Modern car designs ugly?

[phillgt2002]

I feel like most modern cars are simply overdesigned. There's too much going on, they try to hard to make them look angry and pissed off. Some of it seems like a lack of taste; Lexus has the worst grilles I've ever seen for example. There are some things you just don't do, and that's one of them.

You and I may have a lil' problem.

Man, Lexus dropped the ball with the IS250. The IS300 doesn't look anything like the Camry's and other various sack of **** Toyota's that came out during the time of 2001. (the debut of the Lexus IS300, not the Altezza.)

A clean IS300 is still up there in terms of design. The problem with modern design is that it's very hard to find something that won't look obsolete in the next half a decade or even 4 years. Automotive design is always changing, and most companies design for the sake of aerodynamics instead of a memorable design.

Some just like to do a rehash of their designs and fail horribly. Like this.

Who ever designed this ugly sack of **** should be beat with a pillow case full of batteries.

This design became obsolete after the first one rolled off assembly line.

The standard V6 looks even worse when I see them today, clean or rusty, it's still ugly as ****.

It's gotten better since the 2000's, but I think we're going to come to a time where most of our cars will be shaped like cheese wedges.. for aerodynamic purposes... of course.

 

[Tornado]

I wouldn't call that a modern design, though.















Or a Lexus.

 

[mustafur]

Over design sure beats the hell of under design.

Idk why but I prefer the modern look soo much better then the past, apart from a few cars I like design wise I don't really care much about outdated design.

 

[mustafur]

I'm all for a lot of modern car designs, but if there's one element I hate, it's the trend towards tall doors and high belt-lines. Before I acknowledge the main purpose for this practice, I can't help but wonder if part of it's by choice. The Chrysler 300 was quite an influential car when it was released a decade ago. Since so may people bought them pretty much based off looks alone, it's only a given the other manufacturers would take note and incorporate appealing elements from the 300 into their own designs. The 300's trademark (other than looking enough like a Bentley to win over hood rats) was that high-waisted, tiny window look that gave off the impression of a muscular car.

Before the 300 came out, the door to window ratio on most cars was pretty normal:

Now there's this style where the doors are very tall and the windows are very short. In more extreme cases (like these), it almost gives off the impression that the car was actually built off a crossover or SUV's platform, with the only difference being that their tall greenhouse was lopped off in favor of a sedan's roof.

One reason behind higher belt-lines is for aerodynamics. I can see the purpose of that, but then there's cars like a decade-old Lexus LS430 that are just as aerodynamic (or moreso) than new cars, without having such exaggerated qualities.

The new Impala has a drag coefficient of 0.296, whereas the Lexus is 0.26. That Lexus' advantage improves with an air suspension, which reduces that rating to 0.25. The Impala should more aerodynamic than the LS, seeing that it has a number of wind blockers, grille shutters* and and underside aeropanels*. The Impala's about four and a half inches longer than the Lexus (201.3 versus 196.7), yet it's still less aerodynamic. Examining the Lexus closely, you can find a few intentional ripples in the bodywork, but adding all those cues together just doesn't compare to the Impala's very chiseled, sculpted bodywork. Basically, I'm wondering out loud why the Impala, despite having a more advanced and advantageous design, falls short of the outdated Lexus that sports a rather basic, upright design.

Of course, the other big reason behind this is safety. The LS430 has side curtain airbags and torso airbags for the front seats. The Impala has side curtain airbags, torso airbags for the front and rear seats. The IIHS say the new Impala is very safe, scoring good in moderate frontal overlap and side impact test. Unfortunately, I was not able to find a side impact statistic for the Lexus' side impact score, but the same source indicated that it scored good in the moderate frontal overlap test. The Impala will probably hold the higher side impact score, since it has more airbags for that region.

So the Lexus is more aerodynamic than the Impala, but falls short of it in airbag count and possible side impact scores. What I'm wondering is how essential the Impala's very high-waisted design is to its good safety rating, since I'm not too educated on the matter.

*four cylinder only

That Lexus is't really a Lexus its basically a rebadged early 90s Mercedes S Class.

Making your point even more hilarious.

 

[phillgt2002]

I wouldn't call that a modern design, though.

Why do you say that exactly? I'm not really saying the IS300 is a modern design. Manufacturer's cars like Nissan, Lexus, Hyundai, and Toyota can be morphed together to form a similar design. The cars that are being put out now aren't really truly memorable, to me at-least.

Look at this IS250 to the IS300.

Try morphing these two and getting a similar design.

 

[Legro]

I think that most of modern cars are actually quite good looking and their biggest problem is that we're comparing them to the cars that are already considered as classics of car design. We forget the worse looking cars of every decade and remember the the best ones. And when the car stays in production for longer than expected they begin to look less and less ugly every year. In 5 to 10 years some of us will be completely okay with two-level headlight design and the grille in that new Lexus. It's true that there are a lot of good looking cars from 50s to 70s, but there were many bad looking cars too, cars that can compete with Nissan Juke in ugliness.

As an example of forgotten ugly looking car. This Ford LTD from 1975.

Then there are the cars that are so popular that their ugliness kinda disappears after you see the car many times. Like Citroën 2CV. I mean it's very ugly car, but it's also something that is quite hard to put to the list of the ugliest cars of all time. That could be very different if its production had ended before 1965.

This is just great example of the ugly European cars made short after WW2. Some of those cars ended up as so ugly that it's better for us to forget them.

 

[mustafur]

Why do you say that exactly? I'm not really saying the IS300 is a modern design. Manufacturer's cars like Nissan, Lexus, Hyundai, and Toyota can be morphed together to form a similar design. The cars that are being put out now aren't really truly memorable, to me at-least.

Look at this IS250 to the IS300.

Try morphing these two and getting a similar design.

Then compare it to the IS350 which the is300 was equlivent to:

 

[Neddo]

Lexus always reminded me of Mercedes

 

[Bo]

The best period of car design was late 90's to around 2007/8-ish. It started to go downhill from there.

Most new cars suffer from overstyling. There are no simple designs, everything looks too thick and chunky.

 

[R5]

It is personal taste, but there is a strong argument for "Yes"

Modern cars are becoming more and more pointlessly angular, so classic curves are substituted for stealthy straights. However, this was the same in the 80s too, and cars are loved from them.

So in a sense, yes, but it's nothing new about why. Just a certain rose tinted nostalgia clouding people's judgement.

 

[Grayfox]

I saw a Holden Volt this afternoon and I love the look of the back and the front doesn't look half bad

Front

Rear

 

[Neddo]

hmmm Holden badge in back but Chevrolet in front. hmmmmmmmmm nice looking for a hybrid

 

[niky]

Modern cars are... fascinating.

Make no mistake. There is no end of overly fussy, overwrought, over-the-top design out there.

But that can't be helped. Because the bar is simply set way too high nowadays.

This, for example, is what modern family cars look like:

When your basic, run of the mill sedan or hatchback is designed by the top of the class out of prestigious automotive design schools, what do you do to set your exotic sportscar or concept car apart? This isn't just a question of making something prettier... there's a point of diminishing returns in mashing together the same old three chords and a chorus hook. When all the songs on the radio start sounding the same, you've got to do something different.

And bravo for that. Lexus' overwrought spindle grille may be a gross caricature of what we think a grille should look like, but it's still riveting. Attention-grabbing. Fascinating, even. Then there's Mazda's delightful play on swage lines, with multiple intersecting curves and peaks. Then there's BMW, which is throwing every single roofline possible at the wall, waiting to see which ones stick. While that gives us some truly awful clunkers like the 5GT (a bulbous monstrosity... and that's even after seeing it in person), it has given us some thought-provoking, and even attractive products in the X6 and 4-Gran Coupe.

Maybe two decades from now, we'll look back on this era as a Golden Age in automotive design... when everything truly went... right now, the vitriol spewed against some of these cars (heaven knows I've actually contributed my fair share of hate at a number of them!) is quite entertaining.

 

[Tyger]

I feel cars have got a little too, for want of a better word, fat. Nowadays a lot of supercars and the like seem to be much more upright and less sleek than those of yesteryear. I'm one for clean lines, whether they be angular or smooth. I thought the original concept of the Nissan GTR looked awesome, nice clean sculptured design but the resultant production model looked kinda bloated, almost as if additional polys (in game graphics terms) were glued on for no special reason. An extreme example of this, for me anyway, is the Juke, which to me looks like an unnappealling cellulite-riddled blob.

And then of course as soon as something a bit quirky or original-looking comes along, a lot of folks seem to get a little insecure and cry about it not looking like some boxy generic BMW Exx or whatever. Sheesh, throw those rulebooks out of the window, people.

EDIT: Interesting comments on the Mustang, above. I really thought the last gen looked cool, stole some of the right cues from the 60s version but looked clean and nice in its own right. The new version however is bland beyond belief, as are the majority of other modern "muscle cars".

 

[Neddo]

I think that current Viper is a very small car comparing to it's opponents. Almost small as 1st Viper. No fatness. However headlights could have been smaller. I miss cars like Diablo which had a small front yet a big scary back which will probarly leave you in dust

 

[Bo]

Look to the Mazda 3 for fat car design. I still can't get over how podgy the thing is.

 

[Joel]

Does anyone else think modern "X" is crappy? The "X" from the 60's/70's/80's/90's was so much better! It was more raw, the "X" today is too over the top and dumbed down.

It's because in 2014 you're seeing the modern Camry and Accord type cars everywhere and the only cars people care to remember about from the past were in some way noteworthy. If you compare Pink Floyd and The Beatles to Miley Cyrus and One Direction you'll come away convinced that music was so much better back in the day even though there's tons of modern music that's as good as ever.

Same thing here, compare a Mercury Cougar and Aston DB5 to a Camry and Accord and it's "obvious" that cars from the 60's looked better. Compare them to a modern Jaguar XJ, SRT Viper, Porsche 911, or a Model S and it's not so clearcut. Nobody remembers their Plymouth Scamp or the hundreds of generic wood panel wagons when they talk about how great cars looked in the 60's and 70's.

 

[mustafur]

The only company I know of that has ignored this design trend is Volkswagen and look how badly they have grown in the last few years.

But that would probably down to the fact there cars are just better built then their competition.

 

[Liquid]

Angles, angles, angles!

Concave! Convex!

Pinched headlights that look like eyes with no eyebrows!

I'm a fussy git who won't warm to a new car's looks until it is old. I know this. I prefer the looks of cars that are over 10 years old. In 10 years time, this threshold might have shifted.

But I know this as my own limitation when discussing car design. There are ugly cars in every decade, there are pretty cars in every decade. The ratio of ugly : pretty fluctuates over time. Right now, in my opinion, we're entering cars which look too much like concept cars. This is just my personal taste

I'll have to give this topic some more thought. It's far too easy to wear rose tinted specs.

 

[kikie]

Some cars are ugly, some cars are very good looking.

Retro styling has produced, on occasion, very beautiful cars. Example:

Jaguar Growler.

I consider the Porsche 911 a retro styled car.

 

[Neddo]

I like the fact that people have different opinions and very much respect for this discussion.

IMO that Jaag is quite ugly.

Porsche 911 was a pretty small car til 996 came which was fatish, but not that long. 997 was lower and sexier when it was redesigned. Current 991 looks amazing in Targa.

 

[mustafur]

The porsche 911 is clearly an evolution design just like basically every Volkswagen.

 

[Slash]

@phillkillv2

I was referring to 2014-ish Lexuses. Those you posted are much better.

 

[R5]

The porsche 911 is clearly an evolution design just like basically every Volkswagen.

That isn't really a bad thing.

Look to Aston Martin for proof.

 

[Neddo]

Amazing front...

broing back

 

[Nessy]

Interesting subject. It annoys me when a lot (not all) of car companies design teams, just seem to copy and paste the current design language of the day.. I remember it happening (noticeably) back in the early-mid 00's with those bewinged/finned pod driving lights, housed in the lower front bumper vents (usually chrome...) Nowadays it seems that they're doing the copy paste ugly thing, with overly aggressive grills and headlights.

 

[Neddo]

Spyker hates being repetitive, and that's why people love it

 

[Zenith]

Some cars are ugly, some cars are very good looking.

Retro styling has produced, on occasion, very beautiful cars. Example:

Jaguar Growler.

I consider the Porsche 911 a retro styled car.

How about a car that actually exists?

 

[Neddo]

Koenigsegg uses same shape for like 15 years yet Agera looks so unique. And it haves an aura of feminine and diva personality. It changes the way I feel and that's why I love Koenigsegg

 

[kikie]

How about a car that actually exists?

You again.

The thread title doesn't say that the cars have to be sold or have to be in production. It's all about modern design and the Jaguar Growler concept car is a modern deseign of the Jaguar E-type. BTW, this car exists.

Satisfied?