Honda = Not So Ugly

No photos here. Just pop yourself over to the Honda Site. While the Accord sedan is somewhat big these days, and the styling a little over worked, the coupe is quite nice in a "girl car" kinda way. I actually like girl cars, so I mean that in a good way. The Civics are good no matter how many doors you want. The new Fit is looking quite up to its name. Now, do they still make Pilots and Timberlines? 

(I saw a guy with a very dark colored Timberline today (do they come in light colors?). He had the car, the hairdo, the blond babe in the passenger side. Wow, I thought, that is so pre-recession! Although I am not sure if or when that particular hairdo was in style.)

The Element was supposed to be sorta ugly, so it hits the mark just fine. I even like that they are offering it with painted body panels, rather than so much black plastic. A little color never hurt anything.

Lessee, what else is there? Oddessy, whatever. No fun talking about mini-vans. The CRV, now that is a POS. Never understood what the point was. Can't really go off road. Gets crappy mileage on the road. It is dead for me. Same thing with Toyota RAV4 (logo looks more like RAVA. Check it out). And all those other things that are high, short, and look more like children's toys than actual cars for driving. 

And of course, lets not forget the S2000. Nothing wrong there. Nothing at all.

Wagons, Wagons, Wagons!

Well, I just cant hide my excitement. The Detroit Auto show brought us no less than 4 new wagons and/or hatches to drool over. Sure, most were announced before hand, but seems like enough are on the horizon to keep things exciting.

 

Probably the most beautiful is the Audi Sportback. Not only does it look great from the side and rear, but they finally worked out something with that grill to make it look almost OK. 

Cadillac is still moving forward with the wagon 

version of the CTS. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I am glad to see it come along.

Another high-end mark, Lincoln got into the mix with its C concept. Looking more like a Renault than the usual FoMoCo offering, it is something that suggests luxury and aggressive futuristic design can go together. Love to see this on the market.

On the other end of the spectrum, Chevy was showing off the tiny Spark, which looks a bit more fun than a Fit. Ford is just brought out the rather humongo Flex, which comes with a supersized serving of MINI-envy. I am waiting for a Focus wagon type variation, or at least a low-rider Edge. Chrysler might end up as the American marketing and distribution arm for Fiat, bringing a whole range of Alpha Romeos and Fiats, including the new 500. All in all, not a bad outlook. 

Except for that whole economy thing...

Design Theory 1: Small Is Where the Action Is

Theory:

Look at the designs from any manufacturer, and I find that their smaller cars are better looking. And by that, I mean more fun, distinctive, and a pure expression of a design theme. And yes, I think fun is important. Cars should be fun. Fun can be serious too, as in serious fun, as in what is probably the best looking car ever: The entire BMW 6 series. Even the new ones with that funny business going on out back. But my real favorite:

Evidence:

Toyota - Yaris looks better than a Corolla, Camry or Matrix.

Honda - The Civic is a more pure, clean design than the overly busy Accord.

Chevy - The Malibu sure is better than the Impala. (sure the Aveo and Cobalt are dogs, but there has to be some exceptions)

Caddilac - Their relatively small CTS looks better than any of their other beasts.

MINI - The regular Cooper, over the Clubman any day. I can't even look at that SUV prototype.

Mazda - The getting long in the tooth 3 is still better looking than the new 6. The 7 over the 9.

Ford - Fusion has a more aggressive look than the 500, I mean Taurus. And again, look no further than previous posts to find me railing against the Focus.

Nissan - I even like looks of the much maligned Sentra over the overworked Altima and Maxima.

BMW - I am a sucker for the aforementioned 6 series, and the Z4 coupe. I like the 1-series hatch, but the 3, 5, and 7 series all look way overworked to me. 

Audi and VW - All of them look pretty bad in the past few years with that huge gaping grill. It looks equally bad on the big ones and the small ones. Although, I could come around for an A5. Nice looking car, grill and all.

Mercedes - I confess: I cant tell them apart. Between confusing letter number combos, and so many models, I gave up a long time ago. There are some nice looking 2 door hardtops out there though that are pretty slick. 

Volvo, Lexus, Infiniti - All better in their smaller models. Period.

And then there are companies who dont make any good looking cars, big or small. Chrysler, I am looking at you. You too Saab, Lincoln, and Suburu.

Corollary:

When setting out to design a smaller car, there isn't as much room to put in a lot of bad stuff. The resulting design is more pure, and when well done, can be more powerful. And more fun!

Tail lights Aglow

You might think me fixated on tail lights, but these days they are almost all too big, too similar, and add very little distiction to the design of the cars they grace. I remember as a kid, riding in the car at night and being able to ID the cars going the other way by the tail lights. Forget about trying that these days.

Here are a few schools of design in the current crop of tail lights:

1) Completely Random Shapes: I think Infiniti really got things going in this department with the G35 Coupe. But others have jumped in, notably BMW, and Honda (Civic sedan). A large subset of this school is the random intersecting blobs, a fine example of which grace the back of Toyota Avalons these days. What is that stuff doing on the trunk lid? Why are they that odd shape and size? Did they shrink in the wash?


2) Tail light as fender: Initially part of the Completely Random Shape School, this movement has broken off with designs pioneered by Lexus and Toyota. Currently, Nissan takes the prize at this with the new Nissan Altima Sedan. The entire top and much of the side of the fender is part of the tail light, aft of the C-pillar. Why not build the whole car out of plastic?


3) Clusters Under Glass: These are almost passe now, but were cool when Lexus did them on the RS400 crossover. Once again, the Nissan Altima Sedan seems to have the biggest, most over the top example.

4) Anything LED: Caddilac got this going a while back (who'da thunk it) but now Audi, Land Rover, and BMW are getting on the bandwagon, and with a dollop more creativity than the guys at Caddy ever thought to use. I saw a Land Rover LED light cluster just today, and its pretty cool. You cant tell in the pic below, but the top lens is both the brake light, with red LEDs clustered in the center, and the directional signal, with yellow LEDs circling the edge. I think the bottom lens is the backup light. I like the understatement, alot.



So, you may ask, anything else good out there? Well, I like the HHR solution. Oddly similar to the Land Rover, but about 10,000 times cheaper. The '97 Toyota Camry had slim, horizontal red bezels that were simple and elegant. That was just before they moved towards the Completely Random Shapes school of thought. The current Honda Civic Coupe has tail lights that are not too big, fit their context, and work to reinforce the identity of the car. Anything else? Ummmm.... lets see now.

At least LEDs have a lot of promise of bringing more elegant, svelte solutions to tail lights. Lets hope it happens.

GM Hybrids: +2 MPG!

Poking around on AutoBlog Green, I saw that your nice new Chevy Malibu (and its fraternal twin, the Saturn Aura) both are offered with hybrid technology. Cool, I thought.

   

What is not so cool, is that for a $2500 upcharge on the Malibu, or $3500 on the Aura, you can look forward to an improvement in your gas milage of exactly 2 MPG. That is awesome. No wonder Toyota, Honda, and even Ford are actually selling hybrids. They actually deliver some benefit to the owner, and the planet. Even Nissan is getting into the act with a limited number of Altimas, with parts bought from Toyota. 

If GM is going to bother, they should be able to do better than a hybrid system that gets you 32 MPG vs. 30MPG delivered by their 4-banger. 

Hell, I've said it before, but my '95 Volvo gets 30 on the highway if you treat it nice. If you really want to save money, you can buy an older (and I mean ~1997) Volvo sedan with 100K miles (that means another 100K miles left in it) for about 2 grand. Get the wagon if that makes your pants tight. Think of all that metal and other resources you'd be re-using. That in its own way is pretty "green". And, you save some green on your next car purchase. 

If you want to save the planet, well, thats not so cheap. Just don't throw money away on GM hybrids.

Is Toyota the new Chevy?

Ok, for our first regular posting, lets fire up the way back machine...

Back in the '60s, when I was buying Hershey bars for a dime, it was the "Big 3", and then everyone else. Now, it is pretty much the reverse of that. Toyota is the new Chevy, aping the styling cues of its luxury cousins. Lets call Honda the new Ford, with its luxury divisions not quite ever getting it together. The new Ford (Honda) and the new Chevy(Toyota) still seem to be trading off who is winning the styling wars (personally, I am voting for Honda right now). And who gets to be the new Chrysler? Probably Nissan, since they have their "Imperial" line up all worked out now, and a bevy of trucks to boot. 

My point is that American cars are pretty irrelevant these days. Ford seems like those loose conglomerates of Britain, circa 1963: the Austin/Sunbeam/Healy mess that no one could ever keep straight who is in and who is out. GM might as well be the Toyota of those days, turning out odd looking vehicles that seem to linger in your peripheral vision. Not sure what the hell Chrysler is these days. Foreign cars are where the action is now. That part of the picture is kinda sad. Will these former greats make their comeback? Not if they keep turning out vanilla milkshakes on wheels.

The bright spot these days, is there seem to be more options to choose from. Gone are the small american independents, but we have an increase overall of makes available, giving us some great choices. The wierd thing is that Hyundai makes better looking cars than Chevy (yes, even the new Malibu), and Mazda made the greatest sales advances in '07, arguably a result of pretty good styling overall. 

Style-wise, the fun stuff is happening in the smaller car segments... Land-yacht and truck buyers are stuck wanting their Cordobas and 98's, with or without a cargo bed out back, regardless what it costs to send our boys to secure our energy future.  Oops, I wasnt gonna get political.