Car design trends that have come back around

[Nickbrapp]

As we know fashion comes and goes, as does big trends in car design, BMW admit large grills won’t be forever.

I saw out on the road a BMW X1 and then a i4, and the one thing I noticed is the door handles, they’ve gone back to how they were 20 years ago. I Assume them being flush means better aero? Why did they ever change to the fridge style ones we see so much now?






What other trends have come back around? I would say sunroofs, very popular in 90s, then died off and now back in a big way with panoramic glass ones.

[Doofus]

Chrome trim.

Black trim.

Chrome trim.

Black trim.

etc

etc

[PurplePangolin]

ICE?

[Dohnut]

Full width light bars (mainly an EV thing). Sure that was an 80’s trend.

[Cold]

Big wheels and small profile tyres.
Small wheels and big profile tyres.
Back to big wheels and small profile tyres.

[caffeine]

Taillight ‘bars’ seems to have undergone a bit of a renaissance of late, now seen on anything from Porsches to run of the mill Seat Leons



Seems a bit of an ‘80s/ ‘90s throwback, although probably works better with the filament LEDs they have now

[Doofus]

Cold said:

Big wheels and small profile tyres.
Small wheels and big profile tyres.
Back to big wheels and small profile tyres.

ISWYDT.

[Missy Charm]

Square steering wheels.

[shtu]

Separated at birth,

Austin Allegro
Hyundai Ioniq 5

[StescoG66]

shtu said:

Separated at birth,

Austin Allegro Lancia Delta mk1
Hyundai Ioniq 5

Corrected that for you

[swisstoni]

EVs.
Thomas Edison in 1895.

[InitialDave]

Toyota had these in their accessories brochure at the Tokyo Auto Salon this year

[gotoPzero]

[Fusion777]

Angular styling. 80s (in), 90s (out), back in for the 20s.

[J4CKO]

StescoG66 said:

shtu said:

Separated at birth,

Austin Allegro Lancia Delta mk1
Hyundai Ioniq 5

Corrected that for you

Nah, it’s the Austin Princess for the 2020’s.

[StescoG66]

gotoPzero said:

When I had my Alfa Giulietta, I wanted to get a pair of those eyelashes and put them either side of the scudetto grille.............
Never got round to it alas.

[LuS1fer]

Fusion777 said:

Angular styling. 80s (in), 90s (out), back in for the 20s.

Meh, Tesla's are more like badly designed plump original Mondeos.

Fiat 500 as popular as ever after 15 years as is the MINI. I dare say there are plenty more.

[Deranged Rover]

Front quarter-light windows.

They're a lot smaller than they used to be and they don't open but they're cropping up on car front windows all over the place, presumably because of the current fashion for huge, steeply-raked windscreens. They look daft IMHO.

[rodericb]

Manufacturer badges which light up.

unreliability.

[anonymous-user]

I remember the old style flappy door handles being criticised in favour of the 00s style big handles ones, because of the difficulty operating in gloves and maybe that it was easier for the emergency services to put more force through the big handles. Sounds like typical journalist bks of just looking for something to whinge about to look wise.

Obvious answer is full width light bars at the rear.

What's quite apparent is how little real imagination or creativity there is in the industry, once one car comes out with some styling quirk soon enough every single car follows and it just becomes a trope. Perfect example is the D pillar nonsense of the last 5+ years.