It seems that the latest Road & Track magazine (June 2015) features some remarks by famed Car Guy Bob Lutz on the matter. It's on his end-of-the-book page "Go Lutz Yourself" where a Portland, Oregon reader asks "Why do so many cars seem overstyled these days?"
To which Lutz replied: "'Not a surface left untouched' seems to be a design tendency today. I also find it deplorable. The Lexus LF-SA concept at the Geneva auto show looked like an origami swan done by a waiter in a Japanese restaurant. I think it's seen as visual excitement, but usually, it's just awful and superimposed on cars that are so wrong in basic proportion, the result is about as attractive as a 400-pound woman in a Mardi Gras costume."
That said, here are some examples.
This is Lutz's bête noire.
Note that all the examples shown above are small cars, which are indeed the worst offenders. A large car offers a broader canvas for sculptural and ornamentation overkill, whereas a small car with the same frills content serves to concentrate and exaggerate the resulting mess.
love the cars.
ReplyDelete