It’s long time to ask perhaps the most important question to this crowd of older car lovers ever: are cars looking more alike now than in the past? I’m perfectly willing to admit that age plays a role in that perception: we all tend to bond with the details of cars during our early years. We remember the most minute details of the cars we saw walking to school, or first owned. Now?…my apologies, but I had to take a quick glance at the badge of the Maxima; from across the street and out of the corner of my eye, I thought it might have been an Acura. Or Buick. Or whatever…
But before we shoot from the hip, consider this:
When I was a kid, I found cars from well before my time to be very challenging to tell apart. Here’s a 1929 Chevrolet, Plymouth, Ford and Willys (clockwise, from upper left). I did learn to recognize Model As quite readily, but the rest are tough. Undoubtedly, the kids or young men at the time could instantly point out all of their differences, subtle as they may seem to us.
So did things change by 1959? Someone not from these era may not identify them necessarily, but it seems they certainly are plenty different. Or is it just because we know them so well?
So are we back to the twenties, when the differences appeared to be quite subtle? Or am I just getting old?
I think all the era examples shown have more similarities in general design than differences — it was just that in the 59s the styling details varied more.
I’d say there were clear differences at least from the mid ’50s through about 1970. My mom grew up in the late ’50s/early ’60s, and she said you could always tell what kind of car was coming from blocks away, whether it was a Chevy, a Buick or a Rambler. And Mom isn’t near into cars like me and Dad, then or now 🙂
In my own experience, I can readily tell ’80s cars apart, though I’ll admit there is not a huge difference appearance-wise from, say, an ’83 Buick Skylark and ’81 Dodge Aries. Or the different flavors of B-body, for that matter.
The basic shapes have always been similar but the faces and asses were always distinctive, particularly between the 50s-80s. You could also count on body styling paradigms getting shaken up now and then, now a days those changes are dictated only by efficiency.
I agree, were back to the 1920s in terms of indistinguishable car styling. All cars are fastbacks, all cars have slanted headlights, all cars have big trunks and all of them have a big badge in the center of the grilles.
It amazes me that cars managed to be so distinctive and instantly recognizable to the brands in the days where all the headlights were effectively the same(sealed beam) and now with infinite freedom in design for composite lenses, they’re less distinguishable than ever.
I think that the period between 1955 and 1970 included cars that were easier to distinguish than at any other period in history. Today, at least to me, nearly all cars are not only similar in design and detail, they are almost all that boring silver or gunmetal color. Ugh.
Agree with you about the colors. It’s damned hard to find a car in stock with anything approaching the equipment level I want unless it’s silver or gray.
Say what you will about Iaccoca, but one of his final master strokes before he retired from Chrysler was insisting that the upcoming Neon have round headlights (everything else of the time had angular shape headlights). It really differentiated the little car by giving it an expressive ‘happy’ face and, IMHO, went a long way to helping sales.
That’s the fine line auto manufacturers walk on styling. They need to be different, but not so different that it puts everyone off. A case in point is some of Nissan’s current offerings (looking at you, Juke).
That was Lutz. The styling team started with the round lights, then leaned toward rectangular shapes before Lutz convinced them the round ones were better.
Iacocca’s taste in styling was brougham-ized boxy K-Cars.
Automotive styling, and engineering, have always been a product of what is currently being taught to the current crop of engineering students at any given period of time. Hence the reason every generation of cars ( or boats, bikes, planes, etc.) all are very similar in style and engineering.
You’ve got a real point there. Made me think of the New Yorker’s innovation issue cover of 2009. I liked it so much it’s framed over my desk.
Put me in the ‘no’ camp – the early-mid fifties cars could nearly swap grilles without anybody noticing, there are several cars in the 80’s that are nearly the same.
I think it is what era/s you are familiar with. A while back some colleagues were looking at the rear end of a 59 Chev parked about 50m away and asking “what is that?”
I would actually say that today is no worse than other eras, as always there are cars that are broadly similar and there are cars that have a strong brand identity, it is easy to tell an Audi from a Mercedes from a Cadillac.
Yep, easy. There’s a big corporate badge front and center of the grilles lol
Identifying a given car (like your friend and the ’59 Chevy) is not quite the same as the issue of similarity. The ’59 Chevy is very distinctive, but if you don’t know what it is, that won’t help.
The question is whether cars are less distinctive amongst themselves.
Probably not a great example to make my point, which I suppose was if you aren’t actively interested in cars outside your normal frame of reference even the distinctive ones like a 59 Chevy are indistinguishable. I don’t think it was a case of never having seen one before (& known what it was), and these guys are around 50 and would be able to ID most Holden models, more an issue of retaining the knowledge, eg I have been shown or had pointed out to me many more different types of flower than I would be able to identify off the cuff!
What are you trying to say?
I suppose the core argument should focus on mainstream sedan styling, but if your only desire is to stand out, the market offers plenty of opportunites (image from wikipedia).
I think with minor tweaking to the face to make it more conventional, Nissan would have a hit in the Juke.
Is it not doing well there? Over this side of the pond those distinctive looks are in large part credited with its success (Nissan have sold c.40k Jukes here in its first two years on the market, which compares favorably with the conventional Toyota Rav4’s 15k sales in its first two years, or the 12.5k the equally staid Ford Kuga sold in its first two years)
I’d say standing out from the crowd is no bad thing from a sales perspective, unless you’re selling to an ultra conservative audience that is, which might be why American “mid-size” sedans all tend to look alike?
That’s a good point. Even within the 1959 model year the 1959 Ford was praised for its “restraint” compared to Chevy and Plymouth. And it eeked out a victory in model year sales. T
he wilder 1960 Full size Ford might have been equally hurt by flamboyant styling as much as the runaway success of the Falcon. Which, well, was as interesting to look at as the 1959 Ford….
My dad (born in ’06) was good at differentiating cars from the 20s if we’d see one when I was a kid. I never knew how he did that.
For me the 50s-80s have always been easy.
These days, all sedans pretty much look alike in profile, I think because the designers are working towards minimizing drag while still having a livable interior. From behind the taillights seem kind of random and interchangeable. From the front they’re easy to tell apart if you know each brand’s design language. Once you’ve got that memorized it’s pretty easy.
In the 1970s, I could tell a car at night just by the headlights. I liked to play that game in the back seat.
Today, I was next to a car and thought – is that an Accord? No, it was a Mercedes.
You could tell a Honda from a Mercedes in the 1970s
Ditto, although it was in the 80s and with tail-lights.
I’d say that the distinctiveness of cars from a given era materially stemmed from whether the designers (more distinctiveness) or bean counters (more commonality) were running the show.
I agree to a point with suzulight’s comment about style following what the design schools were teaching, but only to a point – designers revel in coming up with something different, and in the automotive world, always had to work within constraints set from on high (common platform, sheet metal sharing, etc.), plus what upper management directed based on what was “working” for the competition.
Do cars look more alike today then in the past? Without doubt. With the advent of 4 door sedans becoming more popular, thanks to the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, it seems every manufacturer has used these 2 designs to design their own versions of the Accord/Camry. Rear headroom, rear legroom, rear trunk capacity, everything is touted as having MORE then the Honda, the Toyota. Add into the mix of the Accord/Camry set of fixed standards come the federal mandates for front and rear bumper heights. All of this conspires to create the disposable automobile, the generic appliance on wheels. With the exception of the modern muscle cars, the sports cars, I truly believe we are living in an uninspired era of automotive design. Overdone and overwrought. Bloated and overweight thanks to federally mandated front and rear and side air bags
The early designs Paul shows came from the drafting board of men who grew up in the age of the horse drawn buggy. They did not have over 100 years of automotive design and manufacturing to lean on like the hip designers have today. Today there is little to distinguish one brand from another, unlike the designs of the 60’s. I am still a car freak and a fan of design. There are no longer corporate faces as they are ever changing with each new 3 year design cycle, the never ending chase to out-do the latest Honda or Toyota. I knew Bill Mitchell and Larry Shinoda designed the Corvette Stingray. Dick Teague the AMX, Javelin, Matador. Jack Telnack designed the Fox Body Mustang and T-Bird Turbo Coupe. Virgil Exner left his mark at Chrysler. I could not tell you for the life of me who is penning the next Corvette, let alone the next Accord or Camry!
I think there’s less opportunity for making the details prominent, and less flexibility in the overall shapes now, as aerodynamics, space efficiency and some regulatory standards (eg pedestrian safety) prevail. Mercedes , BMW and Audi, perhaps Cadillac as well, still have some iconic details, but frankly other than the grille, to me a current 3-series looks more like an Altima than a 2002 looked like a 510. I have always had trouble differentiating cars of the ’20’s and ’30’s, and while a ’46 Chevy and Plymouth look quite different, I’m not so good with those either. To me, starting with the ’49 Ford, and fastback Chevies that were very common when I was a kid, then subsequent Big 3 models were very easy to identify until the late ’90’s. By the way, a little off-topic, but with some imagination, the Nissan Juke could be seen as a modern rendering of a 1950’s Alfa show car by Zagato. Well, maybe a lot of imagination ….
I’m a child of the 50s, and being familiar with each year’s cars as they came out from about 1958 on to about 1980 made it relatively easy to tell one from another. I do recall being tripped up trying to distinguish most ’55 models from the ’56s. By the 80s annual styling changes had pretty much stopped (really, this is a good thing; many of the facelifts in earlier years cluttered up what were originally clean designs).
The other major difference between the 50s and today is that virtually all makes came in one body shell only back then, if we exclude pickups and sports cars/sporty variants. So all ’55 Chevys were the same except for trim details. Now, how many models of Chevy exist, and yes, the pickups, SUVs, and crossovers have to be counted? And despite the disappearance of so many makes like Studebaker, Pontiac, Rambler, Plymouth, and Mercury, many more have been added due to the rise of the imports.
One funny irony: I recall reading a pulp novel copyrighted in 1959 about a nuclear apocalypse that occurred in the US (“Alas, Babylon”). The story was set in a small Florida town that was far enough from the larger cities that the people survived and were able to continue on with a life of sorts. One of the characters had a new Bonneville that soon had to be parked because of its prodigious fuel use. An offhand comment was made that “all new cars looked the same.” I remember thinking to myself of all years, 1959 had to be one of the easiest to tell cars apart.
And it was the doctor with his Model A that was still able to get around (well, until he got mugged by road bandits, IIRC).
59 had some out there designs I passed a 59 Chevvy at lunch time but my 59 Minx is kinda its own shape except it resembles a mid 50s Stude. Motor companies have to be careful Ford OZ released their AU Falcon and it bombed simply on looks the hasty redesign is still with us today and it sold well with new front/rear clips.
There are no longer corporate faces as they are ever changing with each new 3 year design cycle
Maybe there were corporate faces 60 or 70 years ago, but even in the 50s and 60s you saw no consistent ‘face’ design for more than 3 years. Look at the 56-57-58 Chevies and Fords…very little theme carry-over…..
Maybe a little more 10 years later though
Today’s cars are harder to distinguish. Cars from the 1920s and 1930s are hard to identify primarily because that we’ve forgotten styling cues, like the headlight placement of Pierce Arrows, the distinctive shape of a Packard radiator shell or the triangles built into the grilles of Hudsons. Chrome strips on the hood heralded the arrival of Pontiacs until Bunkie Knudson took the division’s reins in the late 1950s.
For all its faults, the original Cadillac Seville was easier to tell from a contemporary Chevy Nova than to differentiate a Lexus ES from its Toyota Camry progenitor. Ford may have been the most consistent when it came to carrying over styling cues. Between 1952 and 1966, taillights were round, except for 1958 and 1960. The ’65 Ford anticipated the square taillights of 1966 by putting circular taillights in square bezels. Many T-Bird and Mustang styling cues migrated from generation to generation.
I think a confounder inherent in this question is that, when we think and talk about old cars, it tends to be about the ones we find interesting.
Similar to the way the muscle-car crowd can sometimes has a revisionist notion of the late ’60s, remembering it as an era overrun with tire-burning monsters (because those are the interesting ones), when in period, those cars were more likely to have their base engines and dog-dish hubcaps.
Just my two cents, of course, but I actually think today’s car buyer has a greater choice of looks and configurations than in most past decades, in spite of tighter regulation and a more competitive market.
I can only imagine what a ’70s entry-level buyer would think knowing that in 2012, they could cross-shop Dodge’s latest Dart with the Scion iQ, Hyundai Veloster, Jeep Patriot, MINI Cooper, Nissan Juke, and Toyota Prius C (to name a few) in 2012, all in broadly the same price range!
Actually I have a hard time telling the difference between Audi models. BMWs, Mercedes too. And Chevys are getting there.
I have spent some time thinking about this recently. I saw the pictures of next year’s Chevy Impala and I thought to myself, “That looks just like a Camry!” Then, upon further research, the Accord bears a very similar resemblance to them as well, and I wondered the same thing about today’s cars. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and in the 80s as the more streamlined aero look became popular, I think it was incredibly easy to tell cars apart. A Taurus did not look like a Celebrity or a Lumina, and those did not look like Camrys (Camries?), Accords, Maximas, the last of the K-cars or their LH successors. After that, it looked like everyone started copying each other again. A friend of mine in high school in the late 90s always said that all cars looked like jelly beans and were boring.
Going further back, there are cars that were produced in the 50s, 60s, and 70s that are so distinctive that I can easily tell them apart despite not being alive yet. But there were also plenty of copycat designs, cars that had no identity or were just plain old boring somehow. It has already been mentioned above, but I think this is the key to the argument: we remember the interesting cars. I know that today, I am not interested in the Accord, Camry, or Impala in any way, at all, and I won’t remember them when I’m older and probably much fatter in the future. They won’t stick with me the way the Mustang does (I want one even if I have to grow a mullet for it), or the slightly goofy Subarus I’ve had the pleasure of driving the past few years. I think that nostalgia speaks loudly to a lot of us, and we remember the cars of our youth very clearly, especially those associated with good times (or terrible times, too, I guess).
So I looked at a few more pictures of the basic, mainstream family sedans. I think the Taurus is different enough from the Impala/Camry/Accord to limit how often it would get confused with them, although it does seem to want to look like an Aston Martin (so does the Fusion, and I could see the Fusion and Taurus getting confused for each other). The Charger is a very distinct design, as well (borderline cartoony, but a cartoon that I rather like because I’ll never mature past 12y/o). The Passat looks like a rental, so screw that design. The Altima and Sonata look a bit alike, but a bit different from the competition, too. I looked at some pictures of SUVs, (okay, okay, CUVs), and there are some distinct offerings there, too. I think that a lot of these cars are styling themselves to appear more like expensive luxury cars that appear in rappers’ videos. Maybe that’ll make the kids more interested in getting their license and buying a car.
This brings me to another big idea to think about in this thread. One of the major issues facing car companies in Japan right now is the lack of people signing up for drivers’ licenses. Young people here (and there are people making similar claims back Stateside) see cars as a waste of money and a pox on the environment, and with many younger people living in dense urban areas (Tokyo, for example), you are punished for having a car: gas is expensive, parking spaces are both rare and holy-crap-you-could-go-on-a-nice-vacation-with-that-monthly-parking-bill expensive, cars aren’t ‘cool,’ and traffic is such a nightmare that you have to drive for hours just to get to a place where you could actually enjoy your machine. There are people on both sides of the political spectrum in the US who think we should (okay, YOU guys back home should) be living in denser urban areas and relying more on mass transit to get around, like the Japanese or the Europeans. This is going kind of off-topic a bit, but if you strongly feel that today’s cars offer less distinct styling than the 80s/70s/60s/50s, then this is something to think about. Spending a zillion dollars to design a distinct car and then having it flop is not a good thing in an industry that has just about reached its saturation point with very little room to breathe and grow. Better just to make them all look the same but just different enough to sell one or two more than the other guy. Also, the Juke exists, so we’re not all driving the automotive equivalent of Stepford wives. Yet.
I strongly feel that way and that just means I’ll continue to keep bombing around in something from the 50s/60s/70s/80s on a daily basis than buy their new product. If they want to survive whilst a chunk of the populous despises the automobile so much, it might be a good idea to make something attractive for the people who do like the automobile. Of course safety/fuel efficiency mandates nix that dream. Oh well…
I have no problem identifying any car from the late 40’s to the 90’s. The 20-40’s cars are a bit difficult, but I wasn’t around then. My Dad could distinguish a Model A Ford from a Plymouth,Chevy, or Dodge at an eyeblink. So my point is, if you grew up in an era and had an interest in cars, you probably can distinguish one make from another.
I have hardly no interest in today’s cars. I’d much rather drive my old cars than any new car made today. The wife and I were driving to the store in her new RAV-4 yesterday, and our conversation turned to cars. I told her nothing made today even remotely interests me. If I bought another car, it would have to be something like the 64 blue Coupe deVille on ebay a few months ago. Literally in mint condition, the car was a buy it now for $ 23,990. Not a practical vehicle, but $ 24K doesn’t buy a lot today.
Probably, a young guy with an interest in cars would find today’s cars just as distinctive as we found yesterday’s. My nephew, years ago, thought the Pontiac Grand Am from the early 90’s was the greatest. To me, just as ho-hum as today’s offerings.
If you want a cheap and distinctive car, you buy an AMC product (if you can still find one).
They’re out there. Found this 1980 Concord for sale at the AMC Rambler Club website classifieds. I think it was on ebay recently too. IMO, the asking price of $5500 is quite high, but it looks to be in very nice shape for its age.
I was pondering this the other day when Tom published his “What Would You Have?” article about “mid-size” cars from 1965:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/automotive-history-mid-size-madness-what-would-you-choose-in-65/
I got part way in and realised I genuinely couldn’t tell the cars apart. With a few notable exceptions (the Pontiac LeMans, and of course the oddball Marlin) they all looked pretty much the same to my untrained UK eye.
I suspect my 70s/80s childhood is a factor here too, but it all suggests a truth in the recurring answer in this thread: that cars from a period/place you’re unfamiliar with/uninterested by will all sort of look alike.
I’d struggle with US models but I can identify pretty much 99% of the cars on the road here instantly on sight – even the modern ones – very few older cars are left on the roads here and even fewer that wouldn’t have been common sights on the road at some point in my life.
Since I’ve been avidly interested in cars since I was born, and that interest has yet to wane, pretty much all the cars you’d find on a road in the UK look different to me. I suspect if I ever lose interest in “current” cars they’ll start to look alike, but until then I’d say it is and always has been in the details, and that a selection of similar cars from any era will always look similar, unless you’re interested enough to see the detail.
Well, you can still spot a Cadillac easily enough these days. Which model is another matter though. Even the model names seem interchangeable and forgettable. Still, I like the look. I also liked Ford’s “edge” look (Edge, Fusion, Focus, F-150) which they seem to be going away from now.
There are still plenty of models out there that are distinctive. It may be easy to confuse a Camry and Accord, but there’s no mistaking a Qwest from a Town & Country, a Suburban from a Sequoia, a Traverse from an Flex, a Cube from a Fit, etc, etc.
Cars strike deep emotional chords within true automotive aficionados. I think we’re more vulnerable to the impressions automobile designs leave on us as kids. I was born in 1957, and that’s why I can tell one make from another between the mid-’50s and, say, 1980. I can readily recite, in some detail, the aesthetic differences between a 1962 Chevrolet full-size and its close cousin from ’61. I certainly can differentiate a Ford of the same vintage from its GM rivals. Today, I can’t tell a 2006 Kia Rio from a 2010. It’s tough to tell one make from another, except for perhaps each one’s signature grille or some other ornamental identifier. I certainly can’t tell one year from another these days, as I could in my formative years. Today, telling one make of car from another is like telling one make of refrigerator from another. Often, I have to see a vehicle close up to tell who made it. That wasn’t true 30 years ago and beyond.
By the same token, I couldn’t tell you the difference between a Chevy and Plymouth, for example, before the ’50s. I’m limited to approximating eras. My bride and I will be watching an old film noir and she’ll ask me if I know what old cars they’re driving, and I’m clueless.
Maybe that points to a more-things-change-more-they-stay-the-same point. Industry participants routinely take styling cues from rivals, and very few finished products stand out as truly revolutionary. If they do, the others soon follow.
At the risk of taking this off-topic, let me throw something else into the mix. Are modern cars getting less usefully better? Yes, emissions, safety and “conveniences” have advanced, but is a modern Yaris hatch or Mazda2 much better than an early-’80’s Civic hatch? I had an ’82 Civic and a friend had an ’80 Civic. Both cars consistently delivered over 40 mpg on regular gas (driven foot to the floor), were flawlessly reliable and seemed roomy enough to haul 4 adults on camping trips including many miles of dirt roads. Were our standards lower? My 1978 Fiesta had radial tires, front discs, rack and pinion steering and a catalytic converter …. just like a 2012 Fiesta. I haven’t driven an old Fiesta in 30 years, but I suspect it would feel much more modern than a 1948 Ford Popular would have felt in in 1978. And the 1948 Pop was probably a similarly huge change from a 1918 Model T.
Your memory is selective, that’s all. The ’78 Fiesta did 0-60 in 16.6 seconds and topped out at 85 MPH. That’s a slug by any measure. They were also death traps in an accident and (at least in the US) speed limits were much lower. Plus emmissions were a lot higher, cat or no.
So if your definition of “usefully better” only takes into account gas mileage, then you may have an argument. But I believe overall practicality is far better in new cars. Usually.
A little selective, I agree, and I was also exaggerating to make my point …. and I did mention emissions and safety. But the Road & Track test of the ’78 Fiesta recorded 0-60mph in the 10.5 second range, and I road raced my dead-stock Fiesta in SCCA Showroom Stock for 2 seasons and it would easily peg the 85 mph speedo and keep accelerating. Not sure I want to go back in time, but I think the functional evolution of cars has slowed, the appearance and overall function have converged across brands, and other than emissions, economy and safety, the engineering focus is on cost and gadgets.
Sorry, I must have somehow found stats on a different version I guess,. That is still slow by today’s standards, but not unreasonably so.
Function has mostly converged between brands, but the good thing is that for the most part reliability and performance has too. And there are a lot of real functional changes still being made. Automated parking, backup cameras and sensors, built in GPS, foot-activated tailgates, keyless entry and starting, entertainment systems, etc. You may call them gadgets but they can each be very useful. Especially for busy families. I don’t really NEED a/c or power windows either, but I sure like having them. Then there are all the hybrid systems out there that are technological marvels. And cylinder-deactivation systems (that actually work this time around). There are still a lot of advances being made.
The way I look at it, a new Honda Accord may seem dull but it can easily outperform my old 84 Mustang GT and do it a heck of a lot more reliably, safely, spaciously, economically, quietly, and comfortably. That’s progress in my book.
The rate of change has undoubtedly slowed. How much has changed in Camry in the past 15 or 20 years? Cars are reaching something of a plateau, and becoming more appliance-like. Which is ok, in many regards.
How much have refrigerators changed in 20 years?
Paul, you stole my idea before I had it. I think there are a couple of things at work here. First, the automobile is a much more mature product/technology than they were not so very long ago. Early in the life cycle of any product you tend to see changes in design/technology that cause a differentiation between and among examples. These new looks or technology either succeed or fail in the marketplace and products tend to become more homogenized. Refrigerators and radios and cell phones and electric guitars once took many different sizes, shapes, layouts, colors, etc. until the consumer had in mind what the product was “supposed” to look like. Second, I don’t believe cars occupy quite the same role in establishing the purchaser’s identity that they once did….they play a role in establishing the user’s self image, but a different role. Conspicuous consumption isn’t as “cool” as it used to be. Movie stars drive Priuses. The reasons we drive the cars we drive have changed. We’re through the looking glass, people.
How much has the Camry changed in 20 years?
1993
Yes, and I find it disturbing.
Cars are not like refrigerators. I see no way a refrigerator could be further radically improved technically. I still have one produced in about 1980, and it’s no worse than anything newer – there were some styling changes and improvements in effeciency, but nothing drastic, the basic design remained the same.
Not so about cars – there are so many opportunities for radical improvements and innovations; but take any modern euro or jap or US econobox – it still would not be much different from a 1980’s-vintage one under it’s skin.
They don’t make any radically new cars, like the Citroen DS back in 1956. Actually, today “radically” usually refers to a car’s styling, not engineering. More, they still use a lot of parts designed directly in the 1960’s 70s’ or 80’s. Not because they are so good to be sure – but they are cheap to make, reliable enough and people still buy, so why bother ? There are just no stimuli for car manufacturers to innovate, it is more cost-effecient and profitable to gradually improve old “proven” designs with all of their flaws still with them. But cost-effecient and profitable is not always “good”, and rare indeed “the best”. Innovations lead to commercial failures, like the Wankel-engined NSU. Piston internal combustion engines haven’t seen any big innovations since maybe 1940’s or event 30’s – WWII tank and arcraft engines already had all the stuff like 4-valves-per-cylinder, direct-fuel-injection and so on, sans some minor electronic tweaks like variable valve timing. Ever since then, it was only them having been gradually introduced into mass market car engines. Does it mean that their evolution has ended ? No, I don’t think so. Just no one among the corporate management or buying public needs it. Innovations are always uneasy to predict – bad for business, that is. Hybrid synergy drive ? Herr Porsche invented in late in XIX century.
So – that is the problem, it seems. There are so many areas for improvement, but radical innovations would be too expensive / risky / whatever else, and the market is here for anything with flashy, but conventional styling and pseudo-modern gadgetry, discouraging any deviations from the “mainstream” both in styling and engineering.
I’m vintage ’53, and do think cars were far more different in our day than they are now. In fact, I think there were more differences within any brand of the ’60s than there are between 90% of brands today. Cars in our day had personality. Most of today’s cars have none, or very little. They do’nt have faces the way they used to (with a few exceptions). They look like the appliances they are.
As for why cars were so similar in the early days, that’s because automotive stylists hadn’t broken away from thinking of cars as horseless carriages. Once they did, style took off.
Streamlining probably is responsible for maybe half of the effect of cars looking the same, but part of it is probably a de-emphasis on style.
Caring about the cars of any generation has a lot to do with one’s ability to distinguish them. I was born in 1939 and am pretty good on cars from the mid-1930’s through the 1980’s. For earlier cars I can pretty much id any Ford, a lot of Chevies, Cads, Packards, and if I can’t id the make I can get the year fairly closely.
But many of the little sedans and CUV’s, SUV’s etc built nowadays are of little enough interest to me that I often have to see the badges to id them, and then guess the year from how old the license plate is. For some reason my wife has developed a liking for the Kia Soul which she refers to as the hamster car. I can easily irritate her by referring to XB’s or Jukes as hamster cars.
I lived in France 1965-66, and revisited in ’71, and twice in the late ’80s. In those eras, but more so in the ’60s and ’70s, the traffic in France looked very different from that in the US. Now, it’s not much different. Cars in France look the same as in the US. It’s partly because automobiles are more of an international business, but partly because there just isn’t that much difference between French and American cars anymore.
It depends on the age of the person. To me, anything before 1955 look all alike, especially pre 1949.
But I agree that most bigger imports look alike, all trying to look ‘Lexus-like’ to get common buyers who want to impress neighbors.
While car fans may love older cars, average suburbanites want to “fit in” and not be seen in an “old thing”. They want neighbors to think they have “a new Lexus”.
Its true, the cars of today look incredibly similar to one another. This may be why car companies use a design language to make their vehicles distintive and recognizable. Car companies like BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, and now, even Kia have given their vehicles a signature look to set themselves apart from the competition. I guess the whole problem with adapting a design language is that virtually all of your vehicles begin to look the same (e.g. Mercedes) and it becomes difficult to break away from a tradition of making vehicles that have a signature look.
The other thing that may be leading cars today to adopt similar styling and body designs is the need to build a car that is both aerodynamic and safe. Rounded rooflines and thich c pillars are probably here to stay unless there is some breakthrough in engineering that allows car comapnies to use a different design for their vehicles and still meet the demands of the consumer.
I’m glad David C. Holzman has posted a picture of that Austin Cambridge above. No wait, it’s a Morris Oxford. No, no, it’s a Fiat 2300. An Isuzu Bellel? Or is it an Austin A99 Westminster? Oh, silly me, it’s a Peugeot 404. I think. Someone should run out and check…
It’s been said it here before on CC, but Pinninfarina sure got his money’s worth for that design!
There’s a fascinating article about that Pinninfarina design entitled “Same Design – Different Car”. First paragraph is “In the early 1960s, a number of European car manufacturers released models all based on the same design by Pininfarina, something that had never happened before and has never happened since. This style became the best selling medium size saloon car design in the world outside of the Volkswagen Beetle.” Find it in full here: http://www.australiaforeveryone.com.au/world/farina.htm