Why cars are getting UGLIER

ago I was sitting at a stoplight and there were two cars in front of me a brand new large SUV and right next to it a station wagon from the 90s I think it was a Volvo or something I realized in that moment that these two cars are essentially supposed to be the same Vehicles serving the same purposes just from different eras and yet these two vehicles couldn't be more different not just in size and shape but also in style and overall design language the old station wagon was unassuming refreshingly simple in terms of design

it exuded the correct energy for what it was you know a simple vehicle with little pretension the SUV on the other hand was garish overly massive the design felt both stale and Bland and corporate while also trying to be something it isn't you know lots of lines and slits and bits of aggression I was reminded that we've lost something in terms of automotive design even when comparing new vehicles to boxy supposedly ugly old cars from one of the worst in terms of design and styling I mean the 9s cars they have a tiny fraction of

the style of the cars that came before them and still they look fantastic compared to Modern cars today we're going to look at exactly why this is the case and how we got to this point where cars are truly getting uglier now before we get too far into the video I'm really excited to share this sponsor with you guys which is Grant Stone this is one of the coolest Brands I've ever worked with I've been a huge fan of this company for a long time they make makes super high quality Goodyear weled boots and shoes

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to check out Grant Stone stuff they've got multiple different styles of boots but also dress shoes and loafers lots of really cool stuff and the quality is just unmatched this is stuff that you can buy and really keep for a really long time and even though this kind of stuff is expensive you actually will save money in the long run versus buying stuff every year or so so check him out and big thanks to grantstone for sponsoring this video now let's look briefly at the history of automotive design and style the very first automobiles like

the 1886 Benz patent motor wagon and you know all the way into the teens cars were PR primarily functional machines style was really secondary with exposed mechanical components and wagon-like bodies though it was quite cool and unique to own a car at this time they weren't really statements about one's own personal style and so the cars themselves were not exactly stylish however as mass production emerged with Ford's Model T standardization became necessary and Aesthetics began evolving to attract buyers in a growing competitive market advances in aerodynamics in the 1930s and inspired mainly by aircraft design

but also racing really revolutionized Automotive Aesthetics Vehicles like the Chrysler airflow prioritized Sleek lines to reduce drag Paving the way for curvier and just more cohesive designs but it's really in the postwar boom of the 1950s that cars became symbols of optimism and progress American automakers embraced flamboyant styles with chrome accents and fins like the one on this 1959 Cadillac El Dorado and also just vibrant color palettes cars from this time really you know the ' 50s and into the early' 60s and then through the' 60s they were just amazing in terms of style European

cars of the era such as the jaguar xk120 or the Mercedes-Benz 300sl and oh man the Jaguar e type and the C and D type that came before it these cars Blended elegance and performance and they really defined sporting but also luxury the 1960s introduced a more strained approach to design emphasizing clean lines and proportion and this is really for me personally the best period for automotive design it was at this time that we got iconic designs like that of the Ford Mustang and the Lamborghini Mira there was just this sense of both Beauty and

performance in the way that cars were styled one of the things to note about 60s Automotive styling is the variety there was so much variety and so much Regional identity in the cars that were produced you could get yourself a little European or British sports car and it would have its own unique look or you could pick up a significantly larger more garish you know American sedan or muscle car or truck and everything looked so different however the 1970s oil crisis really forced automakers to rethink their priorities efficiency but also safety started taking precedence over

Aesthetics leading to boxier designs plastic bumpers and safety features like crash zones became ubiquitous but these regulations didn't always jive with what designers wanted in fact they clashed with the kind of artistry that was there in those earlier decades now the 1980s saw automakers returning to aerodynamics but now paired with computer AED design one of the things that always appealed to me about the cars and motorcycles of the 60s is that you can tell they were designed by Brilliant Minds whose main tool was a pencil and a paper you know the iconic big Healey for

example was sketched out in an evening by a guy who wasn't even really a designer and of the big things at this time is that many of the Great designers were really more Engineers than anything else but you look at the lines of even my little MG or Triumph T100 these are not the kinds of designs that can be made on a computer and that really showed as CAD became popular for design in the 80s and '90s many manufacturers still to this day do use clay modeling but still the designs themselves are born on the

computer in it shows now this era brought about the boxy designs many of us love from the ' 80s and 90s but how did we move from that style to what we have today let's talk about the rise of the Jelly Bean now the Jelly Bean Trend in automotive design emerged prominently in the late 1980s and 1990s and it represented a shift toward aerodynamic and smooth rounded shapes in vehicle styling and this design philosophy was heavily influenced by advances in computational fluid dynamics this really allowed engineers and designers to optimize shapes for fuel efficiency and

reduced drag you know it does make sense instead of worrying so much about you know having to dtune the engine to get better fuel efficiency the way we are today just kind of choking our engines they just made the car shaped a certain way and the better drag made for better fuel mileage now this trend can be traced to pioneering designs like the 1984 Audi 5000 which introduced Sleek more rounded forms that contrasted with the boxy cars of the earlier decades it's success influenced competitors to adopt similar principles at that same period you have cars

like the Ford Taurus with its teardrop silhouette during the 1990s this design ethos became a dominant aesthetic even sports cars like the Dodge Viper were essentially Jelly Bean designs then you've got models like the Ford Mondo and the Chrysler Concord you know then the next thing you know iconic boxy cars like the Corolla began to feature gently curving panels and flush mounted windows and integrated bumpers and these designs weren't just for better fuel economy there was a sort of shift in consumer taste towards futuristic cohesive looks another Trend though was taking shape at this time

a move away from station wagons and vans though a few Vans would survive sadly the station wagons wouldn't really survive I'm hoping to make a video about you know the station wagon at some point but anyways and the move was towards SUVs by the 1990s and 2000s SUVs were well on their way to dominance and they were becoming more luxurious ious and less off-road focused like they were in the' 7s and 80s while cars like the BMW E39 or Lexus LS were very subtle and they were elegant growing regulatory pressures emissions safety they began overshadowing

creativity in automotive design and so the Two Worlds would come together this trend of the smooth Jelly Bean design with the popularity of the SUV to bring about what we have today which is what I would call The Blob period where even vehicles that aren't SUVs kind of look like SUVs and this move towards making SUVs from almost every major manufacturer is part of a larger Trend that has shaped the way cars are designed I want to look at the major factors that got us here first we have to talk about regulatory pressures and how

it's affected automotive design one of the biggest influences on Modern car design has been pedestrian safety regulations particularly in regions like Europe these rules require car fronts to absorb impact act in specific ways to really minimize injury to pedestrians and as a result hoods are higher and flatter to create crumple zones front grills and bumpers are bulkier often detracting from Sleek lowprofile designs that we used to have I mean there can never be another Jaguar e type for example that car can't be made and be legal everywhere at least and this is why cars especially

front ends on cars all basically look the same you can't even tell them apart anymore cars now look similar because they've been designed to pass the same tests and it's not the fault of Manufacturers for the most part the cars have to look this way like blobs essentially on top of this Global emissions regulations have pushed automakers to prioritize aerodynamics again to reduce drag and improve fuel efficiency now focus on aerodynamics through history has actually created some of the most striking designs today though it mostly just means that cars adopt the same teardrop shape with

minimal variation roof lines are more sloped to improve air flow wheel arches are narrower often creating a topheavy or disproportionate look the emphasis on efficiency really overrides character and the end result is just endless Bland designs you know I see car commercials and I see these actors pretending to be excited about some new model and I'm literally screaming at the TV it just looks like every other car what is there to be excited about and also emissions regulations is a huge part of why automakers are focused on making giant SUVs we've talked about this at

length in other videos so I won't go into it but making cars that are classified as light trucks makes sense for most manufacturers at least here in the west and so our cars are just too big you know and that's part of why they don't look as good that's why when you see a classic car it's striking not just because of how different the design is and the materials it's also just so much smaller and it's just it's kind of shocking to see even like a big muscle car because it's so much smaller than cars

are today also there's the sense of corporate globalization automakers aim to design vehicles that appeal to the broadest possible audience today and this has led to the rise of what we could call corporate design languages where each brand adopts a uniform design identity seen across their entire lineup individual models lose any uniqueness and we end up with this weird homogeneous family look for example Toyota's Keen look or BMW's oversized kidney Grill look and these have been criticized because they look too similar and they also look overdesigned the reason that cars look overdesigned is because the

shapes all have to be exactly the same so designers are forced to just put in a bunch of weird random stuff to make their cars at least somewhat differentiated and it just instead of a holistic appealing design that's simple for each and every car we just get the same designs with weird little slits and stuff the focus on global appeal really strips away the regional Cor works and charm that used to define cars from specific markets you know think British roadsters or Italian or Japanese sports cars or American muscle cars or even you know little

economy sedans from Japan there is absolutely no Regional identity for cars anymore you know Lamborghini makes an SUV and by golly it looks just like an SUV that costs a fraction of the price they all look the same everything is a luxury vehicle because basically everything looks and feels the same you know as Dash says in the Incredibles when everyone is special no one is and I truly can't tell the difference between $200,000 and $40,000 vehicles at this point even some technological advancements have helped to make cars uglier and lighting is a good example while

LEDs allow for intricate designs and thin headlights they're often overused in aggressive or overly angular shapes creating these kind of angry car faces Lexus and Hyundai models come to mind electric vehicles have eliminated the need for large front grills as they don't require radiators for cooling while some EVS use this to their advantage to make kind of more clean minimalist designs think cars like the Lucid air which you know is ugly in many other ways but whatever others have filled the void with massive faux grills or abstract shapes that just look awkward and forced and

then of course there's also the problem of cost cutting automakers use modular platforms to save on production costs and you know this is efficient but it limits design flexibility and results in cars that look nearly identical across different models or even Brands within the same parent company a good example would be Volkswagen groups mqb platform cheaper plastic simplified body panels these have replaced more intricate and expensive metal work of the past and also everybody's using this ugly putty paint just to cut costs and it makes for just such ugly Vehicles the global shift toward SUVs

and crossovers has redefined what consumers expect from car design people want taller boxier proportions and so sleeker sedans and wagons and coups are kind of just thrown to the side while practical these designs lack any sort of Elegance and you know we're part of the problems designs today are often the result of extensive focus group testing while for automakers this ensures that cars meet consumer preferences it really does stifle creativity you know as bold or polarizing designs are smoothed out to appeal to the masses cars designed with this kind of committee approach they don't exude

any character versus you know cars that were created by Visionary designers like giorgetto giogo or Marcelo gandini or companies like pin and finina you know imagine a modern Design coming out today that is as striking as even something like the alfar Romeo Spider from the' 60s it doesn't help that we as consumers view cars a certain way they're basically appliances they're not expressions of our identity the way that they really were in the' 60s we want appliances so that's what we get also the rise of ride sharing and autonomous driving and EVS this has all

kind of shifted the focus from style to functionality many automakers now prioritize interior Tech and user experience over things like exterior Aesthetics and this leads to designs that serve as more shells for what's on the inside you know Advanced software and screens instead of cars that from the outside look like really great holistic designs and you know the last and perhaps saddest part of current automotive design and styling is that in the past car design was led by individual designers or very small teams with a strong creative control you know the days of Daring statements

like the Chrysler turbine car or the Lamborgini Mira these are basically over they're replaced with designs that are safe but uninspiring manufacturers used to be fine with putting all of their eggs into one basket all their trust in a truly great designer or design team who would make something truly unique today they just simply can't do that in his amazing book on automotive design called the driving machine why told ribes something or other points out the primary differences between cars and how they're viewed today vers the 60s which is you know again the kind of

peak of Automotive styling and this is what he says according to the 2020 census 91.5% of American households own at least one vehicle which is slightly up from 90.9 in 2015 many people have more than one car and the total number of registered cars went up during that same period but something has changed the pleasurable Sunday drive has become a distant memory like dressing for dinner and motoring has become more like mowing the lawn or weekly grocery shopping it's a chore no one likes commuting with its traffic jams and frustrating delays as is evident by

the reluctance of many workers to return to the office after the pandemic our romantic affair with the automobile has cooled and settled into something that seems like a Loveless marriage boy does that feel accurate and our cars show it their soulless lifeless appliances Necessities really no more than tools so why make them beautiful why make them fun what's the point we as consumers don't care about those things anymore so why should manufacturers obviously there are exceptions but you almost have to spend well over 100k to get a truly interesting fun car anymore the days of

getting a stylish fun little vehicle like the original Mini or bugy Sprite or Pontiac Fiero you know so many interesting but affordable cars were made in the past these days are gone cars will just keep getting uglier unless we as consumers change our tastes now to end this I want to read the last few sentences of that book if you guys want to check that book out I'll link it in the description here's what he says analog cars were a key part of that Springtime romance but today they're becoming the automotive equivalent of vinyl records

mechanical watches and fountain pens anachronistic throwbacks digital controls have replaced mechanical linkages digital engine management has replaced carburetors and computers are in charge of steering suspension brakes and more instead of analog gauges and dials touchscreens control lights and infotainment and navigation and heating and cooling doors open and close automatically cars park themselves and warn of Hazards multiple cameras peer wearily in all directions if the self-driving car ever arrives it will be the final capitulation whether we end up with hybrids or cars powered by Electric batteries hydrogen cells or synthetic fuels it is evident that a

new era is beginning no more rumbling engines no more downshifting in Corners no more heel and towing no more tinkering and tuning for someone who grew up with the analog car the digital car is an alien creation all knowing too smart for its own good a bossy Nanny but that may just be whistling in the wind as eie white wrote of his old model T I suppose it's time to say goodbye farewell my lovely or as representative dougl malfa said recently on the house floor in talking about a potential ban on classic cars in California

you can pry my 68 Mustang gear shift out of my cold dead fingers now I'd love to hear what you guys think is there more to the reason that cars are getting uglier maybe it's just us old souls complaining maybe we're imagining all of this I would love to see what you guys think we'll see you guys in the next video drive safe