By this, I don’t mean using steel for everything, uncomfortable seats and V8 engines.
I mean that today, cars’ exteriors often look very similar and bland. Cars from the 50s and 60s had great lines*. Why don’t carmakers reuse the exterior designs?
People often buy cars to stand out and to be stylish, wouldn’t that be a way to do so? You could have 60s Red Cadillac convertibles or 50s Dick Tracy-type cars mixed with modern features and easier-to-find spare parts. I’d buy it and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be the only one. So, what gives?
*They may not be your favorite designs, but you have to admit they could be many people’s.
“The 2004 model sold below expectations with under 9,000 sales at US$42,000 each. Citing a 301-day supply of SSRs, General Motors in December of that year announced five weeks of layoffs at Lansing Craft Centre, the factory that made the SSR. On November 21, 2005, GM announced that it would close the Craft Centre in mid-2006, spelling the end for the SSR”
The other reason, which is much more arguable, is the changes in taste. Do the stylists lead in that, or do they follow? Back then when there were fewer car companies competing for customers the stylists were clearly in charge. That seemingly died away with 5-MPH bumpers and ugly Japanese cars, but those days may yet be coming back.
The styling of the era, however, never will. You will never again see tailfins. You might see hints of them, but these are ancient history. They became passe even in the generation you’re speaking of.
Safety requirements kill a lot of design ideas as well, which is why the concepts are so striking. They’ll never, ever be built exactly the way you see them when the concept is introduced, they all require modifications for safety purposes.
I always thought the biggest reason Saturn never sold enough to turn a profit, even with cool stuff like plastic body panels, was because they looked like everything else on the road.
Also, the designs were oftentimes very inefficient. Look at some of those long hoods that have a lot of empty space. When the government mandates MPG standards your design engineers can’t be adding a lot of metal for no purpose. If you add unnecessary space and weight in one place you have to add heavier support systems in other places. You start to lose all of the advantage of building an automobile with the available state-of-the-art manufacturing processes.
Something like the Chrysler PT Cruiser may make you think that you are driving an old style vehicle but other than a few design lines there is nothing in common with whatever the original was.
Car design has, in fact, advanced dramatically. With current engines, fuel injection, better suspension systems, radial tires, computers and traction control a modern day family car can outperform a muscle car of the '70’s. The vintage cars are museum pieces, not ideals of performance.
They didn’t at first (the 1991-94 all had very distinct lines and look and can easily be spotted on the road today), but they did change to that later.
But it’s like all other styles – there’s a herd mentality. Take a look at the “best and worst dressed” comments. If you don’t fit the mold, everyone laughs at you (a woman has to wear either black, white, or beige, and God forbid your dress has a noticeable pattern).
There’s no reason why you can’t have aerodynamics and flair. But people don’t want flair.
You’re comparing apples to oranges.While they may not be as aerodynamic as other cars on the road they are probably more aerodynamic than comparable vehicles from that time period.
Right. Most people want something practical first. Look at this list of top-selling cars in the US. How many of those are particularly stylish? I count three pickups, eleven sedans (one with a hatchback variant), five SUVs, a hatchback, and a hybrid. IMO, there are maybe three cars on that list that are even particularly striking - the hatchbacks and the Prius. And in those cases, style wasn’t the primary attraction. Hatchbacks are primarily bought because they’re cheap and practical, and the Prius because it’s fuel efficient and “green”.
How many on that list were purchased primarily for their looks? At best, you might say that style might influence a decision between otherwise similar cars.
Cars in the 1950-60 era were built completely differently. Today, we have “unibody” construction-the body and frame are the same structure. The body is designed to crumple in an accident, and thus absorb the force (so the passengers can survive). Unibody is also lighter and more fuel-efficient. In “ye good old days” cars were built upon a chassis-a rigid frame which held the engine/transmission and wheels. The body was bolted or welded to this frame. This made for a very rigid structure, which meant that in a crash, the passenger’s bodies absorbed the forces. In an era of metal dashboards an few seatbelts, a 30 MPH crash was almost always fatal, whereas today most survive such a crash.
One thing I liked about 1950’s cars-the seating position was much higher-instead of sitting on the floor of the car, you sat up high.
I think there is another answer here. Above the talk is of 50’s styles - fins and long overhangs. But the deeper question asked is - why are modern cars so boring? Even within the limits of safety and efficiency requirements one would have thought that modern engineering would have allowed the designer even greater freedom to do wild things. Certainly on higher priced cars.
But what do we get? The most staid boring designs imaginable. BWM were about the most innovative in the high end - and they are still boring. Mercedes and worse - Audi, just utterly dreaful boxy things. If you have insane money you get drama - try a Bugatti Veyron. Or other exotics. But one would really hope that one didn’t need to stump up for a Lamborghini to get a bit fun in design. But it seems one does.
One suspects it has a lot to do with fear. The auto industry is not the pleasant easy place it once was. Companies lose unimaginable money, and a poor selling model can destroy them. There isn’t the slack to allow anyone to experiment. Not with mainstream products. Better a steady seller than risk anything.
There are fun and innovative designs - in the sporty car range. Mazda RX8, Alpha Romeo Brera, even the Nissan 370Z. Each has a very clear stamp on it. But even then the designs are muted to some degree. The sheer exuberence of the 50’s and 60’s designs is missing. Perhaps because the sheer exuberence of the 50’s and 60’s is missing from our lives.
I think that’s what the OP was getting at. While the posts about weight, crashworthiness, efficiency, etc are correct, I interpreted the OP as asking about styling. The PT Cruiser was the first car to come to mind.
Fifty years in the future… ‘The styling of the era, however, never will. You will never again see massive spoilers.’
I think some of it is that people generally don’t mind (or actively prefer) modern-looking cars.
There is a (possibly growing) niche market for people who still do want a retro-styled car and some car makers are playing toward that market (the VW beetle, the new Mini and the possible New 2CV are examples of, OK, not really the kind of styling the OP is after, but still an old-made-new chic).
There have been a number of recent experiments in non-standard design, but for the most part they don’t sell very well especially over the long term. For one example, the PT cruiser was greeted with a lot of initial enthusiasm and sales. But after that first year or two, sales declined, to the point where the entire model was axed last year. The Ford Flex “crossover” drew a lot of critical praise, but it’s been selling pretty poorly since launch. I’m sure others can come up with similar examples from other manufacturers…
That’s just a small sample. There are countless people willing to take your money. And, of course, you can do it yourself. I think you’ll find that it’s generally cheaper to buy the original, though.
The lack of competition is missing from the auto industry. When it’s just a handful of dominant builders that run the show they can afford to restyle every year because they’ll sell enough to make it worthwhile. The current glut of car companies encourages innovation and discourages styling risk.
I’m not sure if MichaelEmouse means literal re-use of the original designs, or copying the original design but with modern body construction methods, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mean merely “influenced by.” When he mentions, “…and easier-to-find spare parts,” I get the idea that he actually means the body construction methods! If that’s the case, the other posters above did a pretty good job describing why that can’t happen.
It would be possible, though, to duplicate the look of those old-timey designs with current methods. It’d be really, really expensive and wasteful, though. You’d essentially have to have a unibody platform and tophot, and then bolt all kinds of other stuff on. The neat thing with unit body constuction is, everything is tightly integrated (structure and appearance), making them inexpensive. You’d probably have to double the cost of the body to make an exact clone.
Then of course, we have all kinds of cars “influenced” by the old designs. While not 50’s and 60’s, I happen to love the retro look of the Charger. It’s only downside is that it’s a Chrysler.
From what I heard, the PT Cruiser was a dog. I wonder if it would have sold better if had the power people wanted and was a better car. The MINI, mentioned earlier, is a '60s-retro design (which I prefer to '50s designs), and seems to be a good car (at least in some versions) as well. Too bad it requires Premium fuel, or else I’d be interested.
