Car designers have a long tradition of following each other, but things seems to be getting worse. Once upon a time, some designers broke ranks, but now even Citroens look much like anything else: when a designer does something new, it seems to take only a few months for the others to follow.
The result is that the roads are now full of design clichés, such as:
1. Big headlights
They looked great first time out, on the front of the mid-90s Mercedes E-class (albeit in a butch I-own-the-world sorta way). Now everybody's competing to get the biggest eyes, and it's getting silly. Please folks, can you just stop before the lights meet in the middle and stretch up to the windscreen?
2. "Projector-style" headlights
They may have a place on a sports car, though they really belong in a nightclub. On a common-or-garden hatchback, they look as daft as a big fin on the back.
3. Tiny windows
I hate to spoil the fun by being practical, but windows aren't just ornaments. There's a reason for having big ones, so please bring them back before it's not just the kids who have to stand up to see out
4. "Aluminium-effect" interior panels
A poor euphemism for silver-painted plastic: if you want the aluminum look, just use aluminium. Easily-scratched painted plastic soon looks tacky, even if you liked it in the first place.
5. Black insides
Once upon a time, cars came with a variety of interior colors. Now it's black or black or "charcoal grey", (which is black for everyone except pedants). Only teenage boys want entirely black rooms, so please please please may we have some colour in car interiors again? (no, madam would not like to consider beige)
6. Crushed metal
80s cars consisted entirely of straight lines (including the Golf Mk1, a premature 80s baby). In the 90s somebody discovered curves and the sheep followed. Now the sheep seem to be on drugs, and every other car looks like its curved body panels have been scrunched by a giant hand, and a very unhappy one at that. Design probably is a tense job, but there's no need to take it out on the sheet metal.
7. Sloping rooflines
If someone wants a coupé, they'll buy a coupé. If we want a 4-door car, it's so that people can sit in the back, including adults. (Yes, that does mean upright). There's nothing cool about putting a large man in the back seat or a large saloon car and watching his head squashed sideways against the ceiling.
8. White instrument dials
Brilliant: the one place where matt black has a real use, they ditch it. White instruments may be very smart, unless the driver wants to read the dial ... in which case they're very dumb.
9. Hidden door handles
OK, this one hasn't really caught on yet, but maybe we can warn them off. Just leave it to those niche-market Italians, and let the rest of us see a handle first time we look for it.
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10. Steering Wheels
Typical. One manufacturer puts a steering wheel on a car and like the sheep that they all are, the rest follow suit. Sickening - doesn\'t anyone have any originality???
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a lesson in sarcasm; it goes down a lot better when spelling is correct.
fallow = follow
obviously
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a further hint - be nice to moderators, because we DO have an edit button.
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Mark,
Are you saying that as *funny* remark or have I inadventently been not nice to moderators?
I was concerned at your disappearance before as well!
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FUNY ! I corekted yur spellin mistaik, oar wos it a tipo ?
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What you mean funny isn't spelt funy???
A typo incidently.
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disregard that last post. Better yet, delete it. I misunderstood but now have got it.
*sneaks away embarrassed.
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NoWheels - I agree with most of your points. It probably all comes down to having to find the next 'big' thing or concept, however surely the options are running out? I would hate to be a car designer as everything seems to have been done before.
Witness the latest Megane - a brave attempt or desperation at the 11th hour - "We've got to think of something new! I know, how about a weird back end?" - Another gripe of mine is the 'cab forward' MPV look, most obvious in the Peugeot 206 which looks like 2 different cars stuck together from the windscreen rearwards it's fine, however the front end looks as if from a larger car altogether.
I was thinking about this the other day, back in 1982 when the Sierra first appeared there was outrage and 'jelly mould' jibes from a public used to the Cortina. However it did start the trend, also one of the first mass produced cars to feature wheel trims (platic dinner plate syles on most models).
Modern cars also seem to be getting bigger with every relaunch, for example the latest Mondeo. Where this ends I don't know, there must still be a demand for small city cars that don't grow larger each year. The other day I saw an original Mini, it seemed tiny and illustrated how far things have progressed.
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No Wheels, A Mk11 Ford Cortina is on its way to you. Painted in a nice shade of Luddite Grey. ;)
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No Wheels, A Mk11 Ford Cortina is on its way to you. Painted in a nice shade of Luddite Grey. ;)
awww, not fair! The Cortina Mk11 was just a shrunken low-rent version of 1960s American big-car bland, all stuck on a donkey-cart's chassis. My Dad had one for years, and it was it quite good family transport, but its design always seemed pretty uninspired: more of an exercise in production economics than industrial design.
I was hoping for a Citroen DS or CX, or a Mini, or a 2CV, or a Renault 4 or 5 or a Fiat Multipla or a Jag XJ6 mk1 or anything else which wasn't entirely derivative.
Of recent suff, aprt from the Multipla, the Citroen Picasso is a good example of a car which manged not to look like anythuing else. Who else but Citroen could have made a pretty car where you couldn't tell the front from the back?
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Modern cars also seem to be getting bigger with every relaunch, for example the latest Mondeo. Where this ends I don't know, there must still be a demand for small city cars that don't grow larger each year.
acanthus, what I think is happening in size is a weird game of expanding each model and killing off the biggest ones while introducing new smaller ones to fill the gap. I'm sure there's a business logic in there somrewhere, tho I dunno what it is.
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The Fiesta is a classic example of size inflation.
The latest ones are as large as what used to be the Escort, I've often had to read the name badge to decide what I'm looking at, a new Fiesta or old Escort!
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Well I had to go out and peer at the 5...
Conclusion.
Big headlights... a smidgin bigger than the old one, but they were very small....
Projector-style\" headlights.... perhaps, but they are bi-xenon so I suppose they deserve to be.
Tiny windows...seem pretty normal sized to me.
4. \"Aluminium-effect\" interior panels...none at all, otioned out \'cos I hate them too.
5. Black insides.... well I concede that, but every one I\'ve ever had has been just as black, if not blacker.
6. Crushed metal....I was going to conced that but not now, its not as pretty as the old one, apart from the doubtful boot projection it\'s ok.
7. Sloping rooflines- nope.
8. White instrument dials - nope as they always were- classicly black.
9. Hidden door handles. Nope
Oh well another way to okk at it is that the 5 is reassuringly unconventional.
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Computer designs I think cover it all.?
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Great original post NW. But I happen to like current trends in car design. Cars are incorporating some real design flair and innovation and buyers have a really exciting range of choice.
A really interesting question - certainly for someone like me that hankers after one - is have Porsche made a mistake with the new 997, which arguably looks plainer and more conventional than the 996 and downright more conservative than rivals such as the delectable DB9? Will it look increasingly dated? Or will that be a good thing to some buyers?
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11 Orange side marker lights - at casual glance, look like indicators "not" on the blink (but broken) if you see what I mean. I was quite happy with the truck ones, white at front and red at rear single unit markers. Still used to this day on 24hr and night racers as you can see which way they are pointed.
12 "Hidden indicators" Since the fashion became white things that flashed orange, you don't actually know where to look for them. Must microscopically delay reactions, although quite how one would measure it is another matter. Added to this the fact that orange bulbs fade to less orange, and on one model of car, as all the front lights are in unit, it is actually quite difficult to pick out a flash at all.
And re 11, I installed repeater flashers on a trailer as it hid the rear ones on the vehicle. Good safety idea I thought, my brother thought my marker lights (yuck) were broken.
Ho hum...
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SlidingPillar, I also hate the non-orange indicators, for exactly the same reason. It seems to me to be part of the same problem as the white-background on instrument dials: form over function.
Mad Maxy, I think all Porsches are daft and look daft, so I'll leave others to judge the new one! I can see that designs like the new Mazda shapes are quite creative: a bit frenetic for my tastes, but tastes vary. I just think it's sad that so many designers are going in the same direction rather than developing their own design language.
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Its just like clothes NW, this is the decade of flaired trousers, will go and come back in 20 years.
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>>I think all Porsches are daft and look daft>>
That had me spluttering with indignation! But hey, it;s a free country still...
Without having a detailed discussion and maybe a bit of friendly argument - not possible in a forum like this - I think I do understand where you're coming from NW. And I do share sdome of your beefs, like the ally look that isn't ally. But it's only a car and you can get great effects at low cost. It's rather fun, provided it works, ie that dials can be read and controls operated OK and with safety.
A number of design ideas are repeated in other models, but wasn't it ever thus? It's clear that companies can bend metal into marvellous shapes and do great things with glass and plastic. I marvel at it and am grateful for so much variety on our roads.
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Now the sheep seem to be on drugs,
Have you ever heard anything by the group Sheep On Drugs? (www.sheep-on-drugs.com/)
they do a track called Motorbike, which is awesome. Or maybe you had to be a student in the early 90s to appreciate them.
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I remember the singer from that band turning up at an alternative nightclub in Leicester - he was wearing what appeared to be a nappy, a spiky collar and lead and not much else, and was being led around on all fours by an evil looking dominatrix type.
It probably says a lot about the club that hardly anyone took any notice ;)
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11. Huge Open Grilles
The 407 has one, the revamped MG ZT and Audis have them and so on....
12. Privacy Glass or 'Gangsta Glass'
All MPV's and some estates seem to be getting this hideous vehicular glazing treatment from the factory. IMO will be as cool as vinyl roofs in a few years.
The only purpose in my opinion for privacy glass is to assist in drive bys not to hide anything because they'll break in anyway to have a look.
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13. Wing-mirror indicators
Very clever Merc [I think], now everyone's gunna do it.
14. Number of exhaust pipes
Come on people, if an Aston Martin can make do with two, everyone else can do with one or two. Chavs have four exhausts on their 'cars'.
15. High roofline= MPV
No it doesn't.
Kev
Apologies for the lack of clever emboldening, I concentrate on being able to splle. ;-)
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I agree totally with the comment on sloping roofs. It is a point which is regularly overlooked in critiques on new cars. Have you seen it mentioned in reviews of the Mazda 6, Toyota Avensis, or Renault Laguna? I have tried the back seat in each of these cars and my head hits the roof in every one.
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Reverse-rake rear side windows.
e.g. Toyota Corolla 3-door.
They look bad, and give you a no-benefit blindspot too.
The worst offender at the moment must be the Mazda 3. Its styling is pretty disjointed to begin with, but that rearmost side window just looks *awful*.
Nissan may as well reintroduce the 100A estate...
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16. Identical model line ups.
Design a car which looks O.K. and then launch 3 others which are just shrunken or stretched versions of the original. Buy one car, and you've bought the whole range.
Ford do it (Fiesta, Fusion anf Focus C Max) Look at www.ford.co.uk/ie/all_cars/-/- the side profiles are nearly identical.
Roberson
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