Terrible Auto Design Trends

Originally Posted by sonick

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Come to think of it, how the hell do these new Lambos adhere to the pedestrian safety bumper regulations? They look like they'll just snap the tibias of any pedestrians they hit.
I get the feeling the low volume of exotic manufacturers and marques exempt them from safety regs. Or it could just be the fact that someone buying a Lambo doesn't give a **** about proletariat protection ratings, plus the fact that odds are if you wreck in a Lambo you'll be way above a safe speed to begin with. The current Acura TL embodies much of what I hate about modern car design Armored truck high belt line Garish incohesive details Slab sides Monster overhang It's ONLY decent angle is its side profile, and even that is just "OK". It def embodies much of the "design elements for design elements' sake" moves that have plagued many modern designs; i.e., BMW's flame surfacing, various manufacturer's "character eye" head & tail lamps, etc. Just an absolute mess. Shame as its a good car otherwise

Originally Posted by zjpj83

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Sort of an extension of the OP, but I don't like bare carbon cars or exposed bare carbon parts. It's trying to hard.

CF is fine for interior trim, engine compartment trim, etc. But not on body panels (IMHO).

Only partially agree with this;

- on the new Ferraris, yes, the bicolore is wack as **** and the black rockers are completely stupid, CF gas flaps are stupid
- the BMW M cars and the carbon roof detail basically invited every ricer under the sun to fake it on their cars with overlays, vinyl CF-effect, or even worse, just painting their roofs flat black or gloss black (to imitate the MB Pano roofs)... this tends to go hand in hand with the aftermarket LED strips

however,
- I think dry carbon sideview mirrors are not so bad, especially on that Zonda, where the motorcycle style stalks are thin and the mirror doesn't show up as much. On a normal colored car, they'd all but disappear in carbon
- bits that are normally done in black unfinished plastic can look nice in CF, ie OEM chin spoilers, rear diffusers, etc.
- Interior CF trim is stupid looking, and serves no purpose
- Engine trim in CF is likewise stupid, and serves no purpose. Engines can look just as nice with a non CF plug wire cover as CF, and when they do the whole head covers in CF it looks ugly (ex. those aftermarket E39 M5 carbon valve covers)

cars in all-carbon; well, I don't think they're that bad if they're the real deal. It's like the Lambo up there, it's exempt from these kinds of rules.

Originally Posted by impolyt_one

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- the BMW M cars and the carbon roof detail basically invited every ricer under the sun to fake it on their cars with overlays, vinyl CF-effect, or even worse, just painting their roofs flat black or gloss black (to imitate the MB Pano roofs)... this tends to go hand in hand with the aftermarket LED strips


I would like to ad white cars with black wheels, black roof and leds her.

Originally Posted by Grey

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Every racing car with paddle shifters has them on the COLUMN, not on the wheel, so they're always in the same place no matter what position the wheel is in.

I understand that generally you're not supposed to be shifting in a corner, you downshift before, but sometimes you'll have to in a decreasing/increasing radius corner.

McLaren MP4-12C has them on the wheel. Personal preference, I guess.

more and more sedans looking like glorified hatch backs with ridiculosly short trunks.

Originally Posted by impolyt_one

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- Interior CF trim is stupid looking, and serves no purpose
I also have never understood the purpose of carbon fiber on the interior as decoration. I saw a new Jag XJ Supercharged with it, and the interior did look nice, but I didn't understand the purpose of the cf.

Cars that keep getting bigger on the outside w/o being bigger on the inside.

Originally Posted by limping_decorum

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more and more sedans looking like glorified hatch backs with ridiculosly short trunks.

don't know about the trunk size but the new BMW 5 GT is a major fail in the looks dept

Originally Posted by NorCal

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Cars that keep getting bigger on the outside w/o being bigger on the inside.
A good example of this is the trunk size on the new Audi A8 which has shrunk significantly from the previous generation. It's 13.2 cubic feet which is tiny compared to MB and BMW which is around 16.

Anything Chris Bangle is terrible design.
Most bimmer owners will agree.

Originally Posted by zjpj83

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McLaren MP4-12C has them on the wheel. Personal preference, I guess.

Formula 1 racecars have them on the wheel, too. Column-mounted shifter paddles are the exception, not the norm.

The MP4-12C's paddle shifters are very clever, with their design derived from their F1 cars: there is a single pivot in the center of a single lever, instead of two separate pivot points for two separate levers. They also have an interesting automatic downshifting mode, where you just hold it down as you brake, and the gearbox keeps shifting down: you don't have to pull the lever for every gear you want to go down.

--Andre

Complex headlight shapes with random scalloped cutaways and counter-curves. I don't know why this trend started, but it's been going on strong for 6-7 years. It also seems that manufacturers like to bungle a car's headlights with these effects in mid-cycle freshening. See Mercedes as an example. Every refreshed Benz is a significantly uglier version of its former self.

The 12C is mercifully straightforward and economical in design compared to a lot of what's out there. All the new Ferraris are seriously ugly to me. Much prefer Lamborghini styling--which I could not have imagined myself thinking 10 years ago.

Originally Posted by mafoofan

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Complex headlight shapes with random scalloped cutaways and counter-curves. I don't know why this trend started, but it's been going on strong for 6-7 years. It also seems that manufacturers like to bungle a car's headlights with these effects in mid-cycle freshening. See Mercedes as an example. Every refreshed Benz is a significantly uglier version of its former self.

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I blame the Porsche 996.

Originally Posted by spencers

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Anything Chris Bangle is terrible design.
Most bimmer owners will agree.

Not really - Chris Bangle designed the E46 3-series and the interior of the E39 5-series, I think, which are still popular. Dumping on him is an easy bandwagon to join, but his design direction resulted in enormous sales for BMW and put them on the map as far as design - only diehard Bimmer fans know who designed most older Bimmers, and only the E24 6-series and E9 CS coupes garnered attention as far as design before then. The Bangle-era cars have had more impact on car design as a whole than anything BMW's ever done.

And as more cars start to resemble/mimic them, they look less alien out on the road.

I think the car designers at Art Center are all sci-fi geeks. Most new cars looks like a space ships to me.