photo courtesy of 1959ford.com
In the combox of this recent post on attending a local motorcycle show, reader cmatt comments;
There is a little bit of a retro-renaissance going on in automotive design, at least from the Amercian manufacturers. The Ford Thunderbird, the Dodge Challenger/Charger, the Camaro, all look back to the 50's and 60's that were the heyday for those vehicles.
This is true, and from what I have seen the auto manufacturers have done a good job adapting the forms of the old designs to the modern market and updated technology. They are adapting to the market by making model hot rods for the Generation That Never Grew Up. This does, I think, indicate something. It seems to me that the current malaise in car design is a reflection of a broader loss of vision in American society as a whole. Who are we now? Where are we going? We don't know. In such a philosophical climate, a little aesthetic nostalgia might be reasonably expected. As we cast around here and there looking for significance, we inevitably look to the past when we don't know where else to look. That might also help to explain the endless parade of Hollywood re-makes, and the unavoidable resurgence of clothing styles from past decades. One week the Eighties Look is in, next week it's the Sixties. You see it in products and home decor... the faux antique look. Shabby chic. Auto design, in particular, seems to demonstrate this sense of being all "at sea". In the beginning, cars were, not surprisingly, designed literally as horseless carriages, but the realities of the new technology soon made this approach impractical. Advancements were made quickly, and auto design as a distinct concept really took hold. It was driven not only by technology, but by a fascination and a love for the very idea of technology. Technology as almost a spiritual force, the zeitgeist. Auto design became the flag-bearer of the Industrial Revolution, but was still tempered by the Victorian love of beauty and order. Then came the wars, and America as a Superpower, the top of the heap. Unrivaled in the world. One feels this palpably in auto designs of the period, especially from 1950 - 1960. Car design was simply bombastic, unbridled by either practical concerns or good taste. One can see that the country that manufactured, say, the 1959 Impala (top of post) was brimming with piss and vinegar... and testosterone. My gosh, those cars were just fun. Like your own personal Disney ride. Then, as the American life was increasingly designed around the auto (hello, suburban sprawl!), things began to change. For one thing, owning a car became not a luxury or a thrill, but a dull necessity (except, notably, in the cities). This meant that car design had to increasingly to take into account the economic needs of the common worker. Design had to be simplified and pared down. To keep costs within reason, cars were no longer designed primarily to be beautiful or fun, or for high performance, but to be easy to manufacture. Cars began to be designed more and more to accommodate the assembly line processes that made them affordable. Of course, this was Henry Ford's idea from he beginning; Keep it Simple. Stack 'em deep and sell 'em cheap. But he was quickly outpaced by the other automaker's flair for design and innovation, which Americans were increasingly demanding. Ford made the auto a possibility for every family. With prosperity, cars became a fashion statement, but as the family car became an absolute requirement for modern life, Henry Ford's approach reasserted itself, in spades. After the first oil shortage in the 1970's, cars were designed to be not only cheap to manufacture and cheap to buy, but cheap to operate. This was the absolute nadir of car design. Wobbly tin boxes with tiny motors and the cheapest appointments, totally devoid of beauty or imagination. I give you the Ford Escort;
We have recovered a good deal from that which marked the depths of our most prosaic and uninspired period - essentially the Disposable Car. We have again timidly embraced curves. We have flirted here and there with chrome. We have sought inspiration from the Muse of the Computer Age; The Nissan Cube looks like some nameless piece of PC hardware... a wireless router or external hard drive.
Altogether, though, there is no longer any discernible, unified, driving force behind auto design. What we see reflected in the cars we now drive is nothing so much as the continued fragmentation - the balkanization - of American life. Who are we? Where are we going? We don't know.
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