About a decade ago, I recall your criticism of the new Camaro being along these lines. You said something like, "It looks like a Hot Wheels version of a redesigned classic Camaro."
I get where you're coming from, and I don't disagree with your assessment of the Camaro, or the Corvette.
Still, though, I don't dislike them as you do. I guess I'm OK with these American cars looking a little cartoonish, and I'm most certainly OK with them not looking like European cars. The Euros have no monopoly on good design, their infatuation with the "hot hatchback" is baffling and horrifying, as is their design of pretty much ALL midlevel cars. Your standard base-level Fiat, Peugeot, Citroen, Cooper-- these are all pitiful and odious looking vehicles. In general the German cars look better, although I have no love for Volkswagen vehicles that don't look any different than the Hondas they're competing against.
I remember our conversation on that.
I don't particularly dislike American styling. I thought that the Chrysler 300C (C300?) of 10-12 years ago was a very handsome, very masculine, very American-looking car. I think that the Ford Fusion (now canceled, as Ford is not selling pure automobiles not named Mustang anymore) is a very good-looking car. I dislike GM styling, though. Which means I've changed my mind on something, because when I was growing up through my 20s, GM cars were generally the best-looking, I thought.
Right now, I think that the Japanese cars are the worst. Their styling is just too busy and discordant. I read an explanation about Japanese styling many years ago that explained why their cars looked like this ugly, clunky, misbegotten '77 Datsun (Nissan) 200SX.
The explanation was that Japanese cities are so crowded that people mostly view cars from very close up. So it was the details rather than the overall proportions and symmetry that attracting public attention. Notice the fussy grill, the ugly bumper, the panel crease that runs below the anti-rub strip for the whole length of the car, and the little doo-dad along the fastback line. These would catch the eyes of people who were only 18 inches or so from the car.
(My first wife had one of these, and not only was it ugly, it was a piece of crap.)
Whether that explanation was right or not, I do not know. I know that there was some really good Japanese styling in the 1980s. Mazdas were particularly good, with the RX-7 and the sedans. And then the original Miata in the '90s.
But now it seems like the Japanese have gotten back to their busy-ness of the 1960s and '70s.
And carmakers in other countries, including ours, have followed suit.
Check out the 2012 Boss 302 Mustang. This isn't mine, but it looks just like mine. The overall proportions and lines of the car are fine, I think. It looks more like a Mustang than most of the Mustangs between 1971 and 2009, IMO. It's a brawny, American-looking car.
But the front end is busy, and a lot of the busy-ness has no function. Those two round things in the grill actually trap and block the air. They are only there because they are reminiscent of the 1969 and '70 Mustangs that Parnelli Jones raced in the old Trans-Am series (see below). The center area below the "bumper" is functional. The lower part of the radiator breathes down there. But the "inlets" on either side of it are totally fake. Each one has three different textures--one with horizontal fins, one with an array of indentations about the size of pinheads, and in-between a circular section. But air does not get through. It's all for looks, and to me it doesn't even look good. And it's counter-functional, in that it's an air trap. Why, Team Mustang? What's it for? To impress Japanese urbanites who are lying on the ground? To add weight, complexity, and drag? And the back end is a mess too. (Newer Mustangs are even worse on the front end, IMO, but much better in the back.)
