Automotive Design - A General Thread

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I wanted to make a thread to discuss design separate from specific vehicles. I think an interesting way to manage this is to create posts around specific topics and then discuss them for a while and then move onto a different topic after a while. Let's see how that goes.

I think topics could be highly specific or more broad, but all should remain focused on design/aesthetics.

A good place to start might be details of cars that people particularly like. There's also details that people particularly dislike, but it's probably better to start this on a positive front.


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For me, I've always loved the roofline of the 350z. The curvature is subtle yet complex at the same time; it appears somewhat differently depending on the angle viewed. I imagine the designers agonized over the exact shape for months. The proportion of the greenhouse to the body is a lot more common now, but was pretty radical when the 350z concept first debuted in 2001. The roofline is basically a carbon copy of that concept. In general, I think the 350z is an exceptional piece of design, and I think it will age better than almost any car of the period.

 

[TexRex]

Styling may be the more appropriate word--over design and/or detailing (the latter of which generally refers to visual upkeep).

 

[CyborgGT]

The 350Z is actually one of my favorite modern bodies. There are little details that, on their own, the 370 did better, but as a whole I agree the 350 has aged very well.

I'm seeing that roofline echoed a bit in the 987 Cayman.

 

[TexRex]

When it's dictated by specific lengths and heights based on 99th percentile adult male and occupancy or packaging requirements, something like a roofline has few logical variations.

 

[CyborgGT]

Maybe. Curves take all sorts of locations and sizes; lengths fore and aft, relations between metal and glass. You can look at a handful of very different looking cars, break them down to their most basic of proportions, and claim they're all identical, if you really want to be monotonous about it.

 

[MedigoFlame]

Sorry for bringing some negative stuff into the thread, but the "in" these days seems to be the floating roof design. Some cars it can work, but there are quite a lot that it doesn't seem to work so well on.

 

[VXR]

Just look at the attempts by Opel in that regard for bad execution.

I mean, what on earth is going on with chrome strip on the Insignia? It reminds me of the railings along a coffin, which is apt for something with the silhouette of a hearse.

 

[MedigoFlame]

Can't help but appreciate pillarless coupes.

Felt refreshing after driving my journalist friend's test car last week, the E400 coupe. Interior felt more airy (despite having the dark grey interior) and the visibility was great! Why can't more coupes be like this....

 

[TexRex]

I was very seriously looking at a few W215 CL 500s a few years ago, but the allure of a "first new car" was just a little too great.

The pillarless coupes look particularly good with all four windows down.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Arghhh...wrong thread...

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

A few things that really grind my gears:

1. How every car made now basically has some variation of this door handle:

They almost always feel crappy to use and they don't look very good. I really miss flush, lift up or pull sideways door handles.

2. How on many new cars the intersection of the A-pillar, front fender/wing and hood looks so bulky.

It is becoming increasingly prevalent and I hate it in almost every circumstance. Lexus managed to exaggerate so much in the LC500 that it looks kinda good. I'm guessing this is all about reinforcing the chassis in this spot as it's a critical area in the small-overlap crash test, but damn does it not look good.

3. (Related to 2) How on many cars the front fender/wing goes up the a-pillar to some degree.

I can't unsee it. I'm not sure what this is for, maybe ease of repair? Ease or simplification of production? Some cars hide it better than others, but I always think it looks bizarre.

4. "Fang" like protrusions in front bumpers:

Maybe this is for aero? Maybe it's just an aesthetic thing? I feel like they kind of peaked around 2016 and are starting to recede again, thank god.

 

[homeforsummer]

1. How every car made now basically has some variation of this door handle

I blame the push for "premium" with that one. Mercedes did it for years, BMW started doing it in the late 90s with cars like the E46, and various other manufacturers have had various takes on it over the years. If they're engineered well (as they were on Mercs and BMWs) they feel fine, but not every company engineers them so well. I can never decide whether I like Porsche's take on it, where the handle is similar but you lift it rather than pull it outward - a little weird at first, though it undoubtedly feels slick and nicely engineered too.

I think I marginally prefer those type of handles to the fancy but nasty pop-out ones JLR uses though, or the slightly fiddly ones on something like a Nissan GT-R where you use your thumb to push one side of the handle in and pull the other side out. Looks cool and keeps the handle flush, but I find it slightly irritating to use:

I tend to prefer the old-style handles with push buttons to unlatch the door. Or the ones on my NA MX-5.

3. (Related to 2) How on many cars the front fender/wing goes up the a-pillar to some degree.

I think this is partly a safety and partly an aero thing. It's a combination of factors, from a high bonnet, a high trailing edge to the bonnet (hiding the wiper arms), high scuttle (with an airbag-filled dashboard behind it, again safety), and the resulting higher front wings that come along when the rest of a car's nose is raised. The frustrating thing is that, like the Lexus you mentioned, designers can work around it - Lexus mainly by emphasising it rather than trying to hide it.

Simply painting the A-pillar black rather than body colour at the right point can offset it, though not everyone is a fan of "floating" roofs either. The Citroen DS3 is a good example of this. It's far from a perfect design but the black A-pillar does at least distract from what would be quite a dramatic, bulky-looking step between the line of the windscreen and the side windows.

 

[7up747]

Seamless design.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I tend to prefer the old-style handles with push buttons to unlatch the door. Or the ones on my NA MX-5.

NAs had awesome door handles. My '94 Civic had a similar handle, but a little larger and easier to use. I loved them. Such a thoughtful and nicely executed design. Not my car, but you get the idea:

I also wonder if the universal adoption of the 'hoop' style door handle has to do with accessibility? They are probably the simplest and require the least amount of motor skills to operate. You could probably open them without a hand more easily than other types.


ROUND 2: INTERIOR

1. Deeply set gauges in 'periscopes'

I don't like the 'looking down a plastic tube' look of a lot of newer (2007ish-present) cars. Thankfully, I think this is beginning to go away? I presume the idea is to limit glare in the absence of a single larger hood, but it just looks so bad.

2. Too much symmetry.

Acura is the worst at this. Why does the passenger need to have a copy of the driver's dashboard without the controls? Be creative!

3. Center stack with too much visual weight. See above (or Tesla). This is a personal thing, but I feel like the interior should be visually weighted to the steering wheel and main cluster with everything else lesser in the hierarchy. This is where I find the particular genius of Lexus designers in the past 5 years.

My favorite center stack, currently:

 

[homeforsummer]

1. Deeply set gauges in 'periscopes'

This one I actually don't agree with, at least not in the example given as I'm a big fan of the CR-Z's cluster. That pic actually shows one thing I quite like about it - the glow inside the "barrel" from the dial itself.

It's very dependent on execution, but I find it a fairly interesting way of segmenting particular instruments, rather than having them all under the same hood. Alfa Romeo was a big proponent of it for a while, though for them it was mainly as a nod to some of their classic cars with similarly hooded dials. The 156 featured a sunken speedo and tacho, as well as sunken minor gauges on the centre stack:

However, it does have to be a design feature rather than just for the sake of it. The old Mercedes E-class (and probably a few other Mercs) had three sunken dials... but all inside an otherwise regular cluster.

In that instance, it just looks a bit cheap.

 

[cdubbbs]

I always liked the BMW "Hofmeister kink"

The BMW E30 is one of my favorite designs. These were considered new when I was very young and right about the time that I started to like cars. My bias is strong as an owner as well.

 

[MedigoFlame]

I feel like if a manufacturer is going to go "wild" with doing the split headlights, they should go all out on the design like the Citroen C4 Cactus. Something about it I just love.

I am a little sad they took away the air bumps on the facelifted Cactus.

But then...it doesn't quite work with cars like the pre-facelift Jeep Cherokee.

Or the Nissan Juke.

And the Hyundai Kona.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I never know which pair of lights to look at as "the headlights". I know functionally, it's the lower ones, but aesthetically, is it supposed to be the top ones? If you squint you can kind of image the cars without one pair...and that makes it even weirder. These designers are really giving it there all to craft the atrocious proportions of CUVs into something people actually pay money for.

I have a soft spot for the Juke. I don't know why.

 

[homeforsummer]

Yeah, I quite like the Juke too. Helps that they're decent fun to drive, but aesthetically I've never had a problem with it. I've said it before, but I sometimes thing people who make it out to be the most hideous thing they've ever seen must have a few wires crossed somewhere; humans have a remarkable ability to get used to stuff and simply not notice it any more, so anyone claiming they're appalled every time they see a Juke is either massively exaggerating because internet, or there's something wrong with them upstairs which prevents familiar everyday things from ceasing to provoke any emotion.

Don't get me wrong, I can't see it becoming a design classic, but I also can't fathom the kind of persistent ire it generates eight full years after going on sale. But then the shock value of the Aztek or Multipla has long worn off too and people still seem to overreact massively to those also.

 

[MatskiMonk]

because internet,

You won't believe the car designs that caused this girl in your area to throw up in her mouth a little!

Just my two cents worth, but... Stating an exaggerated opinion used to be done for effect, something like Clarkson on old new Top Gear.. which was funny, in moderation. These days I sense binary opinions are simply more click/like worthy. Furthermore, people seem to cling on to these opinions for much longer than is necessary, I think partly due to the plethora of opinions we're exposed to these days, it only takes about 6 hours for peoples binary opinions to merge into one homogeneous, trite, predictable response - which becomes their default response, rather than an emotional one. This has become true of so many things, not just cars.

/Idle Tuesday lazyrant

 

[VXR]

I'm a big fan of the Kona, especially in that hue. Also a fan of the Kia Stonic sister model in yellow.

 

[Aerocoupe]

When it comes to interior design, I really like what Buick was doing in the early 90s with the dashboard flowing into the doors.

It helps give the interior a more unified appearance as opposed to the usual door/dash/door separation:

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Just my two cents worth, but... Stating an exaggerated opinion used to be done for effect, something like Clarkson on old new Top Gear.. which was funny, in moderation. These days I sense binary opinions are simply more click/like worthy. Furthermore, people seem to cling on to these opinions for much longer than is necessary, I think partly due to the plethora of opinions we're exposed to these days, it only takes about 6 hours for peoples binary opinions to merge into one homogeneous, trite, predictable response - which becomes their default response, rather than an emotional one. This has become true of so many things, not just cars.

Clarkson could do it, effectively, because he was genuinely witty and insightful, even if not exactly factual...he was trying to convey the essence of the truth. Every time I accidentally click on a video review by "every day driver" on youtube, I find myself grimacing constantly at their terrible, overwrought, Clarksonian metaphors and hyperbole. The internet rewards extreme positions and marginalizes moderation, unfortunately.

 

[homeforsummer]

Clarkson could do it, effectively, because he was genuinely witty and insightful, even if not exactly factual...he was trying to convey the essence of the truth. Every time I accidentally click on a video review by "every day driver" on youtube, I find myself grimacing constantly at their terrible, overwrought, Clarksonian metaphors and hyperbole. The internet rewards extreme positions and marginalizes moderation, unfortunately.

I'm still slightly unsure of the appeal of Regular Car Reviews too. Wikipedia-sourced facts interspersed with sex and fart jokes, pseudo-intellectual social commentary virtually unrelated to the car in question, and an inability to drive anyone's manual-transmission car without graunching the gears at least once per video, seems like an odd thing to have developed such a massive following.

I'm a big fan of the Kona, especially in that hue. Also a fan of the Kia Stonic sister model in yellow.

I can't get on with the Stonic or Kona. They're not unattractive, but they do seem a bit formulaic. It's difficult to really experiment with a two-box compact crossover I guess - you can play around with a detail or two but otherwise there's only really one way of doing things given the limitations of the size and drivetrains.

 

[Tornado]

I think the Kona would look great if the fake headlights sat a little lower and were indexed off of the main grill instead of that horrid Celica second grill.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

One trend that I've been noticing more and more manufacturers doing lately is pulling the shut line of the hood further and further back from the front of the vehicle. I'm almost certain this is a cost-cutting measure as it simplifies the hood component while (probably) not making the front fascia any more difficult to make than it already was (Front fascia is injected-molded plastic on most cars I'm guessing, as opposed to steel or aluminum hoods). Then there is the QC process and getting tolerances to work might be easier without the hood being at the front edge of the car. I also suspect there is some amount of crash-repair complexity removed by doing this. Whatever the reason, I strongly dislike it and I think it's pretty sad to see "premium" car makers like BMW going down this route. It looks cheap, and it looks bad.

BMW E46 (what a great design this was, as an aside. One of BMW's best efforts, IMO)

Very complex hood assembly that actually incorporates the kidney grills.

BMW E90/92:

Less complex, but at least the shutline is still at the front of the car, right at the top of the kidney grills.

BMW F30:

By this point, it's gone full inboard and it's not pleasant. It looks like a mistake, especially how it intersects the headlight at a weird spot/angle.

Admittedly, the new G30 3 series seems to have reverted back to the E92 method:

So I hope that other manufacturers improve in this area (Looking at you Mazda!)

I think one consequence of the last decade of super-busy automotive design has been a lack of nicely resolved details. I'm not sure whether the whole design budget gets blown on making very expressive designs or management doesn't think that average customers will notice, or some combination of those, but things start to look a little weird if you look too close.

 

[MaxAttack]

I'm still slightly unsure of the appeal of Regular Car Reviews too. Wikipedia-sourced facts interspersed with sex and fart jokes, pseudo-intellectual social commentary virtually unrelated to the car in question, and an inability to drive anyone's manual-transmission car without graunching the gears at least once per video,

RCR, in my view, is better seen as a channel about literary theory, culture and society through the lens of automobiles, something everyone is connected to; a unifying factor, that we all have, and yet a dividing factor, as we all have different cars for different reasons.

Car facts, history, anecdotes and "reviewing" are just mediums Brian uses to talk about wider subjects, 9/10 times being literature.

EDIT: Considering he has a literary degree "pseudo-philosophical" seems a tad harsh.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

literary theory, culture and society through the lens of automobiles

Sure, I guess. But that concept is
A: Insane.
B: Probably lost on 98% of RCR viewership.

 

[homeforsummer]

RCR, in my view, is better seen as a channel about literary theory, culture and society through the lens of automobiles, something everyone is connected to; a unifying factor, that we all have, and yet a dividing factor, as we all have different cars for different reasons.

Car facts, history, anecdotes and "reviewing" are just mediums Brian uses to talk about wider subjects, 9/10 times being literature.

EDIT: Considering he has a literary degree "pseudo-philosophical" seems a tad harsh.

I actually said "pseudo-intellectual", but I take your point. It's more a culture review than a car review.

I'm sure the guy is smart, but I'm not sure it's a) relevant to the content or b) actually entertaining. I suspect the proportion of viewers staying for the intellectualism compared to the proportion that stay for masturbation jokes and fart noises is probably fairly small. I can't imagine many stay to actually be informed about a car, because the rest of the internet sure as hell does that part better.

 

[Aerocoupe]

I actually said "pseudo-intellectual", but I take your point. It's more a culture review than a car review.

I'm sure the guy is smart, but I'm not sure it's a) relevant to the content or b) actually entertaining. I suspect the proportion of viewers staying for the intellectualism compared to the proportion that stay for masturbation jokes and fart noises is probably fairly small. I can't imagine many stay to actually be informed about a car, because the rest of the internet sure as hell does that part better.

I stopped watching them around the Stealth and Camaro IROC-Z reviews. The Stealth in particular since the owner was in the comments saying how all of what he told RCR was glossed over in favor of whatever surface level research he did, and the IROC mostly came down to the cliche "hurr durr trailer trash and mullets".

If you want a good example of how poor RCR's research is, watch the Celica GT-Four video. It was edited two or three times to fix factual errors, and the inserted voice clips make the whole video a mess to listen to .