What happened to modern interiors? Why are they mostly dull?

[Digby]

dbdb said:

Mr2Mike said:

PGNCerbera said:

Thankyou4calling said:

That first Mercedes interior (2nd pic) is, to my mind superb and defeats the point of your argument.

Correct.

The one were every part is a shade of grey or silver, and has an iPad randomly stuck to the middle of the dash? Clearly it appeals to a certain mentality, but it looks absolutely gash to me.

It looks grim to me too.

All that's missing is the backs of the heads of Han Solo and Chewbacca.

[gizlaroc]

Mr2Mike said:

The one were every part is a shade of grey or silver, and has an iPad randomly stuck to the middle of the dash? Clearly it appeals to a certain mentality, but it looks absolutely gash to me.

Said Mr2Mike from Devon, the county where design stopped in 1964.


I wasn't a fan of the new C Class interior at all from the photos, but after spending a day in one it changed my view, it's not too bad at all.

[gizlaroc]

This was the colour of the one I was in....




I actually thought it felt like a homage to old skool design.

And the iPad type screen doesn't look anywhere near as pronounced when you are sat in the car, the top of it only sits in line with the dash and it doesn't stick up half as much as it looks in pictures.

[RacingBlue]

The interior is one of my favourite parts of my current car



Never mind that the rest of the car is sh*t, at least a bit of effort was made inside.

[300bhp/ton]

gizlaroc said:

This was the colour of the one I was in....




I actually thought it felt like a homage to old skool design.

And the iPad type screen doesn't look anywhere near as pronounced when you are sat in the car, the top of it only sits in line with the dash and it doesn't stick up half as much as it looks in pictures.

That actually doesn't look to be tbh. I just wonder how many in the UK look like that though? At a recent car show Merc had a big marketing stand, with a classic 300SL Gullwing and 6 or 7 of their current range, a number of them AMG's. All of the new ones had the same boring black interior.

[Nikolai Petroff]

Interiors are not "dull" It's just that all of us humans have largely similar limb types. So a steering wheel on the roof or a driver seat that rotates might be the antithesis of dull, but are impractical. Of course you can hand a chandelier off the roof of your Clio, or a cover the interior in a Persian rug.

[Guvernator]

Nikolai Petroff said:

Interiors are not "dull" It's just that all of us humans have largely similar limb types. So a steering wheel on the roof or a driver seat that rotates might be the antithesis of dull, but are impractical. Of course you can hand a chandelier off the roof of your Clio, or a cover the interior in a Persian rug.

I LOVE PH for posts like this! Yep some of us think modern interiors are dull because they don't have chandeliers hanging from the roof.

[ORD]

To be fair to it, the C-Class interior is mostly bad because it's made of horrible materials rather than design. You could probably spec it up to be more pleasant. The rest of the car is a lost cause, though

[deadslow]

you can spec a lot of different bits in a decent modern car interior. It only needs to be dull if you are a dull bd yourself.

[Strawman]

RacingBlue said:

The interior is one of my favourite parts of my current car



Never mind that the rest of the car is sh*t, at least a bit of effort was made inside.

It is a decent effort, sat nav buried in the curve of the dash, central rev counter, speedometer in your eyeline while driving. Not like every other car out there.

[otolith]

My mrs is car shopping at the moment, and that FN2 dashboard is the only hot hatch dash she isn't immediately dismissing as "ordinary and boring".

She's dismissing most of Ze Germans on the same basis, though she's quite interested in the Z4M and AMG SLK55 so long as they aren't coal hole hued. Looking at a couple of BMWs over the weekend.

[Randy Winkman]

I think the issue is being clouded a little by people posting internet "brochure" pictures of modern car interiors. Those sorts of pictures are taken by special internet people who can make anything look at least 50% better than it does in real life.

[paranoid airbag]

berlintaxi said:

Well how about comparing apples with apples for a kick off, the current SL dash, not at all boring in my opinion;



It's typical 300BHP trolling pick 2 extremes to suit your argument.

Brought to you by E L James .

okay, that implies the cohesiveness of a single designer. More like 50 engineers, who have never met, but have all read E L James

[Digitalize]

By special internet people do you mean photographers? And retouchers?

The only thing I can see is that in your pictures all the modern ones are black, because that's what people want, it disappears in your eye allowing you to focus on the road.

[Guvernator]

The cars pics in the brochures are often of those specced up to the gills, would be silly for them to do otherwise. As stated it is possible to make a modern car interior look halfway decent if someone is prepared to spend £5k-£10k on options.