There was a time in car designing when originality was something that manufacturers dared to venture onto, a virtue that seems to have been long lost or forgotten.
The trouble is car designs much like fashion is bound to change. The obsession of an age or an era influences car design. Another factor which could have something to do is that the human brain is running out of design ideas (probably a reason why retro is considered a new design option, not that I ‘am complaining). Also, health and safety norms in the developed parts of the world (where most of the designing happens) prevent some of our most loved design elements to be produced anymore. Pop up headlamps, a design marvel, is not allowed anymore because of safety norms!!
Whatever the reason maybe, it’s no excuse for manufacturers no stick around with the current design of euro boxes which cosset occupants from the world and transport them in a separate universe. That as an aspect of motoring is fine but it does not have to come at the cost of boring and redundant car designs.
In the US of A during the 1950s the jet age influenced car designs with sprout wings, turbines, after-burner taillights and the lot. However, it failed to influence European car designs and thank God for that. The Europeans preferred more elegant designs like that of Bristols and the Jaguars and Mr Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 in England. In Italy the Ferrari 250 GTB SWB was on the scene in the 60s, and my God was it beautiful, every time you look at one you are transferred onto an era where the roads were empty and the silence broken by chirping of birds and the rustling of leaves, when, from the distance the V12 bellow of a 250 GTB driving by would make your hair stand on end. In Germany, the Merc 300 Gullwing and BMW 507 were the gossip. Of course, this is only a small collection of the design greats of the time.
One cannot forget the British sports car and its impact on car design. That long swooping bonnet followed by a miniature passenger compartment and tiny boot, which meant that the driver sat on the rear wheel arch that probably is the best place to be seen behind a wheel.
The 60s was the era of muscle cars and the likes of the Jaguar E-type, Porsche 911, Lamborghini Muira, Ferrari 275, Aston Martin DB5, Ford GT40 and countless other designs that are still revered today, the designs then were synonymous to speed and beauty.
The 70s was a decade that belonged to the wedge, a shape in which the front of the car is lower than the boot of the car. Cars like the BMW M1, Lamborghini Countach, and the Lotus Esprit wore the look at the time. The wedge was carried on in car design till the 90s. But overtime the designs became more purposeful and less beautiful.
From the mid 90s cars started taking more curvy shapes as opposed to the sharp lines of the wedge design. This became possible with the development of technology, and ever since the curves have been around. Today cars are becoming more about being gadgets and less about passion. The art of striking the perfect balance between ergonomics and aesthetics is a difficult one. Few cars have hit the perfect spot and the bulk has either been too irrelevant to be noticed or has caused aesthetic damage to the environs.
The end of the wedge design came with the beginning of the fluid design which is the current trend in car designs. I personally do not like this design concept. It’s too swoopy all around. I’ll tell you what a car with this design looks like. It’s as if someone put a block of jelly in a plastic bag and placed it on a table, then held it from the back and pulled. The plastic bag tightens on the jelly and forms lines here and there, these lines due to the physics of the situation flow backwards. That’s fluid design for you, it’s just a block of metal with some lines flowing backwards on it. Apparently it cushions pedestrians in the event of a crash, but people are not supposed to be in front of moving cars anyway.
Also, fluid design is supposed to be more aerodynamic, yeah right. I mean look at the Hyundai Accent and the new Hyundai Verna (which is actually the new Accent), the Accent is much sleeker and has cleaner lines the Verna is just a modern euro box. And to be honest the new Verna and Fiesta look exactly the same. It’s just disappointing, there was a time when every car looked different and that time was not too long ago. In fact today when you look at car designs, from the outside they are almost all the same. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, let cars look like cars and not like stupid fishes.
Clearly, designers have understood this. But instead of heading for newer design cues, they have gone for the easiest theme, retro. The Ford Mustang for example has gone retro while brand new cars like the Mercedes Benz SLS have been created to replicate a design of the past. And it hasn’t stopped there The Lancia Stratos has been brought back from the dead. And the Jaguar E type is to come back to life. This is all great and is not a bad thing at all, it’s just that side by side designers and car makers should go for fresh and appealing designs.
Ofcourse some car makers have come up with brilliant designs. Maserati has done that with their entire range of cars. The new Merc E Class looks nice, the BMWs are looking better too these days.
The second kind of car maker is like Audi and Porsche who haven’t bothered to change their styling. The only difference is that Audis look okay while Porsches are lesser so.
Then there are the likes of Lamborghini who always makes great looking cars. And they said their new car, the Aventador was going to look like something else, and all they gave us was a restyled Reventon. That is not a bad thing except it isn’t something else, its something they already had made earlier. Actually, to be honest the Reventon looked better. Come on Lambo you can do better and we know it.
If engineers can come up with all sorts of magical technology in cars to make them safer, faster, cleaner and more efficient. Surely, the design departments can put their heads to better use rather than playing follow the leader and copying industry trends. But for now let’s just hope that the crappy fluid design concept does not catch on. After all we don't want our cars to look like the Porsche model line up, we won't be able to tell which one is which.
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