Retro? No go! PH Blog
There's a lot to like about the new Alpine Vision, so why make it look like an old one?
I'm also inspired by another mainstream manufacturer embracing weight saving, simplicity and realistic performance. Plus the fact Alpine has gone to the bother of developing an entirely new mid-engined, rear-driven platform to achieve it. All of this is good stuff.
Why the need to burden it with retro styling though?
The fixation with retro is, to me, the mock Tudoring of car design. Or the Hollywood craze for re-making old films, like the forthcoming rehash of Point Break. The originals in all these cases were products of their time and we love them for that. Let them be. By all means draw from them as inspiration. Fill your new projects with respectful and knowing references of their influence. But have we really run out of ideas on how to design houses, come up with exciting film scripts or make cars look cool? I seriously hope not!
Before I get too worked up let's hear the case for the defence. Newly appointed worldwide marketing boss for Alpine, Michael van der Sande, says the Vision concept isn't retro. While launching it to the world surrounded by 80-odd A110s on the Monaco quayside. "It's not a slave to the A110, it picks up the best," he told me. "Is the Porsche 911 retro? I don't think so - it picks up the cues from cars from the past, but it is not retro."
Ebullient designer Antony Villain agrees. "We had to pick up the story as if it had never stopped," he said at the event. "It was not a demonstration of styling or doing something trendy, we hope within 20 years people will say this is a classic Alpine."
Fair points both. But they're not picking up the story as if it had never stopped - if Villain had we'd have a modern interpretation of the A610, officially the last Alpine before the brand's rebirth. The A110 is the iconic Alpine. But the 70s A310 and 80s GTA, if not as successful, were equally distinctive. And very, very French. Villain seems a talented and enthusiastic chap and is clearly doing what he's told. I'd love to see what he'd have come up with had his design influence been allowed to stretch further than the Berlinette.
Generally speaking this inability to break with the past seems a quirk of Western hemisphere corporate thinking too. Mazda's fourth-gen MX-5 is a brave reinvention of the original's values, executed with freshness and modernity. The Fiat 124 Spider based on the same underpinnings? A lazy pastiche of former glories in comparison. Look at the Nissan GT-R too; it's clearly faithful to the design heritage of its predecessors. But not chained to them and willing to mix in modern influences like anime and gaming to forge its own legend.
Meanwhile we get new Mustangs that look like old Mustangs, modern Minis that look like classic ones (OK, they're stretching that one to the absolute limit) and a continuing craze for butchering nice old 911s to make them look a bit like newer ones. Credit to former Lamborghini boss Stephan Winkelmann for holding out against demand for the Miura rehash - will new man Domenicali be able to resist?
The key one for me in this will be what Land Rover decides to do with its eventual Defender replacement. If it's truly honest to the original it won't necessarily look like it. It'll be strictly functional, its style dictated by the materials and construction methods used to build it as the first one was back in the day. If it sticks true to this yet looks nothing like the old Defender it'll be more true to Land Rover values than any retro rehash. Can they resist the temptation though?
I hope they can.
Dan
It's the same for cars, but the circles are bigger. If Ford released a Mustang now that looked like an 80s Mustang, nobody would buy it. So the 60s Mustang is the one to use. It's also the one that everyone thinks about when they think Mustang. Few people spare much thought for what they produced in the 80s and 90s.
Ditto the Mini. It's a design that never really changed, aside from the 70s Clubman (which I personally really like), whose name was more recently applied to one of BMW's abominations.
Contrast that with the Escort, where a couple of models looked similar, then they changed it, then another couple looked the same. There was also the US Escort, a completely different car altogether. The Focus was a completely different car and they're all recognisable as Focuses. If Ford were to make a new Escort, it would have to be completely new, or look like the Mk1.
It's partly nostalgia, but mostly designs that people liked. Hats off to Jaguar though; the F-type is stunning without looking at all like the E-type. All it has is a similar name. It's also all it needed.
The worst examples seem to be where a particular retro design feature is nailed on to an otherwise good design. The one that comes to my is the current Bentley fad for having a pair of large lights in the centre and smaller lights on the outside:
When I first saw them I just couldn't understand how anyone thought that was a good idea. Then I saw the classic Bentley that inspired them (can't remember which one it was off the top of my head).
It's not always a disaster. For example I like the egg-crate grill on the side of the McMerc SLR that was a taken from the 300 SL, but the good examples are massively outweighed by the bad.
Reimagine a Muira SV with the running gear from an Aventador SV and a manual gearbox and I'm sure they could sell 50 or 100 of them for £5M or more each no problem.
Toyota won't be re-imagining any generation of Corolla.
Every Honda Civic has been demonstrably different form the last, because they have such short life spans, nothing is around long enough to make a mark on the enthusiast's or public's heart.
Mini
500
911
Thunderbird
Mustang
Range Rover
Beetle
A110
Icons...on the whole beautiful objects in their own right. Limited amounts of the original beauty...bring it back in a contemporary way, make our roads brighter and better for it.
I for one wish Citroen would rehash the DS.
To an extent it is lazy, but from a superficial point of view I don't care, beauty is always beautiful...
The risk of starting from a clean sheet is not as easily assured, just ask Mr Bangle.
The 610 wasn't a particularly good looking or iconic car. It doesn't have any real Motorsport pedigree. The opposite is true of the 110. So which would you base a new car design on?
What i don't understand is why Audi have never re-kindled the Quattro - the ultimate marketable iconic rally car.
Toyota won't be re-imagining any generation of Corolla.
The only link between those two cars is the '86', RWD and an attempt to revitalise the car culture that surrounded the orginal. There's no hint of Corolla in a GT86, in the way that old Mini is reflected in New Mini and old Beetle in New Beetle...
Brands have heritage, and heritage sells. Do you think if Ford slapped a Mustang badge on a Probe it'd sell? Doubt it. It has to evoke the original concept to tug at the heartstrings, and get that heritage vibe that sells. So, new Fiat 500s will look like old ones, new MINIs will look like old ones, and that's why the Bentley grille still harps back to the Blower Bentleys of the 1920s.
It's not just cars....
Watches
Furniture
Kitchen Equipment
Very modern styles/models are available in all those markets, but some brands do very well off selling things that look like the ones they used to make 50 (or more) years ago.
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