The other day there were two cars entering the parking structure; a Toyota Camry, and a small Mercedes Benz. Both cars were similar in size. Both were silver. Both had a similar profile. As they passed I noticed their back ends. The tail lights were a similar shape. The shape of the trunk lids were similar. The depressed area where the license plate lives was sort of an inverted trapezoid with rounded corners on both cars. In short, the Mercedes looked so much like the Toyota that without seeing the grille and badging I could easily mistake it for a Toyota.
I wonder: Did Toyota make the Camry look like the Mercedes? Or did Mercedes make their car look like the Toyota? Given the design history of the two companies, it’s my opinion that Mercedes ‘copied’ the Toyota. Ever since the introduction of the Ford Taurus, cars of most makes seem to have gravitated to similar aerodynamic designs. I’ve long been a fan of function over form, but being virtually identical (from my observation point) is going a little too far.
So what do you think? Should car makers design cars to be as efficient as they can be, to the point where they are visually ‘identical’? (And understanding that I’m just talking about aerodynamic efficiency here, as opposed to more efficient powerplants and whatnot.) Or given that Mercedes, Toyota, Ford, etc. appeal to different demographic groups should carmakers strive to keep their distinctive styles, even if another car is more ‘slippery’?
I really hate how homogenized cars seem to be these days. I definitely agree with your observation, that so many cars look essentially the same. I always notice cars that have their own looks, even if I don’t necessarily like them. When I’m driving in rush hour traffic, the Elements, Azteks, xBs, and even Chrysler 300s all jump out at my eye.
It seems like it would make good business sense for a manufacturer’s cars to stand out from the pack, but I could be wrong. More homogenous designs probably appeal to a broader range of people, but I’d rather have something that looks interesting, and different. And it doesn’t seem like it takes much to not look like the standard generic car. The 300, and the new Mustangs, aren’t very different in basic form from most other cars, but their particular details really make them stand out.
Often the general shape of the car is dictated by the packaging requirements of the drivetrain and the need to maximize interior space for occupants and trunk space.
Big changes in car design often happen because of a change in technology. When the old round bulb headlights went awy in favor of smaller projector beams and HID headlights, It freed designers to change the shape of the hood. Front wheel trive, transverse engine mounts, new transmission designs, yada yada. They all change the basic requirements around a car’s shape. But the designers always try to maximize interior sparce and headroom, which is why those cars have that sort of extended bulbous roofline. And they tend to have high rear decks to maximize trunk space. So it’s not suprising that cars tend to look a lot alike.
The little indent for the license plate is so you can mount a light, or put in a hatchback handle and latch, or just to keep the back end of the car from looking too bland.
Older large cars tended to be long, with big long trunklids and huge engine bays. Over time we learned that urban drivers prefer a car that can manover and park easily. But they don’t want to give up their luxury interior dimensions and trunk space. So the trunks get shortened and fattended, the inefficient overhangs are eliminated, and you wind up with the Camry.
I always love it when I encounter someone else that shares my viewpoint that most contemporary cars and SUVs are like jellybean-shaped eyesores.
I wrote this essay a few weeks ago, and I think it applies here:
(B97 is a local radio station that used to be awesome, and is now a crime against music.)
OK, I am obviously writing from an emotional viewpoint here. But what I’m trying to get across is how much I hate the “aero” design. In a thread about the Taurus a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I view the Taurus as having ushered in the era of blob-like curvy cars.
I especially hate the way that, as Johnny L.A. has said, the once-venerable luxury cars that boasted very unique styles now all look the same, and furthermore look disconcertingly similar to cheaper, more pedestrian models. I think the new Mercedes S-Class is an especially bad offender here - the old, slightly boxy early 90s Mercedes looked way classier.
I dunno; Mercedes has almost always had kind of bland styling (the 300SL “Gullwing” an exception) and blended it nicely with other European cars, just barely edged out of the “Stolidly Boring” category by the Volvos of the day (again, we’ll issue a waiver for the Volvo 1800). I’d be surprised if Mercedes deliberately aped Toyota (though they might have had upstart competitor Lexus in mind) but both count in their demographic people who prefer a vehicle with non-eye-catching styling and a reputation for reliability.
FWIW, I was looking at the new model Camry on the highway on the drive in today, and I swear they’ve borrowed heavily from the recent BMW “coffin-lid” styling, for better or worse. I also passed a recent model Mercedes (230, I think) which made me think of a Saturn Ion.
You might be surprised how often vehicle “design” dictacts mechanical compromises. Still, the point is well made; maximizing interior and cargo space can place serious constraints on design. This doesn’t go all the way to explaning the bulbous, nearly identical designs, but it’s one factor.
This, coming from [thread=374401]from the guy who thinks the 1971 Mustang Mach 1 to be the epitome of automotive design[/thread]? Dude, that thing was the antithesis of a “pony car”.
I kid (mostly), but while your point regarding the current blandness of most automotive designs is well taken, the fact is that trying to do something that stands out is very risky, the modern equivilent of an Edsel (“Looks like a Buick sucking a lemon.”) And frankly, a lot of the “stand-out” cars today personally strike me as even bigger eyesores than the eggs you decry. The PT Cruiser looks like a minivan squeezed into a fourth grader’s concept of a hot rod. The Chevy HHC looks even worse. Toyota has some kind of vehicle–FJ Cruiser?–that is supposed to evoke memories of the venerable 40 Series Land Cruiser, but instead looks like it couldn’t survive driving across an ungraded parking lot without losing plastic doo-dads glued to it. Don’t get me started on the H2 Hummer, which is not only utterly worthless, but demonstrates the extreme of egregiously tacky and tasteless excess; they look like the automotive equivilent of a BAP, and that’s before people start putting spinning hubcaps and other bling on them.
I suspect that most car buyers–and especially the lucrutive middle market of suburban minivan enthusiasts–desire something bland and functional, hence the success of the minivan and the subsequent gentrification of sport utility vehicles into something that abhores uneven ground. Details that blend smoothly and provide a nice, hand-filling feel, like the large door handles you decry, satisfy the Starbucks crowd (and provide better ergonomics than anything you’ll see in a 70’s era car). And frankly, while I’ll agree that automotive design has become largely uninspired, the quality, reliability, and efficiency of passenger vehicles has vastly improved. Whenever I see a Monte Carlo, with the thin, finger-biting steering wheel, the poorly lit half-a-dash length speedometer, the on-the-column shifter, and the usually-broken-on-one-side pot metal door handles, I have to wonder what anyone saw in this car even when new. I’d take a Camry any day over the bulk of what Detroit shat out from the late Sixties onward. (I have to say, though, that in the looks department, everything went downhill after the '67 Vette. They might drive better today, but a more boring-looking tourer you couldn’t find.)
Mercedes and Lexus were having a knock-down, drag-out fight for customers a couple of years after Lexus came out and they started looking more and more like eachother. Lexus design and technology eventually trickles down to Toyota. Likewise, S-Class tech and design trickles down to C-Class. So, eventually, Mercedes and Toyotas look like eachother. Plus everything that people have already said about all cars starting to look similar. This trend is why, personally, I like unusual cars like the Scion xB. It may be ugly, but it’s different.
I too, am fed up with the generic jellybean look. That said, the car market seems to be getting very fragmented. Modern manufacturing allows for shorter production runs, so why doesn’t Detroit exloit these niches? I agree, most of what passes for car design today bores me silly :smack:
Yeah. I have a soft spot for the '71 Mach 1. There was one parked a few blocks from my house growing up, dark red and in near-mint condition. I always thought it was awesome (Mad Max is one of my all-time favorite movies, if that explains anything.)
Everyone else here seems to hate it, and that’s fine with me, but just because I like the '71 Mustang doesn’t mean I also like the '65, '67, and '69, and I don’t know of any car people that would argue that those aren’t sweet muscle cars. Ditto for the 60’s Challenger, Super Bee, Cutlass, or any of the other classic American cars that I love. I do think that the '71 Mach 1 has very good design features compared to the 2007 Mustang which to me looks overly bulky. But there’s no question that a '67 Fastback is a better looking car.
On the issue of the SUVs I am definitely on your side. I am more interested in 4x4s and trucks than I am in cars, and I am just as adamant about how ugly they currently look. More so, even, because I think that a truck or SUV should be rugged and have straight, angular, boxy lines, and not be curved or rounded.
The FJ40 Land Cruiser is one of the most amazing vehicles ever. I think I may have even started a thread long ago in which I actually said that I liked the design of the new “FJ Cruiser” abomination. Well, this was before I got a really good look at one. They are hideous.
People have been saying “cars all look the same these days” since I was a small child. I’m 36. I think they were saying it a long time before I was born, too.
I was reading an article about a week ago (can’t find it right now to provide a cite). It was basically saying how a lot of companies will ‘steal’ technology and design from others. It actually gets pretty crazy out there. For example, the Mercedes ML class changed it’s body style for the 2006 model year. It was a big turnaround from the previous body style, but lo and behold, the Kia Sportage also changed. If you put them next to each other, you would see quite the resemblance. Do you think Mercedes stole from Kia?
A lot of car manufacturers go with the flow and the design of the times. When one gets too bold, it is going to be a complete success (Mercedes CLS is a great example, as well as the new Pontiac convertible) or a total failure. So change is slow, and the cars start to look a little alike, especially with so much platform sharing out there and various badging by the same company with a different make.
Usually the lower price cars will try to look like the next step up, and so on, and so on. Pretty soon they all look alike. BMW tends to have a more expensive reputation than Lexus. Look at the new LS model. It looks like a 7 series.
The new 2007 Mercedes S550 looks like the Maybach (same company) and the new 2008 C-Class will look like the S-Class. So if someone copies some of the looks of the S-Class for the 2008 model year, it will be coming out the same year as the C-class. Now you have two totally different makes that have similarities.
Dude, that thing was the antithesis of a “pony car”.