Why Cars are Getting Uglier

cars are getting uglier the bmw xm the bmw ix the bmw m3 the bmw m4 the bmw x7 and the bmw 2 series are fine examples of how bad car design is at the moment all jokes aside bmw aren't the only culprits look at the last generation of the civic type r it seems needlessly over designed and over complicated and don't even get me started on the nissan juke there has to be a reason for it though um am i wrong are we all wrong beauty is in the eye of the beholder apparently cars like the jaguar e-type and the lamborghini miura are considered by many to be two of the most beautiful cars ever built whereas stuff like the pt cruiser and the fiat multiplayer are resigned to a lifetime of brown paper bags and shame multiplayer is kind of so bad it's good i don't know but both chrysler and fit probably thought they were designing something innovative and appealing but unfortunately just because your grandma calls you a handsome boy doesn't mean you are however that got me thinking what actually makes a car ugly yes it comes down to taste but there must be specific design elements that make us decide something is good looking or bad looking now look i know how to draw a car but i'm definitely no car designer so we thought we'd speak to someone a bit more qualified and with a lot more experience in this field first of all i'd like to say what i consider to be beautiful beautiful in product design transportation design mobility design has to do i would say 99.9 with proportions followed by a 0.1 percent of a mixture of different things for example flowing lines that make sense surfacing that we would call entertaining not bland not boring frank stevenson cv includes a long list of incredible car designs including the escort cosworth the original bmw x5 the maserati mt12 ferrari f430 the mclaren 720s the p1 loads of others and all of these cars are what i would consider to be great looking i mean the p1 that's my favorite the proportions of that sometimes it's easy to look at something and think it's ugly without really knowing why you feel that way unless of course you're looking at the bmw xm which is better off looked at after a few beers and from a very very long way away there are huge problems with the proportions of this vehicle has an extremely short front overhang in other words the distance between the front axle to the front of the car as opposed to the rear axle to the rear of the car it looks very very unbalanced almost bottom heavy or rear heavy uh not a good thing when you're designing a moving object that needs to look almost like it's tugging at the leash much more dynamic moving products should look like they're moving and not static the second problem i see with it it's a very incohesive design it almost gives me the feeling that many many designers were working on this one product none of them were very friendly with each other or very talkative to each other and there was probably a type of miscommunication between what was going on in different areas of the car so that not a lot of the car lines up with the rest of the car it's a bit of a a mishmash of different design themes different angles i wouldn't call it ugly but i would call it bizarre grotesqueness whatever you want to call that because of the exaggerated features on this on this car on this design see it's not just me a few years ago bmw updated the seven series with a set of colossal kidney grills which resulted in people poking a bit of fun at the luxury soon's big snorters there were endless memes predicting how far the grill size increase will go and surely there must have been a good reason behind the decision right adrian van hoydonk bmw's design chief claimed there are a few reasons for the drastic change one being that there was some criticism that the entire bmw range looked a bit samey they wanted to clearly set the luxury 7 series apart from the smaller 5 series and that is understandable but why go crazy on the grills it wasn't necessary on the previous model so i don't really see why it was here then the other reason they cited was china it's the biggest market for the 7 series and whether you like it or not the customer usually has the final say it's a bit like the sad state of manual gearboxes now yes many of us hardcore car lovers would prefer it but if people aren't actually buying it then there isn't much reason to offer it as an option van hoy don't claim that european customers prefer subtlety in to fly under the radar they don't want to be noticed or asked what their car is worth whereas it's different in other places in the world where a car is used as more of a status symbol if you look at the rolls royce's huge pantheon inspired front grille it's a bold piece of design that is now a real statement of wealth and success across the globe both audi and mercedes have had hefty front grills for some time and bmw wanted a slice of that action when we say that money talks let me show you what i mean the chinese car market has grown an astonishing amount in recent years in 2010 bmw sold just 62 000 cars but by 2020 that number was up over 600 000 and the story is the same with both audi and mercedes which showed similar numbers in the same year and to put that all into perspective it's around double the figures that bmw audi and mercedes sold in the us given those numbers it's easy to see why the car makers want to appeal to the chinese market however where this all falls down is that that isn't an excuse for the bmw m3 and m4s controversial grill design which if you look at those models china makes up less than six percent of their sales the reason for that angry birds pig front end was actually performance related the radiator had to be pushed all the way up to the front in order to improve cooling something donut media made a great video about you should watch fortunately some companies in the aftermarket have been working on ways to improve the look of the front end so you can swap it out if you like and clearly that shows the demand for it as with any type of styling whether it's cars fashion or even tech there will always be trends for example the 80s is famous for big hair bigger phones neon colors and boxy car design by the time the 2000s rolled around the cars were slicker and rounder taste changes and designs become dated having a mullet might have been cool in 1986 but if you've got one now you might get some funny looks and the other thing about trends is that they seem to work in cycles which brings us on to the sticky subject of nostalgia let's throw things back to 2004. you're still a kid you've got home from school and you load up the ps2 you whack in need for speed underground two in the disk drive and life is pretty damn good that was like one of the greatest games you should have should have seen my course on there it was like underglow body kit pink like candy paint big wing anyway it was good now if you're an adult with responsibilities and stuff if you load up that same game and let the memories hit you you'll be happy for a bit but eventually that'll fade as you come to the realization that it's almost 20 years old and it certainly feels like it and i know it's painful but it's true and we do exactly the same thing with cars for example we look back in aura 80s car design because of stuff like the testarossa and the contact but forget abominations like the ferrari mondial and the aston martin lagonda not only do trends change styling but technology does too electric cars are having a huge effect on car design at the moment electric cars are still somewhat like normal cars to us they just have silly names and have green and blue trim everywhere why do they do that losing the combustion engine means that there are a variety of styling cues that just aren't necessary anymore and if they are there so that we don't recoil and horror when the car is revealed tesla's model s originally had a big fake front grill to make it resemble a regular saloon but modern versions have done away with it all together because it's just not necessary unfortunately though it seems like some manufacturers bmw disregarding their whole design language all together making each model look completely different from the next in in a really weird way so we've heard from an expert and frank stevenson about how these cars are being designed ugly so there is a reason behind our madness when we see these monstrosities revealed however it is worth noting that not all new cars are pig ugly monsters there are still some good examples of quality car design the new mercedes sl is really good looking and the current alpha julia that's another level then you've got more extreme designs like the aston martin valkyrie which looks unlike any road going hyper car we've seen before so maybe there's still hope yet some designs age like fine wine and some really don't if you look at the chris bangle era of bmws the five series and the six series they were ridiculed over 15 years ago but are now considered to be quite iconic designs so with this new craze are we just behind the times probably when people say we're we don't get it or uh we're fashioned or we're not with the times or we're not moving forward i don't agree beauty is eternal ugly is ugly that's just the way it is and beauty lasts forever again this stuff is all quite subjective and what i think looks great you might think looks awful unless of course we're talking about the bmw xm which nobody likes thank you so much to frank stephenson for coming on the show you should really check out his channel it's awesome thank you very much for watching you should check out this other video about bmw's colour changing car and we'll catch you in the next one

Channel: OVERDRIVE

Views: 1,411,942

Keywords: Driven Media, Driver61, Scott Mansell, Automotive, Cars, Car Media, Driven, Driving, Racing, Frank Stephenson, Car Design, BMW XM, BMW M3, BMW M4, Alfa Romeo, Design, Car, car trends

Id: 48WsRAgZiqA

Length: 8min 56sec (536 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 12 2022