Hacker News Reader

Comment by durandal1 | Hacker News Reader

In the documentary Objectified (recommended!), a BMW designer brings up the point that a car design should express what the car is. If there's a mismatch between the look, and how it feels to drive, it will be rejected by customers.

View on HN

The counterpoint to this is the "Aston Martin" Ford [1a and 1b] which I think most people would agree looks much better than the Ford design it replaced [2]. It literally steals the design cues from a $100k+ sports car and adapts them to an economy car and it seems to work quite well as a design (admittedly a bit of design plagiarism).

[1a] http://autoguide.com.vsassets.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/20...

[1b] http://www.autotribute.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Aston-...

[2] http://st.motortrend.com/uploads/sites/10/2015/11/2012-ford-...

Is that a Mondeo?

edit: oops, the link says it's a Ford Fusion.

Yes, this is the very practical definition of "tacky" design. It's when something visually promises something that it isn't in performance. Form and function are very much tied together and a car that looks like a Ferrari but feels like a civic would cause a negative cognitive dissonance

Something that's a bit more understated like a Maserati but driving like an average sedan would be mostly fine though.

Currently, that kind of exists in 2dr form as the Toyota 86 platform (Subaru BRZ/Scion FR-S):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_86

For 4dr GTs, it gets quite a bit tougher to compete with second-hand Maserati prices.

The Ghibli is exactly that, it's Italian design on top of GM parts bins items. It's absolutely terrible.

This is a good answer. Hundai comes to mind as a brand that puts overly slick bodies on underpowered cars. It looks silly. And yes there is the Genesis, but that car is not cheap.

What would be fun is if manufacturers took more liberties with design. I loved my Scion xB because it was "ugly beautiful" and also very functional. I really like the new Civic: aggressive yet understated. More of this would be really nice.

A Scion minivan could easily be the VW microbus of our generation.

The Scion brand was discontinued last year.

Nooo!

The Fiero comes to mind.

It outsold the Corvette every year it was produced.

Had a GT in high school. Car was alot of fun. Mid-engine and big sunroof that came out and stored under the hood.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com