Why do modern cars look angry?
Car design seems to be evolving in only one direction: more agressive cars. I think there's a very good reason for that, and it isn't fashion!
It struck me when the latest Toyota Prius was released, a couple of years ago. The famous hybrid car (and Toyota as a whole it seems) had ditched the plain, non-aggressive style it had been known for and replacing it witha tortured, angry face. Cars are getting more and more aggressive looking, always more overdesigned.
Ooooh I AM SO ANGRY | photo credit: Kārlis Dambrāns (CC-BY 2.0)
So why is that? Especially at a time when nostalgia for the square and minimalist cars of the '80s is at an all-time high, why would car manufacturers, motivated before anything else by car sales and trends, move further and further into over-designed territory?
I think they're doing that for two main reasons.
The first one is aerodynamics. You see, with ever tightening fuel regulations and market pressure towards better fuel economy, aerodynamics has become the first concern when designing a car, because it can have a huge impact on mileage.
And aero dictates that to make a car as slippery as possible, you need to have a round, blob-like front to prevent the airflow from detaching in a messy way. Follow that to the letter and you get a car that looks like the Prius II: a frankly unattractive jelly blob of a car. Efficient, but ugly.
a face only a green-loving Hollywood mother could love
If you look closely to the most recent cars around you, you'll notice that indeed they all follow that rule. Stand right in front of them, and all you see is an overdesigned fascia. Move slowly to the side, and if you try and forget all those design elements, you'll see what shape the car really is. And all of them are nothing but a fat, rounded blob upfront.
Aero is the law; and the law dictates that your car be a blob
So what manufacturers do to try and mask that is add a ton of superficial angles, design cues, fake air intakes (god I hate those), tons of useless LED strips running across the car. As a result, the car looks very angry, but at least it doesn't look like a blob. And it's aero efficient, which matters a lot.
The other reason that pushes car designers to go to the always angry route is, as is often the case, safety regulations. These regs now mandate that the hood has leave some room above the engine to absorb a potential pedestrian being collected by the car. This of course furthers the blob syndrome. And it is not the only piece of safety regulation to do so.
So is there any hope that the always-pissed design them goes away in the future? Well, yes and no. It is a useful trick used by manufacturers, and with ever tightening regulations and aero efficiency concerns, it won't go out of use anytime soon.
However, some manufacturers are starting to embrace the blob and design cars around it with more curves and less useless features. Citroen is doing that with great success lately, with the Cactus and now the rest of the range:
See? See, car manufacturers of the world? A blob doesn't have to be an ugly blob. Give the blob a chance, and let us enjoy less anger and aggressiveness on the roads.
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Comments (31)
It's only shit cars that are over-designed. Alfas and Jags manage to be elegant whilst achieving all of the rest of the requirements.
Unfortunately you don't see these two brands on a daily basis because their habitats are in garages
You might not, I see an Alfa every day from the inside.
The current Prius is an abomination.
Good article.
Thanks!
Hi congratulations - your post has been selected by DriveTribe engineering Ambassador for promotion on the DriveTribe homepage.
Thanks Brandon!
I too was wondering! Shared to the D_TRB USA facebook page.
Thanks Joachim!