Why can no-one make dignified-looking small cars?
Discussion
I mean, why?
I've just picked up today's Auto Express, and they've raved about the Toyota Aygo, the new Clio and so on. However, one thing that seems to run through all of them is that they look dreadful. They look stumpty and stunted, like big Fisher-Price toys inside and out, and their demeanour is of someone shouting "HAVE FUN HAVE FUN HAVE FUN" through a megaphone five inches from your ears. They look like the sort of car that, if parked outside a posh restaurant, would get towed for ruining the ambience.
Can't anyone make a small car - I mean a seriously small car - elegant rather than runtish? Fiat used to be able to do it, the old Mini was quite elegant, and IMO the Lancia Y, despite the fact that it was never exported properly to Britain, is the best-looking 'mini' ever - full of Italian lines and curves.
What on earth's happened to small car design?
I've just picked up today's Auto Express, and they've raved about the Toyota Aygo, the new Clio and so on. However, one thing that seems to run through all of them is that they look dreadful. They look stumpty and stunted, like big Fisher-Price toys inside and out, and their demeanour is of someone shouting "HAVE FUN HAVE FUN HAVE FUN" through a megaphone five inches from your ears. They look like the sort of car that, if parked outside a posh restaurant, would get towed for ruining the ambience.
Can't anyone make a small car - I mean a seriously small car - elegant rather than runtish? Fiat used to be able to do it, the old Mini was quite elegant, and IMO the Lancia Y, despite the fact that it was never exported properly to Britain, is the best-looking 'mini' ever - full of Italian lines and curves.
What on earth's happened to small car design?
Snob perhaps, but that's what happens in places like Hollywood and Dubai - if it looks good, they leave it outside, if they don't the valets stick it out of sight. I'm not being a snob when I say that there are too many small cars that look out of place in more situations than, say, saloons of all sizes. The small car market is crying out for something elegant.
agent006 said:
Rob_F said:
Snob.
Pillock.
Why? His comment was pretty much the definition of snobbishness. My dad drives an old, and crap car - if someone said it should be towed away because it was parked outside, and ruining the ambience of their posh resturant i'd find it highly offensive.
Maybe chavs find nice cars ruin the "ambience" of their housing estates, so key them?
Cheers,
Rob.
[edit] Oh, and i notice v8thunder even recognises the snobbishness of his post, but i'm a pillock because i pointed it out?
>> Edited by Rob_F on Saturday 23 April 23:40
Happens in London too. There's a Ferrari 550 regularly parked on the forecourt of the Intercontinental Hotel in hamilton place. He's not a regular guest, he works in teh office over the road but it makes the hotel look good so they let him park there.
the new Mini is just about the only small car that has any class, maybe the polos of old, but the latest model has gone for the bug eyed look.
the new Mini is just about the only small car that has any class, maybe the polos of old, but the latest model has gone for the bug eyed look.
I wasn't talking about what you might call 'old, crap' cars Rob (FWIW my parents have always bought what are IMO crap cars with few exceptions). What I was really talking about were cars that 'fit in'. It's not that small cars are 'crap', it's just that the design trends for them these days seems to be to make them look odder and odder. Saloons, larger hatches, MPVs, sports cars and so on seem to 'fit in', visually, to a multitude of situations. However, cars like the Toyota Aygo, Peugoet 1007, Citroen C1 and so on just look odd. They're badly proportioned, the headlights are bizzarely shaped, and they're so short they're visually jarring. For cars that are intended to inhabit cities en masse, I just get the idea that the designers would make them easier on the eye. I had a look through a new car mag and, with the exception of the Ford Ka, I can't find any other cars that size with a nice design, they're all just willfully weird.
agent006 said:
A load of reactionary waffle
You've missed the point, i shan't bother explaining.
I'm really not,
v8thunder said:
They look like the sort of car that, if parked outside a posh restaurant, would get towed for ruining the ambience.
That is exactly the kind of thing which makes people think "what a cock" before running a key down the side of their car. I'm not condoning it, but in the words of v8.. "that's what happens".
Rob.
Twincam16 said:
I mean, why?
What on earth's happened to small car design?
Doing just fine I think.
Seems to me you are talking cobblers.
Small cars represent some of the finest design out there right now IMO. The challenge to design a small car with the levels of refinement, crash safety, economy demanded by modern buyers while also making them economic to build is probably the toughest challenge for any automotive designer.
I suggest that making a small car that does motorways well, has decent performance, passes all the crash rules, looks good AND makes money is harder than building some high end performance car !
So, in short, I would suggest that you are totally and completely wrong.
Twincam16 said:
. Saloons, larger hatches, MPVs, sports cars and so on seem to 'fit in', visually, to a multitude of situations.
You have got to be kidding. Even the most mundane small hatchbacks are paragons of elegance compared to just about any of those horrific, slab sided, sit up and beg, totally unglamorous contraptions IMO.
Gassing Station | Motoring News | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff