car design thread

Beyond the self-evident "why?", there are no uglier lights than those of the 370Z. Makes you wonder if maybe the customizer was trying to secretly get revenge on the owner of the E-Type...

 

Perhaps. But also look at it the other way: instead of the lights making the E-Type look better, maybe the E-Type makes the lights look better.

 

That HAS to be a photoshop.... awful.

 

I would MUCH rather see these on the streets than pretty much any flavor of Prius or Leaf!

 

The front end is a bit overdone, and I really am not a fan of crossovers, but otherwise it looks pretty good. Nice lines (for a crossover) without 27 zig zags running down its sides.

 

They really don't know where they are going, do they? They keep making the same shape and putting different lines on it, thinking that makes it something new and different. There appears to be a very strange section through those double wheel arches, quite round.

 

That weird grill surround makes me think of the overdone plastic bits I used to see on cars from French manufacturers while living in the UK. Did Audi recently appoint an exterior designer who used to work for Renault or Citroën?

All the best,
Andrew.

 

Could someone please photoshop the grill surrounds to body color? I'm curious to see if that might result in an improvement.

 

I think the profile and rear end are quite nice. The front end is pretty busy, though, and I don't love the grid inside the grille. Getting back to that rear end, though, man, that is very evocative of '60s / '70s design and I'm really digging it. I'm sure part of that is the color combo, but still.

 

Yeah, the top half is still good, but the bottom half is overtaking it and just not wonderful. The rest of the car's shape continues to feel nicely muscular and aggressive.

 

Right. Looks like some Bertone shoe car from the early 80s. Contrast of the grille surround is not (very) jarring with that gold, but will be with a black car while it will be lost on a silver car.

Note how the BMW and Audi grille designs are evolving towards the same shape with the only difference being that the grille is split on the BMW.

 

The extent of their creativity is having every single opening or cut-out on the front having beveled corners resulting in six or eight-sided geometry which really messed up the graphics at the front.

Side profile is not better with the rear fender hump (don't remember any Bimmer with this ever-- maybe X4) completely misaligned with quarter window kink.

 

Yeah, but at least it has some random zig-zags on the sides. Should sell well.

 

Here's an old one I never quite understood. The way the whole back of the body appears to tip uo aft of the rear doors always made me thing there was some sort of alignment/welding screw up on the assembly line.

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Oh, it'll sell well for sure...separate issue from whether or not it's a step forward or back, design-wise

 

Funny...I always thought that was a nice differentiating design feature

 

I remember at the time, "Road & Track" saying that the AR design crew doing the front 3/4 of the car then going home for dinner... the janitor put down his broom and finished it up that night.

 

Someone dictated it be different from the standard follow through of the lines. Would be interesting to know what all the other rejected proposals are because it is hard to believe that this was the best of all the available proposals.

A case where "different" does not make it better.

 

I think I might have figured out BMW's design inspiration...

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All the best,
Andrew.

 

Kind of reminds me a lot of the new Mazda concepts. Very nice. Wonder how they will handle headlights. Maybe pop ups??