Blame having to write about
the BMW X4
recently. But since when did cars get so damned ugly?
Porsche's Matthias Kulla with his handiwork
It's easy to hold strong opinions about design of course; unlike the more nuts and bolts side of the business you don't need a technical understanding to hold a view, claim it as subjective and stand your ground with impunity. Everyone can be right. Winner! The reality is, of course, that designing cars is as technically complex and engineering led as any other part of the process. It's just that its exponents tend to dress better and are more
handy at soundbites
Technical and legislative demands make the designer's job ever harder too but indulge in five minutes of four-wheeled people watching and it's hard not to get a bit gloomy about how many unforgivably fugly cars there about these days. Especially the so-called prestige ones.
The German brands can do the core stuff
What's funny is that the major German brands manage their signature cars with such panache. The
Mercedes E-Class
- more so in pre-facelift form - has a pleasingly hard-edged sense of restrained Teutonic precision and purpose harking back to the glory days of the W124. The 3 Series,
Touring especially
, remains as sleek and sexy as ever despite the near ubiquity of the 320d. And the cookie-cutter Audi saloon/Avant template remains crisp and distinctive, even if you can't quite tell which of the last three generations of car you're looking at. See also
the 991 911
- same dish, sharper yet more subtle seasoning.
But then they go off-piste into SUVs, MPVs and crossovers and it all falls apart at the seams. Which is worrying, because off-piste is where many are having to chase the money.
And the same people did the X4 and 3 GT
At a recent BMW event we were shown some 'live action' car styling, with lots of earnest young designers with trendy haircuts and square glasses making tiny, millimetric adjustments to full size clay models with scalpels before stepping back to stroke their chins and pose as if on the cover of a glossy design periodical. Intricate stuff. One can only imagine that once their work is done Gunther from the panel beating department takes to the clay model with a shovel and sledgehammer and that's what the measurements for the final sheet metal stamps are taken from.
Interesting too that the last time Audi seemingly bothered to have a car actually designed was the TT and the bloke commonly credited with that is now running Kia. Peter Schreyer's appointment to the top job prompted some snickering at a 'mere' designer taking over the running of the company but if ever there was an example of design transforming a brand's standing within one generation of cars Kia is it. Think I'm wrong? Take the logos off the new cee'd, park your badge snobbery and spend some time studying on merit alone the way the lines flow into each other and how it manages to look hunkered down and purposeful even on poverty spec small wheels - a rare trick and artfully done. So who better to run the show?
Kia's transformation has been design led
at Land Rover
isn't shy of claiming the personal limelight but the cars
created under his watch
, whether to your taste or not, have real presence and there's a real swagger around Jaguar that's inspiring to see too. Shooting the Astra VXR we had in on test the other day really had me appreciating some of the work in that too - my trackday disco slippers say take the Megane 265 for purist driving thrills but viewed through chunky, black-rimmed glasses with a reflective hand on my chin the Astra is a refined and accomplished piece of design. Even a base-spec five-door is a handsome thing. For the VXR back in the day a big wing and white knuckle torque steer were enough for hot hatch glory but the Astra's body has some real aesthetic sophistication to match the impressive technical spec beneath.
New Astra is a handsome piece of kit
And if you'd told me a couple of years back I'd conclude a blog about design saying the leaders of the field are Kia and Vauxhall I'd have looked at you in disbelief!