Peter DeLorenzo (2023) continues to insist that design is the “Ultimate Initial Product Differentiator” in the American automobile market. Among “mainstream” vehicles he singles out the Cadillac Lyriq for bringing “high-concept executions to the street.”
DeLorenzo (2023) describes the Lyriq as “a compelling design that satisfies from all angles.” He goes on to laud the Celestiq in even greater terms. To my eyes, the Celestiq — Cadillac’s forthcoming halo car — looks like a bigger and fancier version of the Lyriq.
“There are no design shortcuts on the Celestiq,” DeLorenzo (2023) swoons. General Motors’ designers “executed it with passion and the result is simply spectacular.” He concludes that William Mitchell, GM’s design head during the 1960s and 1970s, “would have been pleased” with the Celestiq.
Of course, it’s impossible to tell whether this is DeLorenzo’s honest opinion. To date he has not disclosed who he has worked with in his consulting firm (go here for further discussion). However, for the sake of discussion, let’s assume that he’s not just a paid shill for Cadillac.
Nostalgic yearnings for an unusual time in auto history
Aside from the Lyriq, DeLorenzo (2023) was dismissive of contemporary sport-utility and crossover designs. “I am just not interested [in them], and even though they are the overwhelming choice in the mainstream market, they bring nothing to the design table. At all.”
DeLorenz’s design sensibility makes sense given that he came of age when passenger cars were still king. Even so, his perspective has an otherworldly quality. The reason cars exist isn’t to be rolling sculptures, but rather to move people and their belongings from one point to another. SUVs and crossovers have become so popular precisely because they can be more versatile than the passenger cars of DeLorenzo’s youth.
Indeed, the contemporary SUV arguably represents a reversion to the norm in American car design prior to the mid-1950s, when cars began to get lower, longer and wider. Sleek styling eclipsed practical considerations such as interior headroom and bumper protection against parking-lot accidents.
Cost of car repair from an accident continues to soar
I would argue that the rise of the imports in the 1960s and 1970s was partly driven by a public backlash against Detroit’s emphasis on exotic styling over practicality. Thus, DeLorenzo’s column gave me pause because I had just read an Automotive News story about the cost of repairing cars that had been in accidents.
Laurence Iliff (2023) discussed why the average cost of repairing a Tesla was $5,552, compared to $4,205 for combustion vehicles. The higher costs were reportedly due to added technology in Teslas. For example, a fender bender could result in the need to recalibrate or replace a lane-departure sensor.
Also see ‘NHTSA and automakers drag their feet on pedestrian safety’
Iliff didn’t address why, in general, accident repairs have gotten so expensive. Other automotive-related websites have done so, but what’s interesting is that they tend to only talk about certain things.
As a case in point, Sean Tucker (2023) of Kelley Blue Book noted that the average cost of fixing cars in accidents has increased 36 percent since 2018 due to the “incredible complexity of modern cars.” Even replacing a windshield can cost four figures because of embedded sensors and built-in lenses for traffic-scanning cameras. Michelle Thompson (2023) of the RDN Repairer added that a new windshield “should also be properly scanned and the safety systems recalibrated.”
What’s less discussed is that repair costs may have also increased because of vehicle design that places more emphasis on trendy looks than beefy bumpers.
Will industry proactively give up ‘witless excesses’?
The Lyriq is a good example of how contemporary car design pays little attention to the hazards of driving in the real world. For example, both front and back lights are located in harm’s way — at what used to be considered bumper level. So is a massive faux grille.
I suspect that Mitchell would not have cared about weak bumper protection in today’s cars anymore than he did back in the early-70s. But then his lack of concern contributed to the federal government creating 5-mph bumper standards. Those who deplore what those bumpers did to automotive design might consider the words of Brock Yates:
“All of the government interference could have been avoided if the industry had demonstrated some social responsibility during the 1960s. . . . Bad automobiles came before bad laws. To be sure, federal bureaucrats have since swung the regulation pendulum too far, but that too was an inevitable response to Detroit’s witless excesses.” (1983, p. 254)
The auto industry may very well have a limited window of time to get a handle on escalating auto-accident repair costs. At some point consumers and the insurance industry are going to demand real bumper protection — and automakers will get slapped with another round of regulations. Why not show some social responsibility and deal with that problem proactively?
“Old-school” design purists such as DeLorenzo may complain about the results, but that’s the price of progress.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- DeLorenzo, Peter; 2023. “A Break from the Ongoing Shitshow.” Auto Extremist. Posted Oct. 16.
- Ilife, Laurence; 2023. “Tesla crash repairs costly, but other EVs near parity with gas vehicles.” Automotive News. Posted Oct. 18.
- Thompson, Michelle; 2023. “Report: Auto repair costs increased by 40% in 5 years.” RND Repairer. Posted March 24.
- Tucker, Sean; 2023. “Cars Keep Getting More Expensive to Repair.” Kelley Blue Book. Posted July 12.
- Wikipedia; 2023. “Cadillac Lyriq.” Page last edited Oct. 6.
- Yates, Brock; 1983. The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry. Empire Books, New York, NY.
PHOTOGRAPHS:
- Images of 2023 Cadillac Lyriq (here and here) by Mr. Choppers at Wikipedia via Creative Commons 3.0.
I frankly don’t think that any car with a C (or D)-pillar design that tries so hard to be three different things at once combining materials and graphic treatments that lead the eye in different directions will ultimately become a classic, and this one is no exception. Also, perhaps if in the future, recycling of major structural components and replacement batteries create a new paradigm of modular vehicle design and ownership then perhaps repairability will become irrelevant.. but for now it seems ridiculous to blatantly sacrifice it for certain styling cliches that could be imagined otherwise.
A major part of increasing accident costs can be summed up in 2 words; Crumple Zones. Today’s vehicles are designed to protect the occupants inside the cabin by sacrificing the front and rear [engine and trunk] areas by folding up at specific points. Once Folded in multiple directions these collapsed panels are difficult to “pull” back into alignment, and some manufacturers say once multiple folds have occurred, the vehicle should not be repaired. This situation drives up insurance pay-outs, as cars that might be repairable are marked as salvage.
I get that we wouldn’t want to return to the battering-ram bumpers of the 5-mph era, but why put vulnerable components at bumper height without any protection whatsoever? That’s purely a styling decision. In addition, there are presumably ways to create somewhat stronger bumpers that have more “give.”
Design is the differentiator. If a vehicle has a compelling design then it is desirable. If not, it goes to the lowest common denominator of price/payment terms. Bob Lutz in one of his books gave a story of how he arrived at GM as vice chairman and the emphasis was on being able to claim high percentile on various measurements. The problem was that the design was uninteresting and the way to move product was to throw rebates and special financing on the hood. The opposite situation was when the car was so compelling the buyer came in without any thought of cross shopping and accepting the deal.
As for the Lyric, there is a lot of good in that design although a few details I have issues with. There is some deft surfacing work that shows some real sensitivity. Historically this was a hallmark of the GM designs back when as GM did have better clay modelers.
Going back to the heyday of Bill Mitchell, no he would not have cared about the repair costs. This was a man that had to have his cars repainted frequently because clear coat crazing. For him it was having a compelling look even in his daily drivers, let alone his special creations.
As for the bumper standards, there are still standards but they no longer need to be achieved with the original railroad ties of the mid 1970s. And, if this is so critically important of an issue, why is that this is not a regulatory requirement in other countries?
Why should we care? Because when the cost of accident repair goes up, so do insurance premiums. Last year the latter grew by 17 percent. Given all of the other inflationary pressures regular folks are feeling, why not get a handle on costs we have some control over?
Who/how many when buying their car are giving real consideration to the crash costs of their insurance? You cite the 17% rise in premiums but that is going to be a composite of crash cost, theft rates, and other factors.
How much of the crash part and repair time cost increase is being driven by the features that buyers apparently want? Back-up cameras, parking sensors, lane departure sensors, etc.? I would argue that they are not, certainly much less, of the aesthetic design issue.
I think that placing equipment at bumper level unprotected is bad design — particularly when it can be expensive to replace. I would think that a socially-responsible automaker would stop doing that.
Much of the sensor equipment that is expensive to replace is designed with a view towards collision avoidance, which if effective presumably avoids some of the costs that would be incurred without it in reduced frequency of collisions overall. Where I live, at least, insurance companies are giving significant premium discounts for having such equipment rather than increasing premiums for the cost they may have to bear if such equipment has to be replaced. So I presume that they are satisfied the OEMs are doing the right thing on the basis of actuarial science.
Another reason for the expensive to replace equipment is that outward visibility has been compromised by changes in vehicle design and the equipment has been mandated to compensate for the increased risks to pedestrian safety. This is a more acute problem with the shift towards higher vehicles.
I have some difficulty with some of your argument Steve. As for the statement, “The reason cars exist isn’t to be rolling sculptures, but rather to move people and their belongings from one point to another.”, if this were fully accurate most everyone would be driving a Corolla, the efficient, reliable appliance that would best satisfy that need for most everyone most all of the time. But while the Corolla is historically the best selling vehicle worldwide for this reason, it is by no means as dominant as would be the case if simply moving people and their belongings from one place to another were why they choose what vehicle to buy. Consumers are simply not that rational. Indeed, human beings are generally more motivated by social concerns, such as status, than functional ones.
As to your statement, “SUVs and crossovers have become so popular precisely because they can be more versatile than the passenger cars of DeLorenzo’s youth.”, they are no more versatile than station wagons, which (if they were available) would weigh less, have better aerodynamics and less compromised sightlines for pedestrians. Again, market trends are not as rational as you would posit.
I’m also rather skeptical that repair costs were a motivator for consumers to embrace imports over domestics decades ago. I’ve always understood it was materially cheaper and easier to do body repairs on BOF vehicles versus unitized monocoque construction.
That’s great if the sensors help to avoid accidents. Now all we need to do is place them where they (and lights) are more protected from a fender bender.
I’d agree that overly tall vehicles can be a problem. However, I don’t buy your implication that it’s an either/or issue. After all, I’m talking about what is actually a much simpler design change — give vehicles decent front and rear bumpers and move fragile components away from those areas.
I’m fascinated by your resistance to this idea. What’s wrong with better managing insurance costs? You make it sound like I’m trying to get everyone to drive gray Corollas. The implication here is that you can’t design a good-looking vehicle with decent bumpers. If that’s what you think, I disagree.
As for the rise of the imports, go back and reread my point: that this was partly a “public backlash against Detroit’s emphasis on exotic styling over practicality.” How is that a controversial argument? A late-60s Mercedes-Benz did have practical advantages over the likes of a Cadillac. And if you want to talk specifically about repair costs, consider the classic VW Beetle ad that talked about the cost of replacing a front fender compared to other cars.
I recall the new car introductory advertising for the 1979 Chevrolet Citation X-car touted how insurance-friendly in terms of repairs the cars were. When G.M. started pushing the Citation II (an admitted do-over ?), to my knowledge, no mention of how repair insurance-friendly the second series cars were !
In my opinion, there were only two bumper systems that minimized minor impacts: The 1973 Oldsmobiles (88, 98, Cutlass) and the New York taxi-cab Checkers with the water-filled bumpers.
I also think that Cadillac’s names for their top-of-the-line models have less-than-exciting names: Lyriq sounds like a feminine napkin and Celestiq must have first been developed for a tampon. But then since the late 1990s, Cadillac’s marketing has been focused on how to replace their missing ducks !
I was about to ask whether anyone else was annoyed by Cadillac’s cutesy usage of a terminal letter q on those names. Great response!
It would be interesting to know if George W. Walker, Raymond Loewy or Virgil Exner would have thought of the same things as Bill Mitchell?
That’s a good question. The most obvious answer would be that all of these designers were at least partly the product of their times. So a mid-50s Exner or Walker would likely have had at least a somewhat different sensibility than 10 years earlier or later.
That said, the cars designed under Loewy throughout his long career tended to have relatively artsy bumpers, such as the biplane bumpers of the 1941 Commander (go here). But even the fashionably thin bumpers of the Avanti still had more functionality than the so-called bumpers on the front end of a 1970 Thunderbird or Riviera.
Exner was the only one of this group that had a chance of standing with Mitchell. He at least tried to go down his own path. If only Chrysler had of followed the aesthetics of his Ghia show cars the Detroit path might have been different.
Walker? Read his interview that is part of a series with various designers. His number one ability was doing design to appease other Ford executives. Occasionally he screwed up and got a design right. He had no intention of being an industry leader.
Lowey used real car designers to do the actual work. Too bad the client was regularly underfunded.
Part of Mitchell’s greatness is due to having GM’s might to push technical developments and Design’s political power to get design approvals. GM could and would afford what the others would not.