Defending an icon ?

What do we see in the new LandRover Defender? Lot’s of trademark McG-isms …random grilles; chunky metallic-look front and rear vallance plates; even bigger pens used to define edges; headlights that look like they can see round corners from their massive chamfers. And a few new touches like that blanked-out side window. I guess a purchase price of a mere £44k+ means that saving glass is important. Nevertheless it looks like a LandRover, it will overcome contours and anything else in its way like a LandRover, so thumbs up….it IS a real Land Rover. Nice one. “Tough but approachable”, they say in the press blurb. Is that you or the car, Gerry ?

Honda Civic

Honda has always prided itself on being at the cutting edge of design.

The modern Civic certainly has the edges. But it’s the misproportions that dominate. These designers have used their entire cupboard-full of shapes, contours, grilles, bumps, and references…all on one car! And none of them fit together. Try switching the design studio lights on before signing off on the shape next time, guys

Merc CLS 2010-2018

Beautiful or what ? those smooth curves of window-lines and roof; feline light clusters, star-spoke wheels under bulging arches. Who cares that underneath it is a bog-standard E-class ? And with an AMG-honed V6 it goes like a leopard too. An all-time favourite. Oh ….and I own one. No bias, obviously.

Rover 800

King Harold of Musgrove anointed this as the most beautiful of cars at its launch.

He also said that if customers didn’t see things the same way, and didn’t purchase one, they were very much in the wrong. Interesting marketing strategy. This car is a clear example of design-by-ruler. Clean, but slightly misshaped, perhaps due to the japanese-imposed width restriction; quite a handicap for a car made for portly executives. The subsequent cost-constrained facelift involved sticking on a Rover grille, smoothing off a few edges, and adding a coupe and an SD1-homage fastback. The death knell was probably when Margaret Thatcher decided £19k was too much for a Rover, and she and Dennis could have a Jaaaaag for a similar price

Modern Mazdas vs Citroens

Why do Mazda insist on marketing their cars as something ethereal called Jinba Ittai (a sense of oneness between car and driver ) that taps into strange oriental spiritual vibes ? Face it, chaps, your cars are quite ordinary, a bit bulbous, mid-market at best, even with Skyhook suspension. Apart from the engineering cul-de-sac of those zany rotary-engined gas-guzzling maintenance-intensive coupes that is.   Has anyone ever said “I’ve gotta get a Mazda, then I’ll have real status and life-satisfaction” ?

If you want to know what out of the ordinary looks like, then peruse the Citroen back-catalogue….

The C6. Concave rear window. Additional internal glass partition behind the back seats. Unique squashed buttock effect at the tail to avoid length penalties on ferries, due to gargantuan front overhang that beggars belief.

A 21^st century DS19 they thought. Including the complexity and generous interpretation of “reliability”.    

Let’s give PSA credit, though. They developed the DS5 as a successor. Just as many idiosyncrasies on a saner platform creating its own niche as a sports-hatch-exec-tourer.  Or when it started off as a concept car …the “Sport-Lounge”. Fabulous.

Ford Fusion (2002)

I once hired a Ford Fusion to transport me and a colleague between Milan and Turin. I have rarely been more embarrassed, amongst the racy Alfas, battered Fiats pretending to be on the San Remo rally, and occasional cool Lancia. The Fusion is…

(i) The ugliest, tinniest car ever inflicted on unsuspecting middle-aged couples wooed into a bargain by their local Ford dealer needing to offload the stock before month -end

(ii) Gutless, plasticky, bone-shaking, noisy, ill-conceived transportation for hat-wearing style-averse aficionados of bland

Ford marketed the Fusion as an ‘Urban Activity Vehicle’; the Fusion tag is their attempt to cover up the lack of clarity in what it actually is, being neither small hatchback, MPV or SUV. Wierdly it lasted 10 years, and sold in 50 countries. There must be a lot of car-hating poorly-sighted tall people out there, and some brilliant Ford salesman.

Lexi

When Toyota decided that they would always miss out on selling cars to the (even) larger Americans with fatter wallets with the Toyota brand name, they cunningly purloined an untainted word, and new car brand; Lexus. What does this mean ? “not cheapo-Japanese Toyota”, “aspirational chic modern”. Actually it means “man’s defender” in Greek. Moving on….

So the LS400 luxo-barge was born.

Now that market is swamped, and “Japanese” has lost those 1960’s connotations, Toyota have to change tack. Ah Ha – We need to tap into our unique cultural heritage and get into origami-for-grown-ups. Scything lines – yes !, jagged angles – you bet !, disrupted surfaces – of course !. The result is spectacular mix of jerky styling touches, acute “ticks”, and that grotesque “I’m a fish who has swallowed a house roof“ front end. Whatever type of stimulant these people are on (just coffee of course), I want some; it will keep me twitching for 48hours solid though, just like those designers.

At least these Lexi NX and RX cars are impossible to not notice, even if they ran out of inspiration when it came to their names.     

Japanese Yoof-wagons

Not everyone can afford a big blingy mid-upper scale SUV man-defender. So how do you lure the 18-24 yr old future TechCo MediaVlogger KoolKidz segment onto the car-owning ladder ?

You start with a cheap hatchback chassis, jack it up to SUV height, add metal bulges, wondrously odd light cluster shapes in random locations, and a smattering of shiny bits. Then you SHRINK the interior to reinforce the point that you are YOUNG and definitely NOT A FAMILY PERSON. Voila, the Nissan Juke and Honda CH-R

Why Why Why ?

Because they sell, in their thousands. At least they did. Fortunately their time has passed as sales decline. Shame. Not.  

VW line-fest

What is the VW designers’ core tool ? A ruler, to draw all those straight lines. It’s the antidote to the obsession with the deep contour profiling that the latest metal superforming manufacturing machines can achieve. Everyone can do that, so the inmates of the largest car company in the world (up to 2018 that is) rediscovered their old Helix drawing sets, and got their rulers out.

Polos and Fabias had begun to look too ordinary, so the answer had to be more lines. Everywhere, especially horizontally, to emphasise that they are not small hatchbacks, but racy low slung sporty beasts that happen to be really good at transporting 4.5 people and/or the monthly Lidaldi load home presumably.

Lines aren’t all bad. Look at the current Skoda Superb. Just the right balance of straight and gently curved, with a crisp finish. Superb in name; superb in appearance. Jozef Kaban I salute you. No wonder BMW have kidnapped him to be their new Design chief.

Different  – because we can

Car Designers always want to stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately they have a compulsion to be Different, for the sake of it. I bring you these two fine examples…

Volvo XC40. If you are going to major on the dreaded crossover-SUV “I’m a hip-surfer-dude, not-an-accountant” market, this is how to do it. A fine car. But guys, why the plethora of different shapes ? that kicked up rear quarter ? that dent in the lower door panels ? the irregular grey plastic down below ? The overall shape is fine; just stop tinkering.

Volvo XC40. If you are going to major on the dreaded crossover-SUV “I’m a hip-surfer-dude, not-an-accountant” market, this is how to do it. A fine car. But guys, why the plethora of different shapes ? that kicked up rear quarter ? that dent in the lower door panels ? the irregular grey plastic down below ? The overall shape is fine; just stop tinkering.

Or perhaps the Citroen C3 AirCross. What is an aircross  ? (A Red Arrows manoeuvre ? a religious sign of blessing ?….). In terms of car design, it is:

• an explosion of red splodges on mirrors, roof rails, interior surfaces, light surrounds, and wheel hubs
• a front bumper that looks like it came from a dodgem car
• squared-off wheel arches and lights and assorted, mainly false,  grilles
• fussy bright-look cloverleaf alloy wheels attempting to hark back to past Alfa Romeos

At least you don’t have to suffer the ugly squidgy plastic door protectors they put on other models

Car designers of the world – trust your artistic instincts. A beautiful shape doesn’t have to be compromised in the search for a new angle or a difference.  

Range Rover Evoque

A Gerry McGovern special. Gerry, please get some smaller pens. Every line and suage and feature is overstated, and a bit too big, apart from the rear quarters and back window. I know it’s macho to raise the belt line, but the idea of having glass is to actually see out of the car. I guess metal is cheaper than glass.

Plastic, even chrome-effect plastic is even cheaper. So that’s why there are so many blingy bits, Grills (real and fake), slots, undertrays (all fake). There is no need, Gerry. The overall shape is iconic and unique. Keep it clean

Oh Ok, JLR have convinced the buying public that they should pay £x000 more if it does have all that “style”. Hmmmmm

Land Rover Discovery 5

Now, Gerry, which spectacles did you have on when you signed this off ? Those distorting ones, I reckon. That bulbous front end, which would frighten other road users out of the way, but abaft of the C pillar, it looks like its cheeks are squeezed in, and the metal has to go somewhere ie upwards. Too narrow, too tall. And the roof actually slips down rearwards too. Ungainly or what ? A brute. “I’m a heavy car so I’m damn well going to look like it.”

Now, Gerry, which spectacles did you have on when you signed this off ? Those distorting ones, I reckon. That bulbous front end, which would frighten other road users out of the way, but abaft of the C pillar, it looks like its cheeks are squeezed in, and the metal has to go somewhere ie upwards. Too narrow, too tall. And the roof actually slips down rearwards too. Ungainly or what ? A brute. “I’m a heavy car so I’m damn well going to look like it.”

And the rear number plate is squiffy. Baffling. OK so it is homage to previous generations. Leave it. Move on.

Land Rover Discovery Sport

Now that’s how to do it, Gerry. It’s a capable off-roader…but isn’t trying hard to be rufty tufty. No extra shiny bits; beautiful C-pillar blending in to pert rear end. I fear the 2019 version has caught the “Grrrrr. I’m going to squash you with my massive front end”. Also those shares in the black plastic mines need bolstering, so lets add some more blank grills. Ah well. Sometimes the original is best.

Talking of C pillars….

Austin Montego

Just look at it. Oh dear the waist line doesn’t match up to the boot level. Never mind; let’s have a lop-sided C-pillar and call it a feature. If we make all the window surrounds black, maybe people won’t notice them.

And what about the waistline ? About 4” of plastic between window and lower door. Why ? Because someone decided to put a concave channel in there, meaning the windows had to be a long way inboard. Flush glazing ? Never heard of it.

As it was said at the time, “A car designed by a committee that never met “. So true

Mind you, one of my favourite care was its sister model, the MG Maestro. Not the one with the non-functioning digital dashboard, but the 2-litre injection rorty one. Competed with a BMW 3 series of the time on a “race” in the Scottish hills. No contest.  

Vauxhall Signum

A large hatchback before such cars were a thing. As it was said“Quite a good answer to a question that nobody asked”. They didn’t buy them either.

Whatever happened to Vauxhall? Decades of not-quite-as-good-as Ford, a few decent efforts (latest Insignia and Astra – crisp, some style, mildly aspirational), and now enveloped by PSA. That man Carlos Tavares usually knows what he is doing, so there is hope.

 Kai C’eed…or any other modern Kia

We are a cheapo Korean car maker, We want to grow to be a world player, and distinctive brand, so let’s hire the best people, particularly designers. Where should we look ?

Which car company has had consistently the most design-based success, with clear…if Russian doll…brand recognition ? “That’s an Audi; don’t know which one, but who cares ? I am a successful person, blending Bauhaus cool with Germanic efficiency”.  Step forward Peter Schreyer. This man is a genius. All his cars are neat, stylish, recognisable, with just enough pizzaz for markets where they are seduced by that sort of thing (ie all of them). C’eed is the best, because it is a bog-standard hatchback, not an OTT SUV, or crossover lifestyle-enhancing middle-aged crisis vehicle.

Mini

Not the original one; form-dictated-by-function. I imagine Alec Issigonis in his shed sketching this out around the engine, people, wheels orientation he had decided on. Crash-worthiness ? HaHa. Joyous ? You bet. Profitable for BL ? Never. They were still cobbling them together at Longbridge in the 90s. Roughly. Something to do with tooling that belonged in a museum, and no money for new models.

No, I mean the 2001 Frank Stephenson work of art. True to the heritage without being a pastiche. Instantly recognisable as a new mini. I persuaded my wife to swap her VW Golf ( JC is correct, it’s all the car you’ll ever need ) for a silver Cooper S. Lovely car. Just so right from every angle. Every mile a smile. Until the bone shaking from that insanely solid suspension over our cul-de-sac’s sleeping policemen became too much. Now she has an Audi A3.

Unfortunately successive generations have dissipated the style, seemingly by attaching a powerful air pump to the exhaust and blowing hard so that every dimension and feature is enlarged. Except for the 5-door one, where they have squeezed the sides and the air has had to expand backwards, making it a bit too long. And they still call it a Mini. At least it is not trying to be an overgrown tonka toy like big brother Countryman. “Let’s make the biggest Mini we can; load it up with odd shapes (headlights), false grilles (everywhere), flashing lights (around the oversized retro instrument binnacle); Kerrrching; £30k+ every time.” A big car pretending to be a small one. Size isn’t everything.