I was a little kid in the early-mid 1990s when I first started noticing cars. That was truly the golden age of Japanese cars. The Japanese automotive industry had come a long way in a few decades and now offered unprecedented variety – full-size, V8-powered luxury sedans, turbocharged, all-wheel-drive sports cars, comely compacts and tiny-displacement V6 engines. It was also a time where Japanese design had finally found its own coherent identity, the attractively derivative designs of the 1960s and the sometimes vulgar designs of the 1970s a distant memory. And then came the change.
The aftermath of the Japanese bubble economy was a massacre of fascinating Japanese cars. Gone were the Mitsubishi 3000GT, Isuzu Impulse, Mazda MX-3 and Lantis hardtop, Nissan 300ZX, Subaru SVX and Acura/Honda Legend Coupe, among many others. The Japanese automakers had to be more prudent and investing in niche products was the antithesis of that. Perhaps as a reflection of this new-found pragmatism and austerity was the marked change in Japanese design.
Simple, elegant, gently curvaceous designs were out. Instead, everything seemed to get more upright and boxy overnight. It was like a return to the 1980s only with far fewer coupes, no wedges and no digital instrumentation. A more boring 1980s, then.
The most egregious example was the transition the Mazda 929/Sentia undertook. Once the most graceful, Jaguar-like Japanese sedan, it suddenly became a bland, boxy sedan, the bastard child of a Toyota Crown and a Mercury Grand Marquis.
Ditto the Acura/Honda Legend. Not only did it lose its graceful coupe variant, the Legend sedan – renamed RL in North America – became an uninspired copy of the Lexus LS. It wasn’t unattractive but it was a far cry from its predecessor.
This new design era didn’t just leave luxury sedans in its wake. I remember the utter disappointment I felt when I saw the new international Mazda 626, which also lost its optional V6 and four-wheel-steering.
Nissan’s two main compact lines – the North American Sentra and the international Sunny/Pulsar – also lost all their character.
There were some designs that took some getting used to but which I eventually came to admire. The fourth-generation Honda Prelude was always a favorite of mine and so I loathed the fifth-generation model at launch. It’s aged rather well, however, its larger, vertically-oriented headlights presaging various models in the early 2000s.
Though its bigger brother the 626 took a step back, the new 1998 Mazda 323 was relatively attractive.
Just ignore the fact the 323 hatchback retained the Astina and 323F nameplates, previously used on export versions of the dramatic Lantis/323F hatchback and hardtop.
Overall, though, Japanese design largely took a turn for the worse in the mid/late-1990s and they only got their mojo back in the new century.
What era of design took you the longest to get used to? The tailfin arms race of the late 1950s? The Great Brougham Epoch? The aero era of the 1980s? The retro era of the early 2000s?
The 2005 Chrysler 300 was hard to digest. I liked the smoother used bar of soap sedans so the chunkier style was a challenge. I enjoy the 300 now, ansd some other chunky cars.
For me, the grille-less trend that began in the 90s. Oh sure, there had always been cars without grilles, mostly air-cooled, but they were mostly fringe models. When mainstream cars started losing their grilles (I think most especially the Panther) I found it quite jarring.
Ford began the no grille style in the 60s with its under bumper breathing MK4 Zephyr/Zodiac range, I never really liked those cars but that was more to do with the frailty of the engines than the strange looks of them, lots of advanced for a Ford family sedan ideas but poorly executed, four wheel disc brakes all round independant suspension that handled badly innovative V6 engines that were almost biodegradable and no grille on the cheaper Zephyr model, By the time the next lot of that style reappeared in the early 80s with the Sierra it was old being new again, and still ugly
Looking at mainstream cars, not “exotics” only … in the ‘90’s, there was often a dumbing down, perhaps in the interests of aerodynamics, but there were still some excellent designs. The era that bothers me most is the current one that we might be finally (thankfully) exiting. The odd combinations of swoops and creases, large grills and excessive chrome, just don’t work for me. Whether the Honda Civic’s tail, or the Hyundai Elantra profile, almost any Audi grill, or most modern Acura’s, no thanks. I’m hoping that Tesla’s success will influence the rest of the industry to return to a simpler design language. But, back to the original question, I have to admit I am getting used to the current generation, though either grudgingly or out of fatigue. Or perhaps apathy.
Post-2000 cars look like those horrible deep-sea fish with giant scoopy mouths and short bodies and weird eyes. I’ll never get used to them.
The loss of an actual front bumper still surprises me to this day since I grew up and still own cars with a front bumper.
Other styling trends on today’s cars still throw me for a loop such as fake flying roofs on Nissans and large front grill covers on Toyotas.
I have always had the differing opinion about the Prelude, but I think that the fourth gen Prelude was the absolutely worst of all the Preludes. The 5th gen car is a very attractive car, I love how it looks. I love how it drove. To me it is one of the best Preludes, only behind the 3rd gen (because pop ups)
Me too. 4th gen looks like a sewer rat to me, complete with little whiskers. 5th gen looks like a modernized 3rd gen, my fav also.
I always saw the 4th gen Prelude as Honda getting away from making cars that looked like Hondas, and taking a swing at making cars that looked like Toyotas.
anything after 2000, they all look miserably the same excpt for pickups, cadillacs and large american suv’s(i know the GM triplets look alike)
Current era. I still haven’t warmed up to angry headlights pulled far back into the fenders.
Worst offender. Headlight lenses are 2” from the damn windshield!
I am amazed that anyone actually buys these.
Maybe it’s too far aft, but it’d look 90% better if they’d put the amber side reflectors in the black plastic filler triangle, just to give it a reason to exist.
With you on that. I judge a cars’ attractiveness on the distance between the end of the light and the start of the “A” pillar.
The current Chevy trucks remind me of Brutalist era architecture. Cold designs that are totally over the top due to a lack of any warmth in their designs.
Good comparison, I have not thought of that until now.
Current era: large bottom feeding fish gaping mouth grilles (Lexus,Toyota, etc) that actually have a very small open section for airflow, squinty/angry eyed headlight fascias, trucks with massive front grilles (Chevy, Ford) appearing to be 6′-7′ tall, weird creases; scallops, character lines, etc; “gunslit” windows, “Transformer”/anime influenced styling…. I think that about covers it all……:-)
I’ll second that!
I will third that!!!
4th that!
Ok, I’ll take the 5th…. only because I like the “character lines” on my Civic Coupe. That said, I’m not crazy about the sedan or hatchback though, and the Type R is just WAY too out there.
I have to agree with the Lexus Gaping Maw, and the new Chevy & Ford trucks though. They look like a large building coming at you.
And also I’m not a fan of the “squinty eyes”. As an example, while I don’t really like CUV(s), I do like the Mazda CX-5. But I prefer the previous one to the current one for that very reason… those squinty eyed headlights.
Just one example…..
I saw this on the street yesterday. Don’t know the make or model but it sure was an ugly sucker…
Yes, the current era is a challenge. My problem is the plethora of nonsensical creases and ridges pressed into the sheetmetal. Lines curve up or down, zig here and zag there, all with no apparent idea why? It’s like everyone in the studio got to add 1 styling touch.
That said, the 1980s era of angular cars with gobs of flat black plastic trim everywhere. I still have not gotten used to them.
Agreed on both counts, though the ’80s stuff is becoming far less common and thus a bit more interesting (but still has boring written all over it).
I’ll third it.
I possibly wouldn’t mind the various styling schools that currently exist – it’s just that I do not see the aesthetic logic of including them all on every panel.
There are in truth some good efforts from the ’80’s, but they are much outweighed by the many yawners.
The Ford Sierra and Audi 100 C3, both introduced in 1982, were a radical change from the past. A new era had clearly begun.
I remember a co-worker of my dad. He was a loyal Ford Taunus driver for many years. Once the Sierra was introduced, he traded in his last gen Taunus for a VW Passat.
Modern front wheel drive cars that have a 3 inch piece of fender between the wheel well and the front door and way too much front overhang.
You mean Citroen styling from the 70s/80s
Hey, your 2000’s C5 is the absolute worst of the lot! I was astonished when it first came here, I mean, another millimeter or two and the FRONT door would need a cutout.
No disrespect, and I haven’t the slightest doubt they’re a superb drive, but they aren’t a styling masterpiece, and problem is all in that front.
The decontented era. As in GM starting in 1967. Or Nissan in about ‘92, or Mazda in ‘91. Or any such stripping down to the bone of any shred of retained value as a desirable vehicle.
Oh, the end of the fender lights on Chryslers.
And the introduction of plastic chrome.
And the end of the vent window era.
I need therapy for all this.
Fun fact; you could get the Light Package fender signals on the first couple years of Omni/Horizon. I’d love to sit behind the wheel of one so equipped, much of my early driving experience was on L-bodies (one a stripped Miser and the other a late model) and I distinctly remember the left corner being in clear view while the right would’ve probably been obscured by the parked windshield wiper.
The big bumper era beginning in 1973, and made worse in 1974 with the rear bumpers joining the party.
I grew up with the 1960’s Impalas. I looked forward every year to see what came next. Sure, they weren’t all favorites, but I could appreciate them all just the same.
Then in the fall of 1972 (at 12 years old), when the 1973 Impala came out, I first saw it from behind and thought, ‘Wow, those taillights look even better than last year’s!’.
Then I walked around to the front and wondered what the hell Chevy was thinking.
As a kid, I of course did not know then about the government meddling in car design. Well ok, I did know about seat belts and steering wheel locks an such, but this was an affront (pun loosely intended… get it?) to car design.
But then my Dad bought his first Ford, a ’73 LTD which would become my first car, and I learned to embrace the convenient park bench mounted to the front of the car, and then I proceeded to drink the “Great Brougham Epoch” Kool-Aid. To me, Ford’s big bumpers looked great on a large Lincoln like a Mark V, Town Car or Town Coupe.
I agree on the bumpers. I remember using the front bumper of my ’73 Ranchero. It was also a handy step for checking under that long hood.
I’m with you on the bumpers, they didn’t look very good…but another trend started around 1988 or so when everything became monochrome (including painted bumpers). I understand that everything now looks color coordinated but what happens after it leaves the showroom and you get the first scratch? Or, hit a curbstone and the fiberglass front facia is scratched or worse. Side mirrors likewise (though I’m a big fan of right hand mirrors, especially when they are foldable).
Funny thing is, not long after the outside became monochrome, the inside became either grey or black (sometimes add beige). I remember the Westmoreland VWs were trying to emulate American cars with their monochrome interiors, where everything (including the steering wheel) matched. Guess this was too expensive, so now only the outside of the car is monochrome.
Cars I used to find ugly include early 60’s Dodges, but I find them compelling now…funny how that works (maybe it takes 50 years). I find the 1970 AMC Hornet to be a very good looking car (don’t care too much for the interior though). Another would be the 1982 Dodge Mirada (I tend to like angular styles….including the original VW Rabbit (I drive a 2000 Golf now, but to me the original watercooled Rabbit looked great to me….though I did own a ’78 Scirocco which for me was the nicest looking car I ever owned.
As far as dislikes, the current era cars with high door lines and minimal glass would be on my list, but I consider it a bit of a favor to me so that I’m not tempted to trade my Golf for much of anything….oh and I’m not a fan of the vinyl seats VW is putting in most everything (except entry models)…when cloth came in to replace vinyl I think they should have stuck with it…and I’m not a fan of leather seating either.
The biggest adjustment for me was losing the annual changes that the US OEMs made in their products. You had small styling changes to the front or rear end, usually minor, but it let people know what year car you had. It actually worked well in moving product, as the annual changes made the outgoing one less desirable. Like fashion, there are timeless designs, but really, you just don’t want to be seen in last year’s style. Then, we saw 2-3 years before something changed, and now 7-8 years is not unreasonable.
Yep, as a kid I could tell you “well, the 1984 Blahblahblah had chrome around the taillights, whereas the 85 didn’t but had molded accents on the lens…” and now it all seems very silly, but back then it was a lot of fun.
I don’t like the Bordello Era. There is nothing sleek about a padded vinyl roof on a sports sedan. There is nothing elegant about an opera light, or an opera window. There is nothing elegant about a flat hood ornament. Fake wood trim. Shag carpeting. Pillow-tufted upholstered driver seats. There is nothing nice about a Oleg Cassini AMC Matador Coupe. There is nothing elegant about a 1974 Mercury Cougar with a Levi covered faux continental wheel trunk lid. The entire Brougham Era reeks of cheap, tacky and skin-crawling bad decor. The colors were horrific. The vinyl was cruel. It was an era of dishonest design with poor craftsmanship.
Worse of all, it brought down Detroit and drove the US market to Japan which has been the biggest auto disaster to economically befall the US economy. It gutted Detroit, and created the Rust Belt. Entire industries moved from the US to overseas. We still have not regained our own auto market from the Japanese brands that have been profiting for generations, tossing us a 15% to build their vehicles here. Geez, I tip waitresses more, but we have US states fighting over who gets to assemble the newest foreign brands in their states.
The Brougham Era was the worse era of American automobiles. It was like the Fall of Rome on wheels. We still haven’t recovered from it. We have generations of US auto buyers still thinking that US auto brands are inferior to foreign brands, harming the environment by shipping vehicles across the Pacific, and hobbling our economy, while US vehicles sales overseas in their home markets never get beyond 1%.
Geez, we’re still stupid, aren’t we?
Give this Dude a prize. ‘The Fall of Rome on wheels’ is a phrase that summarizes it nicely. And now for my rant. 🙂
I share your suspicion (& outrage) about the whole Brougham direction taken by the US auto industry. It was at least a symptom, and arguably a major cause, of the decline of Detroit. It would have been just unfortunate if it had been a kind of honest mistake, but it seemed a deliberate attempt to push the cheapest of consumer lies in the guise of cars, and exposed the industry as really not being interested in cars, or the manufacturing reputation of the country, at all.
And 50 years on they’re still abandoning market segments in the interests of ‘efficiency’, and may be about to see their last stronghold (pickup trucks) vapourized by the coming EV revolution.
Thank God for Tesla, which is demonstrating that the US can still excel – in design, in technology, in manufacturing quality, in efficiency, in overall vision – if it wants to.
Plenty of imports had models clad with a vinyl top, wire wheel covers and bad colors combinations during the 1970s, but by the mid 80s Detroit was certainly the lone hangers on to it.
The brougham era put Detroit in a weird corner, from the late 40s to the early 70s there was a relatively smooth evolution in design, but the brougham era’s retro-neoclassical styling sprouted nearly from thin air. It was like designers collectively came to the conclusion the 20s-30s was the golden era in car styling, no more unnecessary innovation, no more reaching for the sky and space in their designs. They hit the reset button but couldn’t remember how to level up again.
Very well said!
…but I still like the googly Matador coupe,
because somebody has to.
…and yes, we are still stupid.
Also, we are tired and angry,
and it’s reflected in the faces of our cars.
I blame the ’69 Grand Prix. Specifically using Dusenburg model designations for their trims. Yeah that car wasn’t really brougham in certain configurations, but it’s success clearly infunced others with similar, if questionable Dusenburg cues. Carriage style vinyl roofs in particular (hello the Cabriolets). Well the luxury is what sold, and the nastiness copycating followed. Upcharge for phony image gingerbread, you made it! That petered out once other manufactures clearly knew how to build a reliable car on their own merits (Hello Japan) and deviated from said gimmickry.
Really, it went back to the ’65 Mustang whose long hood/short deck proportions caught on like wildfire, infecting *everything* coming from Detroit with cramped back seats, too-small trunks and huge gaps of wasted space between the grille and radiator support until models designed after the first gas crisis took over. I wonder how things would’ve been different if the Mustang had been locked into carrying over the ’60 Falcon’s dash-to-axle, wheelbase and overall more rational proportions under its’ sleek new styling.
“the Fall of Rome on wheels”
“dishonest design with poor craftsmanship”
Perfectly said.
And those cars sold very well too. It wasn’t dishonesty in design. It’s what car buyers wanted.
Well that is easy to say in today’s grey minimalist universe we now live in but back in the 60’s and 70’s color, vinyl tops, hood ornaments and tufted pillow top seats were what many wanted and was the “in” thing whether we want to believe it or not. I know and was there. If anything Detroit’s biggest fails were being too slow to respond to quick market swings such as the 2 fuel shortages, failure to keep up with market trends or completely misreading them like GM did with stage 2 downsizing on the C and E bodies or retaining the Brougham language beyond what it should have been. And lets not forget all the design and quality missteps along the way and clunky bothersome primitive emission systems through the 70’s and 80’s.
Another more specific one is the general bland appliance stying of most American sedans in the early 00s. The Big Three were primarily only concerned with their high-profit, high-volume SUVs, and styling of their sedans largely took a back seat. Just about everything looked melted down and cheap, breaking no new design ground.
Examples that come to mind include the 2000 Sebring/Stratus, 2000 Taurus/Sable, 2000 Impala, 2000 LeSabre, etc.
They probably put all those into the oven and melted down like chocolate cakes
I sensed fear in making a mistake as the culprit during that era. When the 1996 Taurus went catfish, it destroyed their sales.
I don’t like most current designs, because I don’t like most SUVs. I still like sedans and coupes.
I do, however, love my current daily driver, a 2008 Chevrolet HHR. It resembles a vintage car. It’s GM’s last vestige of a sedan delivery tailgate. And it has a manual transmission.
Off topic, but I really do like the HHR. I actually like the packaging and general style of the PT Cruiser as well, and have enjoyed the one or two PT rentals I’ve had. I’ve not so much as sat in an HHR, but I think the styling was a huge step above the PT, and with the other niceties of that form factor, I see it as one of that era’s few GM home runs. Except for sales.
IMHO, Chris Bangle should have been arrested for what he did to BMWs! GAACK!
With you on that, Bangle did to BMW what the insurance industry did to American cars in the 70s with big bumpers, nice looking cars destroyed by idiots
You are not alone in that opinion!
Adrian van Hooydonk is even worse. BMW just keeps hiring vandals.
Why does everyone have to look like a transformer?
That’s such a disaster that it should qualify for FEMA funds.
The long decline of BMW will eventually end up as a case study in business schools. How they could go from the ultimate driving machine to this drivel is astounding. I was perusing the Carmax website and late model 3 series with low miles are WELL below $20,000. BMW has done a remarkable job trashing their previously legendary resale value.
But they remain very profitable, and sales are consistently higher over the long term. They aren’t exactly running lean, creating absurd sub-categories of SUVs and sedan-coupes, but they aren’t at risk of going out of business. Now, their brand equity has certainly suffered in enthusiast communities (although the analog driving pleasure exuded by older BMWs is pretty much nonexistent on the planet now, due to a million factors), and the resale of the 3 (and X3) drops off very quickly due to the tragedy that is the N20, and heavy reliance on leases, meaning lots are dumped on the second-hand market quickly.
You took the words from my mouth… an E65 7er looked like a cruel joke compared to an E38 which was practically perfect in every single way (catch the Mary Poppins reference?). Likewise I think I actually threw up in my mouth the first time I saw an E60 next to an E39 5er. I have warmed to the E60 in the years since, but it’s still been a long time to unscrew what wasn’t broken in the first place. I’m on my second E90 3er, which I do believe was generally the best execution of the Bangle designs, but that’s almost like saying that a root canal is preferable to cancer: completely true but also not the point. Hubby Bear’s E70 X5 is handsome – it’s far too big for my tastes and I don’t particularly like SUVs in the first place – but handsome.
And yes: the newest designs with the HUUYYYGE grilles look completely stupid.
Without any hesitation I declare the current design language is Klingon.
Loud, coarse, vulgar, incomprehensible, ugly, unnecessary and stupid.
Exceptions exist, such as VW, some Audi’s and most Mazdas.
GMs have been hideous for so long now I hardly remember that they were my favorite.
I have a collection of around 600 1/64 cars, covering the 1930s models up to around 2000. It’s a shame, because Tomica, a high quality manufacturer, focuses almost completely on modern cars and SUVs. I have literally two of those, a GTR and a Mazda CX-3. Most everything else is just gross to look at.
The Japanese cars of the 90s were the ultimate car times to me. Such beautiful cars all over the spectrum. I like so many of them for both form and function that I can’t even pick a favorite. I really liked early Infinitis and thought they were about perfect.
American cars peaked in the 60s. Damn near everything was great looking. Not to mention the muscle car era. I am guilty of liking many land yachts from the 70s, and the Matador coupe. They are kind of gaudy and tacky, but they aren’t ugly in the AGGRESSIVE (I really hate that word!) style that has come in like a virus, obliterating what was left of America’s good taste.
I am reminded of Tom Petty’s “Jammin’ Me”. Take back light bars, giant grilles, huge touchscreens, fake engine sounds and stupid key fobs.
-End of rant-
It took me a while to get used to the “tall small cars” that started to become common in the late 1990s / early 2000s, starting with the Ford Focus and Toyota Echo. The Focus has grown on me, but when those taller cars first came out I thought they looked oddly proportioned next to the sleek, low slung cars of the 1990s. They look less odd to me now just because tall vehicles have pretty much become the norm. And I admit to the advantage tall cars have in terms of more efficient use of interior space and higher seating position.
That said, I have to agree with what others have said about about the current era with the massive grills and squinty headlights. IMO Toyota is the worst offender here, followed closely by Honda.
1998 to 2004 and that fever of smiling cars and Looney Tunes eyes of every Citroën, Honda Civic, the overdose of bubble style used by Ford, the destruction of Taurus and Scorpio and the efforts of Renault and Fiat designers to make different cars in an unpleasant way.
I guess it depends on what the definition of “getting used to” entails. Is it a decade you warmed up to, or something with a heavy sigh and a hanged head you look at and go “right, that was a thing.”
In that case, just 1959 in general, which is odd coming from someone born years after that year came and went but its true. I look at the cars of the mid-50s, and I find something rather likeable about the designs. Even in 58, literally one year earlier, you had all these yearly model design changes that have a quirky sense of character, baroque without being tasteless. Then the next year comes in, and the jarring shift in design quality just smacks me upside the head like a particularly violent 2×4. I still look at 59 cars the same way people look at the brougham era, a sad sordid state of affairs, the time where good taste goes to die. (Even as a brougham fan, I can’t deny how tacky and nasty some of them got during that era).
the late 90s-mid-2000s works that way too, but just for the American car manufacturers where finding something that wasn’t an SUV or a truck that I could realistically see myself being behind the wheel of, is little more than playing Russian roulette with a Milkor Grenade Launcher.
Also, add in a plus one for the current era.
For me, the current era also. Oodles and oodles of boring crapbox suvs that all look the same. Can’t tell an Escape from a Kona from a Sorrento from a whatever. And now they have the Mustang Mach-e too! Is nothing sacred? Guess I’ll be rolling the last Mark VIII on earth till I die (vanity plate ‘LASTMRK’). At least it has some style, questionable though it may be 🙂
I think the most jarring design change to me was Ford’s 1997 F150. Went from boxy and upright with vent windows to curved and sleek over night. And this being OK, with Ford trucks everywhere, changed the automotive landscape quickly.
US Ford designs from 2005-2011, a bunch of botched facelifts and fussy details that didn’t look good new and have only gotten worse with time. (Except the ‘05 GT – a beautiful, timeless work of art.)
Old fart rant, I miss the days when a luxury car felt luxurious. Truly, 100% luxurious. What passes for luxury today just isn’t the same.
Endless pointless gagetry now substitutes for build quality and tactile feedback as signifying “luxury”.
The current era. Nothing but a proliferation of faceless SUVs, and ‘crossovers’. And the death of the full-size American sedan. The coupe is also going the way of the dinosaur when only Challengers, Corvettes, Mustangs, and overdone , plug ugly Camaros are the only ones left in the USA.
I agree that Japanese cars hit their pinnacle in the late ‘80’s early ‘90’s, but as the Toyota Camry did in with it’s 4th North American generation in ‘97 things got cheapened.
I didn’t like the Chrysler 300 when it came out in 2005 – hate high belt lines with tiny windows. I like the new 300, especially its tail lights.
Because cars are around us everyday a new design trends tends to grow on you, but today’s whacked out arbitrary lines that Mazda introduce around 2010 have not grown on me. Like 21st Century architecture there is a lot that can be done today due to computer technology that wasn’t possible 20 years ago, but it doesn’t always mean it should be done.
ʌ ʌ ʌ
This, absolutely.
“Like 21st Century architecture there is a lot that can be done today due to computer technology that wasn’t possible 20 years ago, but it doesn’t always mean it should be done.”
I want a car to look as though it was designed by adults, for adults: restrained, considered, contemporary yet timeless. Rather than all of this stuff:
The latest iteration of the Ford Escape. Looks like a guppy to me.🐡🐡
Ugly as sin!!
I’ve owned two iterations of the Escape, but no more.
However, the latest Ford Explorer and sister ship Lincoln Aviator are what a CUV/SUV should look at. Once FOMOCO gets it act together on quality issues, I will consider these as potential replacements.
Oh boy, William, am I with you on the post-recession Japanese cars.
Mazda for one was producing a 1.8 6cyl styled after a classic Alfa (the Eunic or whatever), the common-as-muck 323 was dressed more glamourous than a Beemer, the 929 looked a considerably superior Jag to the one actually being made, and they fell just short of releasing a V12 limo. World domination was surely minutes away when the weasel popped.
As they dejectedly mopped up the after-party, it was clear all the fun people had left (or possibly died), and an entire troupe of timid little squeakers made their self-effacing debuts, which no-one attended. No more Amati/Armani limos or 4-wheel steer turbo Nissans, just some lonely small thing blinking alone in the spotlight in front of the 4 grandmothers who mistakenly turned up, clad in its Grey Cardigan edition.
Most gallingly, the public didn’t seem to notice, and went right on buying these snoozebags as if they were normal.
Which just shows that the saying about no-one ever going broke by under-estimating the taste of the US public is itself an under-estimation – assuming that 90% of the car-purchasing public anywhere even HAVE an opinion, let alone a tasteful preference, is assuming too much altogether.
Anything from the last 10 years. Plain slabs of nothing. Danish Modern minimalist interiors. Black rims. Rubber band tires. Gun slit windows. Gargantuan grilles and slit headlights. I’m still struggling with today’s weird looking cars. The new Escape is bad and the just introduced Mustang crossover thing even worse with its blanked out grille and pony car cribbed taillights. If this mess is what future cars are going to be I’ll just keep buying older ones.
Bangle Butt. It was universally derided but eventually influenced virtually everything on the road.
Boy, this is an easy one for me! 1973 model year on. Death of the hardtops, rear roll-down glass on coupes, railroad tie bumpers and everything else associated with the 1970s.
I still miss the old designs, if not the cars themselves, for today’s cars are perfect by comparison as to reliability, comfort, safety and economy.