(UPDATED FROM 7/26/2021)
A few years ago Peter DeLorenzo (2021) argued that the auto industry had “reached the nadir of design. And it isn’t pretty.” The big reason why: Cars look so blandly similar that they may as well have been designed by a computer.
To illustrate his point, DeLorenzo compared the side styling of six four-door coupes. The Audi E-Tron Sportback, BMW X4, Mercedes GLE Coupe, Porsche Cayenne GTS Coupe, Ford Mustang Mach-E and Tesla Model Y do look awfully similar.
One could argue that DeLorenzo’s sample size is overly small. He did not include any Asian automakers, whose recent designs have experimented with sharp-edged, sci-fi shapes. In addition, DeLorenzo (2021) did not explain why he called some cars a “design abomination.” Nor did he point to even one example of a contemporary vehicle he didn’t consider to be “blandtastic.”
Those caveats aside, DeLorenzo’s overall critique was — and still is — useful. Stylistic diversity in recent years has been much narrower than it was in the 1960s or 1970s.
What causes design conformity?
DeLorenzo pointed to two reasons. First, he noted that teaching methods and influences at design schools have become quite similar around the world. Second, he pointed to the “fundamental parameters around the design package itself, meaning the specific drivetrain requirements, the passenger accommodations, the vehicle segment, etc.”
The future doesn’t look any brighter to DeLorenzo (2021). Current design trends are leading to “nowhere good, apparently.” He concluded by calling for design houses to “shake off this relentless tedium and get back to the inspirational creativity of designing compelling automobiles.”
So what specifically might be done beyond a rally-round-the-flag pep talk? DeLorenzo didn’t say.
This is a less sophisticated critique than one by Paolo Tumminelli, who argued that cars have become uniformly more aggressive looking. This is in response to a market where the “number of car fans is constantly decreasing, but at the same time, they demand more and more. With fake grilles and fake exhausts, the car has become a caricature of itself. Its scope is to captivate and amaze a small population of car freaks. In projecting a superfluous and ostentatious image, the industry exposes the automobile to social critique” (Laube, 2021).
At least DeLorenzo didn’t blame the regulators
I give DeLorenzo credit for not pointing a finger at climate-change regulations. That was a logic-challenged excuse that former Volkswagen design chief Walter de Silva once offered. He complained that the pressure to make cars more aerodynamic would dictate the shape of exteriors to the degree that designers “can only influence the exterior graphics and color. True creativity is relegated to the interior” (Ciferri, 2014).
As discussed further here, de Silva’s attitude was grounded in a retrograde attitude regarding aerodynamics. Just as importantly, his view also illustrates dysfunctional silos between the styling, engineering, production, marketing and distribution wings of a typical contemporary automaker. Effective branding should be much more than an exercise in stylistic “creativity” significantly delinked from these other considerations. They should instead come together as a cohesive whole.
Consider the original VW Beetle. It was so successful in the U.S. partly because its styling violated all of Detroit’s norms. A designer back then with de Silva’s basic attitude would presumably have failed to see the genius of the car — and insisted that it needed to look more similar to all of the other subcompacts then gracing showrooms.
The paradox of more automakers yet less diversity
The U.S. auto industry currently has more high-volume participants than it did back in the 1970s, yet design conformity is much higher. A key reason why is the breaking down of national identities. German brands such as Mercedes-Benz no longer offer a starkly different design approach to their American — or even Japanese — competitors. They all kind of blur together.
Perhaps the best hope for the industry is the emergence of upstart EV manufacturers. They have to varying degrees taken advantage of electric power’s different packaging opportunities. Here we come back to a fundamental point: Styling isn’t just about the surface look. Walter Dorwin Teague said it well in arguing that the “function of design, simply put, is to realize the true character of the thing designed, and to reveal the values that have been put into it. If it is used for camouflage, it is being prostituted” (Adamson, 2003; p. 130).
Pretty much all of the legacy automakers downplay or ignore this principle. That goes a long way toward explaining why a General Motors, Toyota or BMW have not (yet) taken the risk of designing something as out of the box as a Lucid Air, a Tesla Cybertruck or even a Rivian R1T. Regardless of whether any of these nascent automakers survive, they could still help rewrite the dominant rules of automobile design.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted on Oct. 2, 2020; expanded on July 26, 2021; and updated on July 2, 2026.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Adamson, Glenn; 2003. Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World.The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
- Ciferri, Luca; 2014. “VW’s de’ Silva: CO2 rules will hurt design.” Automotive News Europe. Posted May 6; accessed May 27 (subscription required).
- DeLorenzo, Peter; 2021. “Blandtastic design? Look around you.” Auto Extremist. Reposted July 19; original post September 28.
- Laube, Radek; 2021. “Paolo Tumminelli on How to Keep the Automobile Relevant and Renew Its Emotional Connection With Customers.” Form Trends. Posted June 1.
Regulations do affect such things as uniform height requirements for bumpers and lighting, something car designers of the 60s never had to worry about. Trends emerged, now & then, with most car companies following rather than leading. Ford’s 58 Squarebird with its wide, upright C-pillar influenced numerous subsequent American car designs. And does anyone recall who started the current fastback sedan trend – Ford Fusion, Hyundai Sonata, et al? I have a hard time distinguishing a current Honda Accord from a last gen Buick Regal. And just this morning I mistook an Alfa Romeo SUV for a Mustang Mach E. Of course, with very few body-style variations – everything is either a sedan or a wagon, aka SUV, Cross-over – there is bound to be duplication between brands. Also, design-by-committee doesn’t allow for individuslistic styling any longer. My biggest beef is with the almost complete lack of proper proportions (hard to achieve on a vehicle with 20″ wheels and headlights that stretch to the taillights) and the nonsensical, tortured sheetmetal that makes many of the most outrageous cars of the 50s look plain by comparison. Yes, Toyota Camry and Mercedes Benz, I’m wagging my 2H pencil at you. And let’s not forget teeny-tiny slits for windows. Back when we referred to it as car styling, we knew what that meant, but once it became car design, this broader definition denoted an end to the days when cars really did manage to look unique.
CJ, you make some good points. Former VW head designer Walter de Silva once complained that hybrids such as the Prius and Impact looked too similar because of aerodynamic considerations. However, he failed to note that the Fusion, Sonata and the rest also looked pretty similar for more market-based reasons.
Regulations tend to get blamed for design conformity by car buffs. In some cases that makes sense, such as crash standards leading to smaller side windows. However, the flip side is also true: Today’s cars have much more design flexibility than those in the late-70s, which had to conform to 5-mph bumper standards. I would (actually have) argued that this is not such a good thing given how expensive electronics have become on today’s typical vehicles.
Automobile look so similar…that reminds me of that mid-1980’s Lincoln commercial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaZqQLpbjFU
And someone posted a scan of the newspaper comic strip “Shoe” posted on the Forward Look forum about a 1959 DeSoto. http://www.forwardlook.net/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=42311 I guess that strip might be inspired from that Lincoln commercial.
New vehicles have always tended to cluster around a set of styling “norms,” which is understandable, given how expensive it is to bring a new vehicle to market. Playing it safe seems prudent, particularly since most top executives don’t have a background in art or design, and thus are not inclined to take chances in that area.
This isn’t the first time that vehicles tried to look “aggressive.” That was the trend in the mid and late 1950s. The front of the 1957-59 Dodges, and 1959 Buick, look as though they are “scowling.” The 1958 GM cars used sheer bulk and heavy use of chrome to appear intimidating. (I remember reading an article on the 1958 Buick, which was described as having “front bumpers that could intimidate a tank.”) People today remember the “shark fins” of the 1957-59 Plymouths, but the front ensemble is also quite aggressive, with an extreme forward slant that suggests not only motion, but also an open mouth that could devour whatever is in its way.
That trend played itself out by 1960, when the new compacts debuted. The very clean and original Corvair was imitated all over the world, while the Falcon was a very honest and simple design. I’m sure that the current trend will play itself out within the next five years.
As for whether this trend is in response to a decline in interest of new vehicles – there are two things to consider. One, there has been a decline in mass interest in just about everything – television shows, popular music, professional sports, even mass-market magazines – over the past 15 years, as the audience has fractured. Today’s highly rated television shows don’t pull in the percentage of the viewing audience that hits did during the 1970s and 1980s. (I can’t think of any current television personality who is as well-known to virtually everyone as Archie Bunker, Edith “Dingbat” Bunker, Fonzie or Mary Richards were in the 1970s.)
Hit songs don’t lodge themselves in the national consciousness the way that hit songs did in the 1970s and 1980s, as listeners are no longer limited to listening to the nearest FM stations. That doesn’t mean those things will go away. They will most likely evolve to reflect that reality.
Second, similar predictions were made about people losing interest in automobiles in the late 1950s and late 1970s. Those predictions were spurred on by complaints about styling (fins and chrome in the late 1950s; the overplayed “Brougham” look in the late 1970s) and declining build quality and reliability.
Cleaner styling, the debut of the compacts and pony cars and better quality (at least through 1965) revived interest in the 1960s. In the 1980s, it was quality improvements forced by the Japanese, improvements in driving dynamics inspired by the high-end Europeans, along with Ford bringing the much cleaner “aero look” to the mass market, that saved the day.
So who knows what will happen with EVs.
They may bring about a new aesthetic that excites buyers…while Ford could bring along Middle America by pulling an electric equivalent of the 1928 Model A/1949 Ford/1986 Taurus out of its hat.
This is one of the most nuanced comments we’ve ever received. Thank you for spending the time to write it. You make some excellent points, such as that the auto industry goes through stylistic cycles. This aligns with a quote from K. T. Keller, who presciently predicted in 1958 that the pendulum would swing back to more utilitarian design (go here).
One caveat I would offer is that American society has evolved in some ways since the post-war era. Today, electronic gizmos tend to get a lot more attention than cars — particularly among the young. In addition, the kind of cars people buy has dramatically shifted. A much higher proportion of truck and SUV sales suggests to me that a goodly portion of Americans are more focused on practical considerations such as cargo capacity and all-weather roadability. The car as rolling sculpture has a lot less cultural resonance today than it did back then. I don’t think that someone with William Mitchell’s sensibility could be nearly as successful as a car designer today.
Yes, it’s hard to say where this is going. I have been critical of the Tesla Cybertruck’s Blade Runner styling, but perhaps that will become the Next Big Thing . . . at least here on the west coast. All Tesla needs to do is offer a version that is outfitted to help one more easily escape wildfires.
Of course, Ford could do it too. They even have the right name for such a niche vehicle.
Thank you for the kind words.
I do agree that customer are less likely to buy a vehicle because it represents “rolling sculpture.” As you note, the 21st century equivalent of Bill Mitchell would have a much tough time succeeding in today’s market.
I do believe that people still buy vehicles based on the image they project. Many SUVs and pickups are bought because the owners like the images those vehicles project – a rugged, active, outdoors-oriented lifestyle for the former, and a competent, do-it-yourself, handy image for the latter. This is even though many SUVs and crossovers never face anything more rugged than a pothole at the supermarket parking lot, and many pickups haul nothing more than a lawn mower back from Home Depot. Plenty of people are still using their vehicles to make a statement about themselves.
Trends have a way of playing themselves out…once everyone had a personal luxury coupe, they didn’t seem quite so personal and unique.
When a garden-variety Ford sedan no longer wallowed around corners, offered very competent steering and braking, and wasn’t encrusted with a vinyl roof and wire wheel covers, high-end European sports sedans no longer seemed quite as special.
When almost everyone has a crossover or SUV, and the drivers and passengers don’t look as though they spend much time outdoors, the trendsetters will move on to something else.
Ah..but.the.regulators.have.affected.front.end.styling.because.of.pedestrian.injury.standards.!
The torrent of abuse flung at the upcoming Jaguar underline this article. Dare to be different, to go beyond the past and you are suddenly accused of a crime against ‘heritage’ and decades of dull design. It may be the Jag that at last upsets the design consensus. Or not.
Compare the greenhouse of a 65 Rambler, chevy II, Fairlane, Valiant, or Belvedere, and say with a straight face that cars have often “looked the same”. Even today there are copycats and original design. My problem with contemporary styling isn’t that they all look alike. The problem is most of them are plain old ugly.
It’s not just cars that follow trends. Basically all products follow trends from home appliances and medical equipment to fashion. This can range from advances in technology to simple tastes in society (to even the way we shop). Go to any Costco and see people trying to cram a 55″ (or larger) TV into a sedan. Ain’t gonna happen! So,enter the SUV that allows shoppers to cram a large screen TV to 55 gallon bags of popcorn a way to get the goods home from large warehouse stores. However, times change.