Random Shots
Design
Satire
Sci-fi design of 2016 Toyota Prius draws debate
AUTOMOTIVE VIEWS NEWSWIRE — If the 2016 Toyota Prius strikes you as out of this world, that’s on purpose. The normally staid Toyota Motor Corp. decided that the fourth-generation Prius needed space-age swoopiness to go […]
Quotes
Chevrolet Camaro’s design has deteriorated over last 40 years
“Back in ’79 we were at a BBQ and the grill ran out of gas. The 5 gallon propane cylinder would NOT fit thru the trunk opening in my friend’s new Z-28. I see not much […]
Design Notes
2015 Honda Fit: Increasingly tacky
Over the years I’ve mostly bought Hondas — and almost always have gravitated toward the brand’s smallest models. Once the Civic got too big I was glad that Honda brought to the United States a […]
Current Events
2015 Mustang: Faux pony car goes generic
With the 2015 redesign of the Mustang, Ford had the potential to reassert its leadership in what I have referred to as the faux pony car field. Instead, Ford took the cheap and easy way […]
Current Events
Should VW’s design chief fear civilization’s end?
(UPDATED 12/15/2022) Volkswagen Group’s global design chief Walter de Silva is worried that optimizing aerodynamics in order to meet tightening emissions standards could hurt aesthetics and branding. In an Automotive News question-and-answer piece, he complained […]
Drive-By Musings
Car design conformity was the norm even before regulations
Question-of-the-day features can often result in banal flame wars. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised that a “red meat” question by The Truth About Cars — is regulation ruining car design — generated a fairly […]
Readings
Reinventing the Automobile: Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century
The authors took a clean sheet of paper and sketched an alternative approach to car design that may seem mainstream today but was decidedly exotic when the book was published in 2010. They proposed a […]
Readings
High and Mighty: SUVs — The World’s Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got that Way
Although written by a former Detroit bureau chief of The New York Times, this book uses high-octane rhetoric to challenge the value of sport utility vehicles when they were just beginning to reach the peak of […]
Readings
Forward Drive: The Race to Build ‘Clean’ Cars for the Future
Almost all of the material in this book is now dated, but I include Forward Drive as a cautionary tale about heralding change in the American auto industry. Forward Drive was published in 2000. That was […]