Cars That Are Ageing Badly

[B10]

jamieduff1981 said:

I think you've got this backwards.

A car looking old at launch isn't aged badly, it's "conservative" or "restrained".

All those fussy creases all over the bodywork that you think it's lacking - e.g. Bangle era BMWs are the sort of thing which go straight from flashy & new to old & st as soon as the next model comes out.



I'm not surprised, but continue to be disappointed at the poor comprehension displayed on Pistonheads.

Aging badly. Something that seems to go from new to old at a faster rate than normal.

Nigella Lawson looks a little more mature now than she did in 2001. Gillian McKeith looks like she's 40 years older now than she looked in 2001. THAT is aging badly, not a car looking a bit like the last model, nor a beautiful car designed a while ago.

It's not that difficult to grasp FFS.

I generally I agree with you. The XE is a handsome car if a little unremarkable and will age well. If you put and XE and old XF together the youthful differences are easier to spot. A bit like a subtle change in a logo that is only noticeable when compared with the old. I think Jag decided to play safe in this very competitive segment as do the competition. The new XF though seems to be less well proportioned that the old XF and a result is a bit slug-like and dumpy. Much in the same way as the new C class is sharper than the new E class. I think that it will need to be freshened up early on in it's life.

[AH33]

Ford Ecosport - Now there's a car that was badly dated while it was still inside the mind of the "designer"

[r11co]

DeanHelix said:

"Totally legal" in this sense meaning Jaguar Land Rover embroiled in an ongoing legal row with Land Wind over them blatantly ripping off their registered design & copyright. Even their name!

But yeah, blatant rip-off trading on the massive success of the Evoque styling. And instead of pulling them up on it and helping the whole "China doesn't give a toss about IP" vibe, Beijing courts are actually siding with Land Wind. Madness.

Going really off topic, but some people think that China has no copyright legislation. It does, but the legislation is different. Moaning about ignorance of it is no different to a German used to derestricted autobahns complaining about getting a speeding ticket on the M1.

The background to the story is that JLR showed the Evoque as a concept car at a motor show in China BEFORE they had registered the design at the patents authority. This is the equivalent in China of placing something in the public domain. They should have known this. Their legal team failed in their due diligence. Now they are trying to put the genie back in the bottle.

What Landwind did might be cheeky, but it was not illegal I'm not saying that other Chinese companies have not broke the law WRT copyright, but in the case of the X7 it is a clear-cut non-breach. Oh, and the name similarity predates the X7 by several years.

FYI there is a detailed analysis of the X7 case on the AROnline site from someone who actually knows and understands the law on the matter.

Edited by r11co on Thursday 22 September 15:47

[ANJ91]

AXlawrence said:

These civics don't look so good any more. It's the plastic on the front and on the sides around the wheel arches (current model has the same problem), and the plastic wheels don't help. The Type R still looks good though.

Edited by AXlawrence on Wednesday 21st September 21:48

This is a very bad angle and poverty spec car.

I think they still look very modern.

[AMGJocky]

bazza white said:

McLarens newer cars are much sharper looking so the MP4 has aged quite quickly.

Go and stand next to a 12C and then come back to this thread, rather than trawling the web for as 'bog' a spec 12C as you can find

[ANJ91]

In some way I find the Ford Ka first gen aged very badly, only because it was first produced in 1996 and did not change until 2008. For a car from 1990s it looked ok, but for a car produced in 2007 it looked very outdated.

[Trabi601]

r11co said:

Going really off topic, but some people think that China has no copyright legislation. It does, but the legislation is different. Moaning about ignorance of it is no different to a German used to derestricted autobahns complaining about getting a speeding ticket on the M1.

The background to the story is that JLR showed the Evoque as a concept car at a motor show in China BEFORE they had registered the design at the patents authority. This is the equivalent in China of placing something in the public domain. They should have known this. Their legal team failed in their due diligence. Now they are trying to put the genie back in the bottle.

What Landwind did might be cheeky, but it was not illegal I'm not saying that other Chinese companies have not broke the law WRT copyright, but in the case of the X7 it is a clear-cut non-breach. Oh, and the name similarity predates the X7 by several years.

FYI there is a detailed analysis of the X7 case on the AROnline site from someone who actually knows and understands the law on the matter.

Edited by r11co on Thursday 22 September 15:47

They ripped off the design and managed to escape punishment because, guess what, the Chinese government don't give a toss about that kind of thing.

[Trabi601]

bunglesprout said:

Skoda Rapid notchback. Reminds me of a Chrysler Neon.

That looks like an Auto Express / Auto Bild 'impression'.

[r11co]

Trabi601 said:

They ripped off the design and managed to escape punishment because, guess what, the Chinese government don't give a toss about that kind of thing.

You are both ignorant and stupid if you believe that. JLR had three windows of opportunity to protect their copyright on the Evoque design and failed to act on all three occasions. They just assumed that Chinese law was the same as somewhere else they were used to operating (I can probably guess where) where putting their name on the design in public was enough to establish copyright.

Even after the first displaying of the car they had six months grace to lodge the design but didn't. Landwind waited that time, saw the opportunity and lodged their patent on the basis that the shape of the car shown at the show was now a pre-existing design as JLR had not legally laid claim to ownership of it. Even then JLR could have protested the application and probably won. God knows how they didn't, because even I was aware that the patent had been lodged because pictures of the application were posted in here.

Another six months passed without protest from JLR meaning the design became fully public domain. End of. It has fk all to do with the Chinese government not caring. The rules were clear, JLR just failed to follow them in time, then got all pissy when Landwind said they were actually going to manufacture a car based on the design.

Edited by r11co on Thursday 22 September 17:18

[VRSMatt]

I have to say I think some people on here are missing the point of the thread, its about newer cars that look older than their time, not old cars that look old.

I also think some people are smoking crack, there is no way that the i8 or the Jag XE look remotely dated, or the Passat. The i8 in particular looks pretty special in the flesh.

I hear a bit of hate for the E90/1/2/3 BMW's but the LCI ones still look good, particularly in M-Sport guise (even if they don't ride well lol)

[LittleEnus]

AMGJocky said:

Completely agree. I'd say they even look ugly.

Agreed. Hideous things.

[Europa1]

r11co said:

Trabi601 said:

They ripped off the design and managed to escape punishment because, guess what, the Chinese government don't give a toss about that kind of thing.

You are both ignorant and stupid if you believe that. JLR had three windows of opportunity to protect their copyright on the Evoque design and failed to act on all three occasions. They just assumed that Chinese law was the same as somewhere else they were used to operating (I can only speculate where).

Even after the first displaying of the car they had six months grace to lodge the design but didn't. Landwind waited that time, saw the opportunity and lodged their patent on the basis that the shape of the car shown at the show was now a pre-existing design as JLR had not legally laid claim to ownership of it. Even then JLR could have protested the application and probably won. God knows how they didn't, because even I was aware that the patent had been lodged because pictures of the application were even posted in here.

Another six months passed without protest from JLR meaning the design became fully public domain. End of. It has fk all to do with the Chinese government not caring. The rules were clear, JLR just failed to follow them in time, then got all pissy when Landwind said they were actually going to manufacture a car based on the design.

Edited by r11co on Thursday 22 September 16:56

I have to say, although in some cases the concept of intellectual property has been pretty elastic in China, this doesn't appear to be one of them.

[MikeTFSI]

bunglesprout said:

bobclayton said:

bunglesprout said:

Skoda Rapid notchback. Reminds me of a Chrysler Neon.

Pretty sure that's a previous generation Fabia Saloon.
The Rapid:

This is the previous generation Fabia Saloon -



Which is pretty dumpy and just as bad.

No that's the 1st generation Fabia. The top picture is the mk2 Fabia saloon and the blue one current gen Rapide, very similar to the current mk3 Fabia.

[J4CKO]

LittleEnus said:

AMGJocky said:

Completely agree. I'd say they even look ugly.

Agreed. Hideous things.

I have always really liked them hence why I bought one, it is personal preference.

They sold quite a few considering it is so hideous.

[puddings3112]

Derivative cars that are rushed out as a result of new market trends often age badly in my opinion - the trend for mini MPVs that kicked off in the late 90's was a prime example of this. Take an existing car design and stretch it in different directions just so the manufacturer can get a familiar brand into a new market place. The initial design language of the base car is corrupted and when viewed in retrospect does not hold up well. While the gen-2 ford focus has already been highlighted in this thread, when placed alongside its mutant lovechild, the C-Max, it looks positively sprightly. This is not limited to Ford - most manufacturers are guilty of the same design crime and interestingly, with each subsequent generation have not sought to resolve this. One can only assume that this type of vehicle is designed by focus group feedback on what it needs to achieve and aesthetic longevity is not on the wish list (focus group feedback is a whole other area of design destruction and very guilty of making cars age badly)

[JMo22]

toon10 said:

fomb said:

jamieduff1981 said:

Wills2 said:

JMo22 said:

BMW i8 - saw one the other day from rear 3/4 and just thought it looked incredibly dated. Never understand why car manufacturers think electric/hybrid cars need to look different to petrol cars (usually just for the sake of it), thought Tesla had shown that is the wrong approach.

A dark grey one came past me last month whilst I was driving to Germany, it looked wonderful, low sleek and very modern, there was a white and black one on a stand at the exhibition I was attending and it again looked very modern and gathered quite a crowd.

How you can say it looks dated/has aged badly with a straight face is beyond me.

Because it's a mess? Fussy little bits stuck everywhere bearing tenuous relation to each other, randomly placed bits of different colour for no apparent reason.

It's "styled" as only a German can - badly.

The styling's fine - it's the fact that it looks like it's giving birth to a 911 that bothers me.

I've never noticed that before. I now can't unsee it.

Ha..me too!

To the guy who says it doesn't look dated. The front has a bit of BMW Z1 about it to me and the rest is just some marketing guy's idea of what a "hybrid" should look like. It's from the Homer Simpson school of car design.

Beyond the styling the plug-in hybrid technology is horribly dated already too. £104k before options for 0-60 in 4.4 secs and the worst of both petrol and electric technology. No thanks!

Edited by JMo22 on Thursday 22 September 17:49

[JMo22]

AMGJocky said:

bazza white said:

McLarens newer cars are much sharper looking so the MP4 has aged quite quickly.

Go and stand next to a 12C and then come back to this thread, rather than trawling the web for as 'bog' a spec 12C as you can find

Have to disagree on the 12C. Design is more along F1 lines, which is pretty timeless. I suspect the 650S will age badly as it's a flashy/overstyled P1 front end on a 12C rear end with a random section painted black.

[anonymous-user]

[redacted]

[paranoid airbag]

RenesisEvo said:

The Vauxhall Mokka (I shudder just typing the words) looked out of date the moment it was released, even more so now it's been left behind by latest Astra and Corsa. Perhaps I have a bias though, as it's such a dreadful car in so many respects. That it's the 9th best selling car in the UK says a lot about the general public IMO (data here http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/best-cars/94280/best-...

I have a friend who bought one on SWMBOs orders... for motorway journeys.

As a passenger, never been in something bigger than a pug 205 that's given me the same feeling of "extend your toes too much and you'll kick the crankshaft". I mean, it's not great.

[R400TVR]

carlove said:

Was beihnid a pre facelift e90 3 Series, was surprised just how dated it looks, the M-Sport still look good but the normal ones look very dated. I have to say though the rest of the car still looks ok, I think it's the rear lights that spoil it.

Funnily enough, I was just thinking today how the E46 still looks better than most cars on the road, especially the current 3/4 series.