Cars looking different for the USA market
Discussion
I noticed as a kid, watching various American shows, that cars sold both here/Europe and the USA sometimes looked a little different. Particularly headlights, indicators and bumpers.
Is this due to crash regulations (or other regulations?) or do our American motoring cousins just like their European or Japanese cars styled a little differently?
Here are some examples which I found:
Mercedes SL/ SLC. Twin circular lights for them, plain rectangular units for us. I think the US car looks fantastic. The US bumper treatment too suits the car much better:
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Rolls Royce Silver Spirit/ Spur. Again, just how good do those twin square lamps look!
BMW 3 series. That is one hell of a bumper on the US E21.
Audi 100. Think something like this appeared in Spielberg's ET. Looked different to the European spec cars:
Ferrari F355. The US cars have solid orange side lights and indicator units. The UK-spec (mine in the picture has clear units
). Notice also the side rectangular indicator units infront of the front wheels for the US cars and a small circular indicator behind the front wheels on my car.
Mercedes SEL: slighyly different headlights on the US car, and angular headlight washers. Strange. Bumper seems more pronounced too on the US car.
I guess there could be many differences too in engines, interior specs and alloys.
Please post more pics of these differences and comment on which one you feel looks better.
Is this due to crash regulations (or other regulations?) or do our American motoring cousins just like their European or Japanese cars styled a little differently?
Here are some examples which I found:
Mercedes SL/ SLC. Twin circular lights for them, plain rectangular units for us. I think the US car looks fantastic. The US bumper treatment too suits the car much better:
[url][img]Rolls Royce Silver Spirit/ Spur. Again, just how good do those twin square lamps look!
BMW 3 series. That is one hell of a bumper on the US E21.
Audi 100. Think something like this appeared in Spielberg's ET. Looked different to the European spec cars:
Ferrari F355. The US cars have solid orange side lights and indicator units. The UK-spec (mine in the picture has clear units
). Notice also the side rectangular indicator units infront of the front wheels for the US cars and a small circular indicator behind the front wheels on my car.Mercedes SEL: slighyly different headlights on the US car, and angular headlight washers. Strange. Bumper seems more pronounced too on the US car.
I guess there could be many differences too in engines, interior specs and alloys.
Please post more pics of these differences and comment on which one you feel looks better.
Deranged Granny said:
Der Wachauring said:
From the posts so far, I am concluding that the more luxury cars (Mercs, Jags, Rolls and even the Volvo) look better in US spec.
Are you s
tting me?Am I the ONLY one who thinks all the US cars, without exception, look far, far worse??
tting you. I think the twin circular lamps on the Mercs and Jaguars and twin sqaure lamps on the Rolls really suit the cars well.Some of the bumper details are a bit fussy, but they are do give these cars a different look, and that is interesting in itself.
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