Sound Off! Running Out of Ideas or Taking Others' Cues in Car Design

[JohnBM01]

GTPlanet, this is probably my first "Cars in General" thread in 2006, and this one is a response to something I've been seeing a lot of in forums lately. And that is the issue on people apparentely running out of ideas or looking too much like some other car. If a car looks nice, I'll give it its credit no matter what it looks more like. But does it seem that people are running out of ideas or taking cues from others? That's what this Sound Off! is about.

So, what warrants someone to say that car designs look too much like someone else's, and that no one can come up with anything unique? Who's copying who with designing autos? Does this problem really exist among auto designers? Sound off, and let's do this. Let's see how this goes.

 

[xXSilencerXx]

I do believe auto makers copy each other cuz they're to lazy and cheap to come up with something brand new.

 

[Danny]

I think it depends. If a feature looks nice, vague copying (not too much, mind) can be nice.

 

[Joey D]

Korean companies copy other companies all the time.

But there are certian models that scream copcatisms. The Dodge Caliber has a lot of Pontiac Vibe in it (why copy something so crappy as the Vibe?), the Cobalt has some Civic in it, the 300C is nothing more then a cheap looking Bently. I could go on but you get the picture.

 

[Slicks]

While I do recognise that there is a fair amount of cue-taking and downright plagiarism (Korea, China), one must also consider the constrictions of cars nowadays. Between safety regulations saying that a car must have certain things (bumper height, in particular, affects styling), and the simple fact that we've been making cars for over a hundred years, a certain resemblence is to be expected. The most common cars are those from the cheaper end of the price scale, and cheaper cars tend to have to be more conservative, because lets face it: It costs money to make an exotic-looking car. Plus should you make the looks too extreme in either way, you could face losing a share of the market. Naturally, to prevent that, you make your styling slightly conservative. Hence, the general resemblence.

Edit - Another factor is efficiency. Everyone wants an aerodynamic car nowadays, to help with gas mileage. This too limits the design of a car.

 

[skip0110]

Edit - Another factor is efficiency. Everyone wants an aerodynamic car nowadays, to help with gas mileage. This too limits the design of a car.

It could be worse...



I'm surprised (and happy) that automakers had the balls to take blunt-nosed designs like these to production:

 

[niky]

It's all a matter of who's got the balls to take a new direction, and who follows them.

BMW takes a lot of flak for their outrageous design direction, and so do Audi and VW (but that's from me, mostly), but once they'd proven market acceptance, a whole bunch of Koreans and Japanese followed suit.

You can't really run out of ideas, but it's often hard to predict what ideas will work in the market. That's why we have a lot of awkward looking new cars, as designers are trying to find things that fit in with the new body styles. Maybe one in ten will be a hit... and the next body year will see maybe five of the other nine mimicking it.

 

[Wolfe]

I do agree that trends are copied here and there, and that some cars will take entire portions of another car and mix them with parts copied from other cars...

...but I wouldn't say that auto designers are lazy and cheap...they're faced with the dilemma of producing something that is both new and unique, yet also restrained and conservative enough to not scare away buyers. Make something boring and conservative, and people will complain about it. Make something radical and crazy, and people will complain about it.

It's a fine balance, and it isn't nearly as easy as you might think.

 

[YSSMAN]

Mainstream cars were being watered down with every model introduction, but after Chrysler introduced the LX cars, there has been a growing trend (atleast in the US) to make the new models stand out some way.

However, no one will dare to copy Porsche, their designs are theirs alone. Aston Martin is making some of the SEXIEST cars that I have seen since the 1960s, and the same can be said of their Jaguar cousins.

Expensive cars always come with the better looks, so if you dont want an Accord clone, spend $35K on a BMW 325il...

 

[JohnBM01]

So Wolfe... would you say that designing something which looks the same and designing something that looks completely different sort of goes both ways?

I usually want to believe that designing cars is sort of like fashion trends. When one company designs something others want, everyone wants to follow. Why do people want to follow? My best answer is that if one design is hot, others not only want to emulate, but also come up with something to better the initial concept. It's just like video games. You don't hear people talk about games all being the same (many of them, anyways), and I don't think car design is any different. Now, in terms of like, Chinese and Korean makes, neither really stands out. They haven't established themselves for design or anything like that. So you can't say that they aren't really stacking up against the likes of other bigtime companies. So when you can't produce in the design department, sometimes you have to look to other designs. Why? So you can get more experience in designing automobiles. Then, when you think you can make the sharpest-designed car in any class, you go for it. This is almost like asking if it's morally correct to lie.

I don't really care for the issue often times because I don't like thinking that people want to come up with designs that completely look like something else, much like what people say about Aston Martins and stuff. If people really run out of style ideas, what kinds of ideas are they supposed to make? What's actually left for people to try to come up with something completely different or completely unique? Carry on...