Design excesses
Older Ford Mustangs got too big but not the newer ones?
(EXPANDED FROM 5/11/2020) Automobile magazine is dead but its Facebook page continues to recycle old articles. Yesterday the one million followers of this page were blessed with a reposted history of the Ford Mustang. Aaron […]
Is the 2000 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am uglier than a Mitsuoka Orochi?
“I think this is a problem akin to ‘what’s the worst movie?’ Like, yes Plan 9 or Manos are both utterly incompetent pieces of filmmaking that fail at every level, but they were also independent releases […]
1955 Studebaker President hardtop hints at a road not taken
(EXPANDED FROM 12/1/2019) This may not be a very popular perspective, but I would suggest that the so-called Loewy coupes were at their best in 1955. Although the styling wasn’t nearly as clean as the […]
Early indications of Toyota embracing its inner Virgil Exner
(EXPANDED FROM 4/11/2014) The above photograph shows the beginning of Toyota’s embrace of sci-fi styling. In the foreground, the second-generation Sienna minivan (which was produced from 2003 to 2009) has simple but attractive styling (Wikipedia, […]
‘Lower! Longer! Wider!’ fixation of US automakers left opening for imports
(EXPANDED 10/24/2022) “Lower, longer, wider” was the domestic automakers’ dominant design approach until they were forced to downsize their fleet in the late-1970s due to federal fuel-economy standards. Since that time automakers have at least […]
Which looked better: Exner’s 1966 Duesenberg or 1971-87 Stutz Blackhawk?
(EXPANDED FROM 7/20/2018) A few years ago Hemmings published a for-sale ad about a 1966 Duesenberg prototype designed by Virgil Exner (Stohl, 2017). The car shared major styling themes with another one Exner subsequently designed — […]