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I must retract my prior statement having just seen the new Corvette Stingray. That is a beauty. The CTS is also improved in appearance. Both very nice offerings for 2014.
My problem is that across the board the designs that excite me the most are way out of my price range. Toyota has the most bland unexciting lineup of any car maker followed closely by Honda. The biggest flaw for both is a total lack of any serious performance. Their lineups are not ugly, what they are is very safe. Nissan has a bigger performance footprint with the GT-R and the Z, but then you throw in the Cube and the Juke and I just have to shake my head. I like the current design philosophy at Ford, Mazda, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche and KIA with the exception of SUV's. It must be hard to make them exciting and different enough to stand out. GM currently is very hit or miss and the same can be said about Chrysler which I seem to like every other new model. Of course the chance of finding even two people to agree on any of this is probably close to zero.
IMO regular production cars are much much better now than they have ever been. Including in terms of design. Sure they all look alike but that has more to do with convergent evolution... ie design based on windtunnel performance and government regulations.
At least the manufacturers aren't producing embarrassing garbage like they were in the 70s and 80s and even into the 90s. I remember going to the dealership with my old man back in the early 80s and he was seriously considering a Ford Country Squire which was junk right off the production line. And it had that bad fake wood paneling... couldn't wait to be dropped off at school with that barge.
In fact it p*$$es me off that kids today will not know the horror of being dropped off at school in some embarrassing piece of crap. Or that reliability is a given and they don't know what it's like to be stranded on the way to Disney World with an overheating POS.
haha! So true! I remember being with my father looking at new 1981 Chevettes.He was looking to trade in a '74 Vega.He looked at the salesman and said "The Vega is better than this!These doors are like paper." He kept the Vega 2 more years. I hated that car.But at least it wasn't the faded orange 1970something Subaru my friend went to school in!
Styling is going in an interesting direction because of manufacturers attempting to create strong brand identities. What started as just one or two shared elements such as a front grille or taillight design has expanded to the whole car looking similar. Even to the point where the Malibu, Camaro, and Stingray all have a slight resemblance, which is about as scary as a Fusion and a Mustang resembling each other once the new Mustang design lands. And if that's not scary enough, they're both going to resemble the Fiesta.
It's going to be important for manufacturers to still be able to create uniqueness within their product lines. Frankly GM has been better at this than Ford, at least within the Chevy brand. And much as I love Mazda they haven't been all that good at it either, all their Kodo cars look really good, but could be mistaken for each other pretty easily.
for me, cars lost their appeal after about 1990 or so for the most part. at that point they all started looking the same, performing the same, etc. there are a few exceptions like the mustang, camaro/firebird, corvette, and some high end european cars.
Which is kind of funny considering the 80's were a horrible decade for cars when it comes to styling. There were some exceptions. The Regal/Monte Carlo/Grand Prix/Cutlass in GN/SS/GT/442 mode were beauties and the Camaro was gorgeous (albeit way underpowered). This is also the decade that brought us the Citation, Celebrity, Skyhawk, everything Cadiallac save for the Eldorado.
Point is, 1990 was bad but the 80's are nothing to write home about.
They depress me. It's gonna look like the 1990's again, except with bluetooth.
The 2000's gave us some really unique, brash and memorable designs but now it looks like cars are going back to rounded, boring and uninspiring looks.
It also seems companies are back to the whole "brand style" thing rather than making unique individual model styles. I look at pictures of the Ford Focus, Taurus and next gen Mustang together, for example and it's hard to tell which is which!
What do you think? Do most people want an anonymous people-moving appliance these days rather than making a "statement" with the car(s) they choose to drive? Is it a manufacturer strategy? Maybe a conspiracy (making boring cars now so that future cars can about-face in design and seem interesting/fresh)?
I loved the 90s Japanese cars. I agree with the early 2000s as well.
Nissan:
Toyota:
Mazda:
Subaru:
Mitsubishi:
You brought up mustang, so I brought in the skylines. Now if I could only afford a GTR
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