yes, all else equal, FWD will usually have more space efficiency. But I was comparing (per the thread-topic) the typical shoe-box sedan styling we saw in the early 1980s with equivalent later Jelly-bean/Aero-designs, and, on an otherwise-even keel, the shoe boxes will be roomier inside and have better outward visibility....particularly to the rear.
Not sure if my history is correct, from memory the MB CLS was the first 4 door coupe?
Either that or the VW CC...they both debuted about the same time, with a similar look.
I think in its time, it was beautiful.
Yes, many in the auto press and general public were seduced by its looks...I wasn't and still am not. That design, IMO, s**ked back then, and still s**ks today.....basically, you had a very high belt-line, a roofline that liked like it went halfway through a crusher, and peephole-style windows that were like trying to look out of a military bunker. Even my present car (which I am generally quite pleased with) has a windshield line and rear roof-line that, IMO, are clearly more raked-back than necessary, though the windows are adequate for most visibility-needs except backing straight back, where the back-up camera takes over.
But today, this notion of a 4 door coupe is overplayed and non-functional.
+1
You hit the nail on the head.....IMO, style-wise, there is probably no such thing as a true sedan any more in the American market, although the new Lincoln Continental, with its generally conservative lines, comes close.
The marketing term "four door coupe" always makes me laugh. It's just a weird looking sedan.
Aron9000, the Lexus LC500 comes within distant comparison to the SC300/400/Z30 Soarer visual design. However Lexus isn't remotely interested in making the type of car that the Z30 series represented. Except visually, hence the LC500. Even so, it's still a very different car which has a different design language. They both happen to be luxury GT coupes from two different eras, one drawing heavy inspiration from the other.
I don’t believe automotive design has stopped progressing.
I believe the auto industry will occasionally test the tastes of buyers with new designs, and the response will ultimately play into the design language of new offerings. Some of those designs are shunned while others are successful.
A lot of this topic is purely subjective, and it pops up ever few months. It's important to point out, as we auto enthusiasts age, we are less likely to gell with new designs. In our heydays, when making driving memories for the first time, that era is held more dear to us. Once we peak from that timeframe, we tend to look at newer auto designs as more foreign or odd. This psychology of liking/disliking cars is one that I've studied for over thirty years.
I don't think we are in a slump for styling, but today's trends are a bit hard to get used to. Most new sedans are morphing into frumpy hatchbacks, which at least to me, are reminders of the cheap econo cars of the late 70's through 80's. And as Mike mentioned, the odd obsession with jumbo center grilles is a bit overdone. But I think we are finally seeing that trend mellow out a bit. Audi, which lead the way, is toning theirs down. I expect others to follow.
Lastly, many decent brands continue to design cars with huge front overhangs (Subaru, Ford, Audi, Acura). These look out of proportion to me. I've always liked BMW's "wheel" forward look, although some of their very latest looked too pug-nosed.
So all in all, we are in an era of crossovers along with a huge European styling influence. I just hope to be around long enough to see the return of trunks on sedans. My IS250 aint going to last forever.
For interior space efficiency, passenger room (especially headroom), trunk-lid size, and outward visibility, the shoe-box designs of the 1980s were far superior to the Jelly-bean look which replaced it. However, the Jelly-bean Aero-look did not come about for nothing.
09-26-17, 12:54 AM
Has automotive styling stopped progressing. . . .
