Ep. 13 100 Years of Car Design: An Overview
Ep. 13 100 Years of Car Design: An Overview
A classic car connaisseur gives you an in-depth overview of the last 100 years of car design!
Remember to like, subscribe and share if you want more of this!
Enjoy!
Cool music insertions
America (USA) had the best cars in 1940,1950.1960.1970
Good stuff … very interesting … thanks. What I don’t understand about car design is why all cars are not shaped like an XK-120? Not to be too chauvinistic about it, I think that men are the typical target audience for car manufactures. Making a car that looks like a woman’s rear (XK-120) end should be a no-brianer.
that was a good one mate, and the music terrific, congrats
you talk about 70s and 80s boxy luxury cars….you left out the beautiful Chrysler cordobas , from mid 70s…. the 76 cordoba, had round lines, round headlights, with round directional lights and a beautiful hood. not flat and boxy at all
Cyclical design is the norm, there are only a few ways of doing something, if you want to change (to sell new cars) you must end up going in a circle, and that is fine for some or most. HOWEVER, there are always OUTLIERS.
One such is JAGUAR. For many years, Jaguar’s styling followed an evolving look. This occurred because Jaguar has had very few stylists (apart from the "lost" years) Up to the XJ6, there were only two, SIR WILLIAM LYONS who was responsible for most of the cars, and MALCOLM SAYER who was responsible for the C and D type racing cars, some prototypes, the stunningly beautiful (IMHO) XJ13, and the iconic E-type. Sadly, the XJS was a hodgepodge of bits thrown together. The "hollowed out" area behind the coupe’s rear window is an adaption of a Malcolm Sayer design element, he designed it for a mid-engined V12 car, and thus it was much longer and fitted somewhat better. The arrangement was created to provide directional stability at high speed without resorting to a fin, like that employed on the D-type. Even in later years, there have been few chief stylists at Jaguar, often these modern stylists would look back to the early years to see what made the classical Jaguar and tried to design the cars accordingly.
Unfortunately, (IMHO) the Tata years have seen cars that follow the crowd, some Jaguar touches (sometimes only the Leaper and name badges to distinguish them), but still just part of the crowd (some look like KIAs!!!), with the sports cars being the ones that are the most "Jaguarish".
There are few other manufacturers who share this trait, Aston Martin being one of the few.
Many brands don’t even have a specific style for the brand, e.g., in recent years, Mercedes-Benz with several quite different styles across the range at the same time.
other
my personal favorite is the jelly beans
Hi Ed 🙂 I think the modernistic design of ‘it’s in the details’ stems from CAD – ‘computer aided design’.You tap in a required drag coeifficient and it comes out with the same basic box shape with a slanted front – this began back with the first edition Espace, which was a fancy rectangle with a sloping front. So the details become more significant – because if you remove the details of mainstream cars – you end up with a rectangle with a sloping front. I preferred the days when it was art that inspired a car design. Like the Talbot Lago, designed and built long before CAD, way back in the early 1930’s. One was recently put through aerodynamic tests and it had one of the best drag coeiffficients of any car ever made. Nice looking car too 🙂
The materials and manufacturing processes available at the time of design play a large part in the final product. Curved glass for example had a huge impact on the design of cars from the 60’s onwards.
The last few seconds feel like a horror movie..
Tbh the aerodynamic era of 80’s to 90s is so bad
I got to admit I hate the tesla truck design . Actually I don’t like the styling of most Teslas . I love the roadster and the Model S is tolerable enough for me to be happy driving.. the model X and 3 are just as horrible the tesla truck 🤣
for me oval shapes has organic looks and live and also stylish but sharps looks like a machine boring repeat patterns and soulless. ford taurus feels me like a caring catfish on road
I think Jaguar made the best looking cars through out the ages, whether its Mark 2, older SType, E type, XJ6 or XF.
The cars today have no style. Many look like turtles. & the prices are insane. Also John Doe citizen should be designing the cars instead of pencil necks
The Traction Avant (Light Fifteen) of 1934 had a monocoque body, front wheel drive, rack and pinion steering and torsion bar suspension. The lowness of the car was due to there being no chassis rails supporting a separate body. The Light Fifteen was effectively a modern car.
Why not have a choice of both (angular or round)? Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6
As far as I see, today’s cars has what I would call "crumpled paper" design. Like you crushed a piece of paper, and fold it out again. You can see the weird bends and angles on cars’ panels
What about the trend away from 2-door and going all-in on four-door designs (good luck finding a 2-door hatchback in the vein of the RSX)? The progression from distinct cars and small trucks to blended car/trucks like SUV’s and CUV’s? We’ve gotten to a point where you can choose between a relatively sleek and sporty sedan, or an a–wheel-drive truck-like design monstrosity that barely hints at aerodynamics and sporty styling. It’s becoming hopelessly generic and copycat.
Awesome!
The Best Years Were 1960 to 1965, Completely Strait
Can’t believe that I was Heathrow noise to like.
LMAO
6:26 What a cool representation of drag.
This topic deserves a longer video
Getting hit by the cybertruck is a terrifying prospect it’s like getting hit by a steel brick. And it’s going to be HEAVY thanks to the bateries.
Its going to shater your pelvis and send you flying into a lamppost.
There is a subliminal message in all the front end lighting. It must be they hate me because I have no urge to buy one
Another modern trend is that color choices have shrunk dramatically. Most cars on the road are either black or white or grey or silver.
Your videos are really amazing and well organised. Congrats 🇧🇷
Great stuff, but 20 minutes is not enough.
the elegance of 30s cars is still unsurpassed
Those Grenadas aren’t even the same generation. The 2000s are the era of the rising beltline and hood, due to pedestran and passenger safety, leading to giant wheels and giant grills to balance out the proportions. Also, thick wheel arch cladding is often used instead of large wheels. Panoramic glass dashes are the new trend, making their way down to affordable models.
What an atrocious accent! It is just cringeworthy, but that kinda has a weird attraction to it. A bit like watching a train crash.
Pendulum yes. Mom liked round cars, Dad liked square. VW offered both Beetle and Golf for many years.
exelent and super fun
Those European and Japanese cars from the mid 60’s show a lot of Chevrolet Corvair influences from the roof lines to the front end.
I hope we go back to the "model T" and that modular design. Easy to get in to, drives in all terrains, easy to sustain.
Like campers household appliances and TV’s design they changed a lot!
I always thought that a designer walked into a room in the late 70’s and saw a box of kleenex with a pack of cigarettes sitting on it and said, "THAT’S IT, that’s the design we want for our cars".
All car guys should be subscribed to this channel. There are millions of us on YT, if only the algorithm would push your channel to the correct audience.
It’s funny that the 1940 Ford coupe looks more like a modern car then the majority of cars from the early 80s
The future is we won’t be able to afford owning a car and will be eating chickpeas and crickets.
was that.. an unus anus reference at the end?
I love 90s JDM and Ferrari’s 90s & early 2000s designs.
How could you make any car design history video without Mercedes-Benz w124?
Come for the cars, stay for the music. This is an interesting and enjoyable episode. Thank you.
Great summary of car design. Styles in all types of arts tend to oscillate between movements, counter-movements and counter-counter-movements (that are just the original again). For cars though, I expect the aerodynamic base to stay, due to fuel-efficiency (or energy-efficiency) requirements. At most the current style of fold lines will continue, with increasing emphasis on the lights and grill (and to a lesser extent the exhaust). Car interior is also becoming more important as part of the comfort factor. I wonder if there will be a true revival of the streamline shape. Concept cars and new electric cars become more and more abstract in how recognizable they are as a "car". So perhaps through that avenue we will experience a neo-streamline style, although more as a cleaned up modern style than coming from the rounded shapes known from ray punk.
I bet the electric vehicles and their smaller engine requirements (and parts could be easily made by a bunch of white label manufacturers) is going to make for a decade of insane designs while trying to scrape up market share. But we have to get fully into the electric vehicle era before that’s going to be a serious reality. So I bet 2030 will be the shotgun of ideas era.
I’d say some big changes between 2010 and 2020 is the popularity of larger and more spacious cars, the higher use of detailing on creases on the body work to the point of overdetailing the car. And it’s very clear to see from the panels of a 2010 car and a 2020 car. There are so many channels and small fins all over a modern car. The next gens of car are bringing huge grilles and funky lights as well as trying to bring back different silhouettes since are cars still struggle with having very similar silhouettes even though the design of the car tries to be different.
you did the tesla cybertruck dirty man🤣🤣