Has automotive design reached it's Zenith?

[2o6]

I'm posting this because I'm a little irritated.


There seems to be no new talent coming in the automotive design world, but rather the same talent gets passed around. Cars are starting to look the same.

For example, Peter Schreyer.


He was the designer of the Audi TT and worked for Audi. He now works for Kia. What do we have?






Then we have Bryan Nesbitt, designed the PT and the HHR.

Walter De Silva (Audi) Was at Fiat, Alfa, Seat before he got to Audi.



Does anyone else find this annoying that there seems to be no new talent or imagination in automotive design? This is precisely why I like Chris Bangle and the Chinese.

[giant_mtb]

Yeah, they should probably give you a job.  Your designs are so much cooler.

[cawimmer430]

I don't think this isn't the case at all. There is clearly talent in the industry but they also have guidelines to follow that limit their creativity. Brands know their buyers. Period.

These days people are far too sensitive when it comes to car design. The moment somebody spots a design that "almost looks" or has a "similar shape" to something found on an existing car it's labeled as "copying". Give me a break. 

[2o6]

I don't think this isn't the case at all. There is clearly talent in the industry but they also have guidelines to follow that limit their creativity. Brands know their buyers. Period.

These days people are far too sensitive when it comes to car design. The moment somebody spots a design that "almost looks" or has a "similar shape" to something found on an existing car it's labeled as "copying". Give me a break. 

In my opinion, cars are starting to look the same. Industrial design students are conditioned to create one-box, totally practical and bland vehicles.


I wouldn't call it "copying" but vehicles are starting to look similar. The second a manufactuer takes a daring risk, it seems like they're slammed. (BMW)

[cawimmer430]

In my opinion, cars are starting to look the same. Industrial design students are conditioned to create one-box, totally practical and bland vehicles.


I wouldn't call it "copying" but vehicles are starting to look similar. The second a manufactuer takes a daring risk, it seems like they're slammed. (BMW)

It's also a question of what "the people out there want". I think right now we're experiencing one of those "conservative phases" so car design is adapted to suit the masses.

[giant_mtb]

So you're accusing the automotive design world of making all cars look the same because one guy went from one company to the other and is showing some similar design cues in his stylings?

Do you draw a line differently depending on what building you're in?

[Galaxy]

Peter Schreyer had nothing to do with the Audi A5. The current Audi design language was invented by Walter de Silva and has since then been continued under Wolfgang Egger when de silva moved to VW. If anything Egger has to be criticized that he is unable to step out of de Silva's shadow. I guess that is hard to do with de Silva being considered one of the greatest current car designers.

You mentioned the PT and the HHR. The interesting thing is that the retro trend was almost single handedly started by  J Mays who first created the Audi Avus and then the New Beetle. He later created the retro Thunderbird.

There are new designers entering the industry. The BMW 5er GT design team was almost entirely under 30. Of course they had to work with the theme created by Chris Bangle and Adrian van Hooydonks.

[2o6]

Peter Schreyer had nothing to do with the Audi A5. The current Audi design language was invented by Walter de Silva and has since then been continued under Wolfgang Egger when de silva moved to VW. If anything Egger has to be criticized that he is unable to step out of de Silva's shadow. I guess that is hard to do with de Silva being considered one of the greatest current car designers.

You mentioned the PT and the HHR. The interesting thing is that the retro trend was almost single handedly started by  J Mays who first created the Audi Avus and then the New Beetle. He later created the retro Thunderbird.

There are new designers entering the industry. The BMW 5er GT design team was almost entirely under 30. Of course they had to work with the theme created by Chris Bangle and Adrian van Hooydonks.

I guess you're right. Car design has become so locked in and tight, nothing like the 30's, 40's or 50's. It seems like back then manufacturers changed things at the drop of a hat. Cars back then seemed to be more flamboyant. I guess that has to do something with the fact that the entire industry was really in it's infancy back then.

[Galaxy]

author=2o6 link=topic=20045.msg1167865#msg1167865 date=1253991103]

I guess you're right. Car design has become so locked in and tight, nothing like the 30's, 40's or 50's. It seems like back then manufacturers changed things at the drop of a hat. Cars back then seemed to be more flamboyant. I guess that has to do something with the fact that the entire industry was really in it's infancy back then.

The car industry used similar themes back then to. Look at a Cadillac, Lincoln etc and you can tell from what time it stems.

Very few companies/designers can really create "new" design. BMW/Bangle did with the E 65 and they have since been copied.

[ChrisV]

I guess you're right. Car design has become so locked in and tight, nothing like the 30's, 40's or 50's. It seems like back then manufacturers changed things at the drop of a hat. Cars back then seemed to be more flamboyant. I guess that has to do something with the fact that the entire industry was really in it's infancy back then.

Except that, in every era, cars of the era, well, looked the same.

Always have. You can instantly tell when a car was made due to shared styling cues of the era. There were fewer detail changes between a Ford and Chevy of that era than between a Ford Fusion and a Ford Taurus now.



When I started on forums in the early '90s, people were complaining that cars were all starting to look the same. By the early 2000s, cars had changed, but people were complaining that cars were starting to look the same. Here we are coming up on 2010 and here is someone complaining that.... cars are starting to look the same.

[S204STi]

There are only so many variations on the same formula.  Some automakers try to blur the lines a bit by coming up with designs that aren't quite 2- or 3-box, but ultimately they are all going to be similar in basic shape, with variations on the details.  There are just so many things that are standard to nearly every major automaker; for example, 4 wheels, two headlights, two taillights, a central grill between the front lights and a rear decklid between the tail lights, and usually the same number of windows with vaguely the same shape.  Some stuff that has tried to vary things a bit have just been too strange looking, such as the Aztek, pre-facelift Tribeca, the old GM vans based on the Lumina platform (forget what those were called...), etc.  Even BMW's new SUV designs are maybe too odd to succeed. 


I guess what I'm trying to say is that innovation in design is frequently punished in this industry.

[Onslaught]

Chris is right. People have been bitching about this for years. Cars have always looked the same from on gen to the next.
Hell, almost every car from the 70' looked like a brick. 

[sportyaccordy]

giant_mtb there's no need to be such a dick....

Not having known the actual people responsible I thought 2o6 was onto something.

Cars will always all look similar... they compete with each other and are bound by the same safety requirements.

I just don't like how UGLY cars have become. Proportions are dying in the name of safety and size. Details have begun to go to extremes in the name of distinction.

[AutobahnSHO]

IT's all Computers' fault.
They spit out those cursed numbers that indicate the most inches inside, best aerodynamics outside, and DAGNABBIT the computers at Audi and the ones at Kia spit out the same numbers as the ones at Ford and the ones at GM.

Anyway the last two pictures in the first post of the thread: very "identical" looking cars. Because they are the same size/ general shape.
-BUT the Audi has a single straight line at the bottom of the doors from wheel to wheel. The Kia has a triangular crease, along with the side windows curving up- the Audi has a straight window line. The rear bottom fascias are very different, etc...

[giant_mtb]

giant_mtb there's no need to be such a dick....

Not having known the actual people responsible I thought 2o6 was onto something.

But he did know that (in his example) the guy moved from company to company.  Was he expecting the guy to completely change his entire idea and practice of car design or something?

[2o6]

But he did know that (in his example) the guy moved from company to company.  Was he expecting the guy to completely change his entire idea and practice of car design or something?

That's not the point I was trying to make.

[giant_mtb]

Then I guess you shouldn't have used it as an example.

[2o6]

Then I guess you shouldn't have used it as an example.

No, you misinterpreted it.


I'm talking that it seems like the same people are employed at the same positions all the time, and thus everything
comes out as predictable and the same as everyone else.

[sportyaccordy]

But he did know that (in his example) the guy moved from company to company.  Was he expecting the guy to completely change his entire idea and practice of car design or something?

Howd u miss his point

Dude worked at Audi, implemented a design language there... went to Kia, and basically implemented the same language there as well

So rather than different companies employing different design themes you have a bunch of companies with cars that *literally* look the same.

It's not like with Pininfarina or Giugaro (I know I spelled that wrong) that would work to maximize the beauty within the context of a manufacturer's design history. These new guys just totally do what they were doing elsewhere without regard to what their new companies were about before they came. Prime example- Jaguar.

[Madman]

Wow, fascinating topic!

Chris V is right.  Cars looking the same is nothing new.  I've read articles going back to the 1920s bemoaning the fact all cars look pretty much the same.  Of course, by the 1920s, nearly the entire automotive world had settled on the formula of putting the engine up front, passengers in the middle and cargo at the back.  This lead to a lot of similarities in car design.  Since then, we've seen periods of flamboyance (1930s, 1950s) and periods of stagnant conservatism.

I remember when every car in the 1980s was basically a box on wheels.  They all looked the same: slightly sloping nose, nearly vertical rear window and squared-off tail.  Then the 1986 Ford Taurus landed on the scene like an atomic bomb and suddenly every other car on the road looked old.  The Taurus literally sent GM, Chrysler and the Japanese back to their drawing boards.  Square was out, "Aero" was in.

I think once designers had grown tired of the 1990s jellybean look, there was nowhere left to go.  So they started adding sharp creases to the standard jellybean shape and this evolved in the "Ugly" look of the noughties.  Designers have resorted to making their cars look "different" simply for the sake of being different.  Naturally, safety regulations will always play a big part in determining what a car will look like but there's still plenty of scope for imagination and creativity.  The problem is manufacturers have to be able to sell their designs to the public and the average consumer is a timid creature who will seldom embrace truly new or revolutionary ideas.  So carmakers will keep regurgitating old ideas ad nausium, changing the appearance just enough to make their latest creation look new.  Even if it isn't.


Cheers,
Madman of the People

[Gotta-Qik-C7]

Everyone gives the '86 Taurus credit for starting the "aero" age. But didn't '85 T Bird have the aero look first?

[CALL_911]

Everyone gives the '86 Taurus credit for starting the "aero" age. But didn't '85 T Bird have the aero look first?

I know this has nothing to do with, well, anything, but I hate that T-Bird.

[AutobahnSHO]

Everyone gives the '86 Taurus credit for starting the "aero" age. But didn't '85 T Bird have the aero look first?

Kinda. But not the rounded-ness the Taurus did. A big factor was the fact that they all had glass lights before that too- the Fed refused to let anyone use plastic light covers, until Ford SOMEHOW won.

Square lights can only come in square, round, or somewhere in between.....

[Rupert]

Kinda. But not the rounded-ness the Taurus did. A big factor was the fact that they all had glass lights before that too- the Fed refused to let anyone use plastic light covers, until Ford SOMEHOW won.

Square lights can only come in square, round, or somewhere in between.....

I thought square lights could only come in... square.

[ChrisV]

Everyone gives the '86 Taurus credit for starting the "aero" age. But didn't '85 T Bird have the aero look first?

'83, and it was a big deal at the time.

They went from this:



to this:

[Eye of the Tiger]

Don't forget this

[sportyaccordy]

NACar where the FUCK did you get that picture? That might be the most awkward captured image of any Escort in existence!!!!

[CaMIRO]

And the Tempo, too.



The 1984 CE14 cars - Ford Tempo (and its Mercury Topaz sister) - were from the same Jack Telnack school of thought responsible for the 1983 Ford Thunderbird and 1986 Taurus. They were lower-cost implementations of the Aero look, to be sure; but a 1988 facelift made the lineage clear.



More than 450 hours of wind-tunnel testing, beginning in December 1978, resulted in a fast, 60-degree windshield and rear window rake; door frames which wrapped up over the edge of the roof; a somewhat sloped front end, and wider rear track. The tall trunk rose above the waterline.

The 4-door cars' 0.36 coefficient of drag (0.37 for the notchbacks) was the equivalent of Thunderbird's.

Some worried that the public might find it too modern; this was, after all, a mainstream car. "Thermo-nuclear ugly," said Car and Driver, which 2 years later would also misjudge the appeal of the Taurus.

The line soared to become the 4th best-seller in America, moving 531,468 units in its first full year.

[Eye of the Tiger]

NACar where the FUCK did you get that picture? That might be the most awkward captured image of any Escort in existence!!!!

Yes, it does happen to be my faviourite Ford Escort picture. If you Google "1983 Ford Escort", it comes up every time. 

[AutobahnSHO]

I thought square lights could only come in... square.

ha I meant "glass". Musta been tired.