I really like what Chrysler’s been doing the last few years. And overall, I think the cars look a lot better now than they did in the '80s. There are an awful lot of “family” cars now that could have passed for sports cars in the '80s, thanks to all those aerodynamic curves and lines.
IMHO, while recession, EPA emission requirements and the Arab Oil Embargo of the early 1970s killed the Motor Wars, it was just time for a twenty-year long spending spree to come to an end.
WWII left the US unscathed and with an incredible manufacturing capacity and with a populace that was ready after decades of depression and war to settle down and live the good life. So we did, and one of the ways to show off our success was with a brand new car. Detroit sensibly responded to the demand by coming out with new designs on a yearly basis, so the Joneses could better show off that their car was a new model, and the people who wanted to keep up with the Joneses were compelled to buy a new car as well. Cars became an obsession, from the hot rod and custom car cultures to homebuilders installing garage doors to let people park their cars in the living room (carbon monoxide kept this idea from catching on.)
The obsession continued through the of the Sixties, with the big three in Detroit battling to have the fastest and best-looking cars on the market. Engine displacements increased by up to fifty percent through that decade, and multiple models were introduced to segment the market and allow more people to be able to afford a new car.
Things first started to stumble around 1970, when vehicle emissions standards were first introduced. The most powerful engines had ridiculously high compression ratios (e.g., 11.7:1 for Ford’s Boss 351 Cleveland.) Detroit couldn’t make what were basically detuned race engines meet the increasingly strict emissions requirements and resorted to dropping compression ratios, reducing engine efficiency. The upshot of this was that the new cars weren’t as fast as the older models.
Also around this time, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) began restricting their oil exports to the West to increase their profits. Gasoline prices shot up as gas stations began running out of gas. That, combined with a weak economy, left people more interested in affordable, fuel efficient cars. Detroit had focused on building big flashy cars, and wasn’t prepared to build affordable cars (nor were they interested. IMHO, the car guys felt that the task was beneath them.) Cars became less of a pastime or status symbol and more of a commodity–enter the dull designs of the late '70s and '80s.
IMHO, this drabness has been reinforced as safety requirements, aerodynamics and manufacturing costs push car makers towards a standard design. There has been an interest in making sexy cars again, but any different design costs more and is a gamble, especially without a nation obsessed with cool cars.
That’s what I was gonna say. However, those are cool cars, the just transportation types of cars do seem to be designed by the wind tunnel - yuk
The bumper on a 72 Eldorado is like a piece of sculpture.
Yah, lots of jelly beans running around loose. But then I left out the Dodge Magnum. Your basic 350 hp station wagon.
I don’t get the whole SUV thing. to me it’s the ultimate oxymoron to associate sport with utility. Why would you encourage people to drive vehicles with a high center of gravity as if they’re sports cars? I bet if someone produced a 150 hp SUV hybrid that got 40 mpg around town there would be a stampede. The new Toyota Preus had to have traction control installed because the vehicle would melt tires with all the torque from the electric assist motor. An ugly car but I want it badly for a daily driver.
I just got back from an auto show and I was impressed by the number of cars that actually had some style to them. I really liked the new Monte Carlo. I’d rather have that than the last Firebird or Camaro. Very unique, very American.
I also don’t get the trucks. There are some real monsters out there competing in the hp wars. Dodge started this trend (IMO) with the 86(?) Little Red Wagon. It was faster than the Corvett of that year. Now you have Ford, Chevy and Dodge putting 500 hp motors in trucks. After the demise of muscle cars I would not have guessed I’d ever see supercharged V8’s and V-10’s in cars, let alone trucks.
First let me compliment the OP on using the correct past participle of the verb to stink.
With that out of the way, I had agreed with the OP for a long time, but like Magiver see some reasons to hope for better things. I think the designs are getting better, though I preferred the look of the oval-windowed Tauri better than their successors. I especially like the '02 Nissan Altima, and the new T-Bird.
On the other hand, when I first started driving my 2000 Nissan Altima, there were a couple of times when I tried to stick my key into someone else’s car door, because it looked so much like mine. In one case it was a Maxima, so that’s understandable, but the other time I think it was a Honda.
I take it none of you have seen one of these babies?
Sweet, and TOTALLY taboo-defying.
I think that anyone who despairs of automotive design even in the last few years hasn’t been paying much attention to cars. We’re in a Golden Age here. For a few examples of radical styling on recent cars, look to:
-All of Cadillac
-Honda Element
-Scion xB
-Nissan 350z
-Infiniti G35
-Toyota Celica
-Mazda RX-8
-BMW 745i (and the whole slew of Shris Bangle-ese cars)
You may not like all of these designs, but the thing about exciting design is that it tends to be polarizing. Cars thse days are anything but bland.