Yes and also computers have dramatically improved our ability to design cars that are aerodynamic.
Back in the day, we didn’t have such a precise knowledge of what shapes were best for efficiency. The modern car shapes are a result of advancements in knowledge and testing.
Yup. They've increased tonnage to qualify them as a 'work' truck and not need to stay under certain efficiency rules because that's hard to do when you *need* a vehicle that can haul a certain amount of weight around with equipment, supplies, worker, etc. The issue is that most of these people don't in any way need this type of vehicle, they just like it because media tells them they should and that they're a real man for getting one or it somehow legitimizes their working class or country persona in the middle of a suburban hell.
What bugs me is that these vehicles are designed to get around passenger vehicle regulations yet you can drive them with a regular license. I think they should close the loophole by requiring separate license class.
What bugs me even more is that their bumper heights are such that if you so much as touch them with a normal car, (or get touched by them, the arguably more probable outcome, I’d say) your car will get absolutely obliterated while they’ll barely show a scratch because their bumper is at fucking hood level.
*DEFEATS THE POINT OF A FUCKING BUMPER, DOESN’T IT?*
Can confirm. Had a 2007 F-150 (for actual work!) and was hit hard from behind while I was stopped at a red light. Lady's car (she was okay) was totaled. Like hood crumpled, airbags off, engine smoking.
I had a softball sized dent in my chrome bumper.
The direct weak spots on trucks are the wheels. I had a 07 GMC that just didn't want to die. It was still running strong on 700,000 KM. But that truck same situation rear ended at red light golf ball sized dent. Wife hit a ford explorer head on into the rear quarter panel and mangled the entire rear end of that SUV, the truck had a slight dent in the front bumper. But magically some old lady that shouldn't have been driving because she had dementia forgets what stop signs are for and smashes her car into the driver side wheel and the truck became a total loss.
Fuck. Sorry for your loss. We also had an 07 Sierra and she was wonderful. My husband gave it to his sister when he got a new F150. 6 mos later she hit someone else’s beemer (thankfully he was a friend and didn’t throw her under) and had zero damage in comparison. THEN it got stolen a few times over the holidays in a rough neighborhood in the city, and it just absolutely ate shit after the third theft. God that truck was a bad bitch. 10/10. Would truck again.
I touched the rear bumper of a truck bc of a set of bad circumstances. (happens at least once to everyone)
And by touched, I mean TOUCHED. Like, no more than 10mph at time of collision; probably sub-5mph.
The entire fucking front end of my car had to be replaced, along with the radiator (there was a tiny leak) when such an accident would have done exactly zero meaningful damage (possibly dislodged a bumper at worst) if I had hit a normal vehicle.
I legit think that we need a standard bumper height regulation. Throw headlight regulations on there if there aren’t any, while we’re at it. Include a maximum ride height for basic license vehicles, too, because I swear the bigger trucks and such are just designed to throw pedestrians underneath the wheels on impact rather than onto the hood.
My mom was exiting a parking lot where the driveway sloped up to the sidewalk and then sloped down to the road. A full size pickup truck came over the hump behind her and didn't see her car. The bumper of his truck descended onto the spoiler of hers and destroyed it. Luckily that was the only damage (including on his car, I believe), but the guy driving literally could not see her.
Blind zones can extend up to 15 feet in front for [full size pickup trucks.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/suv-blind-zone-deaths-consumer-reports-safety/)
Yep, cars are held to a far higher standard, so manufactures simply stopped making cars - convincing the public what they really want is a truck instead.
Quite sad really how easily we're swayed by marketing, and the very negative outcome of the policy. Should never have had that loophole (which carmakers lobbied for, ofc).
> Is that why trucks are so massively oversized now?
No. There is actually an import tax that got passed that basically kicked small trucks.
> The Chicken Tax is a tariff of 25% on light truck imports.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/chicken-tax.asp.
>What made it unstable?
Jokes aside, the same thing all rear engined cars did (and still do to an extent, but has mostly been mitigated thanks to decades of research by porsche) , during turns it had a nasty habit of oversteering resulting in people losing control of the vehicle
It also meant during panic stops because people aren't typically keeping the rest of their body stationary when trying to brake in a hurry people would accidently turn the wheel too much and...well it wasn't pretty
Insanely influential car, but a poorly designed death trap none the less.
Being back heavy wasn't a good thing for a car
Is an MR2 even modern anymore? It hasn't been in production for over 15 years. The SW20 was the one with the most snap oversteer tendency and that was last made almost 25 years ago
>MR2 stares menacingly
Yeah, not the same thing.
The MR2 didn't spin out under nornal use, it had a snap oversteer issue caused by people taking turns too quickly allowing the wheels to lose traction and then not knowing wtf they're supposed to do (as it is unintuative)
It's something any experienced driver can completely prevent and maintain high speeds without issue.
The tatra77 and other early rear engines weren't a lack of knowledge thing, it wasn't losing traction that was the problem but the weight literally causing interia to do what interia does best (you wanted to stop? Lol no, make me ya fuck)
There wasn't a way around those issues beyond simply go slow and "brake" by coming to a rolling stop
I’ve heard driving a Porsche is different because of the engine position. Learning how to turn in corners requires a different input than common setups.
Lack of airbags and all-rigid steel construction of it. With a lot of those old cars they’re so heavy that you’ll see little to no damage in a fender-bender, but any collision over 55mph? You’re human purée
This is a big thing that most people don't realise when they talk about how 'flimsy' modern cars are. A 15kph crash in a 60s car might scratch the paint and give you a little dent, but in a modern car it may crack plastics and require a new body panel.
However, a 100kph crash in a 60s car will turn the car and everything inside into impressionistic modern art (it's the impression of your organs all over the interior of a crumpled car). A 100kph crash in a modern car will turn the car into that same impressionistic sculpture right up until the actual place where people sit, at that point it will it is ridiculously strong.
Watch this video to see an amazing comparison https://youtu.be/fPF4fBGNK0U
I got hit by a Subaru like 6 years ago and hitting the hood of the car was like being thrown onto a mattress. I super appreciate what they did there.
Don't appreciate the dudes insurance company trying to collect damages from me though, absolute fucking garbage human beings.
Damn, watching that, just think of how many lives have been saved by repeated testing and design advancements. It's the difference between "I had the worst day" and "Could you take a seat? We're sorry..."
"If you get in an accident in this, they just hose you off the dashboard and sell it to the next guy." - Jay Leno, about a 1950s Buick Roadster (possibly misremembered)
but that's the point of the question, really. they should be able to build all the modern safety features into a vehicle that has the same or nearly the same body shape as old cars. Best of both worlds.
"The smooth body of the T77a gave a coefficient of aerodynamic drag of 0.212. Some sources, though, claim that this figure was based on a 1:5 scale-model test, and it has been confirmed recently that the drag coefficient for the real full-size car is 0.36."
.212 is insanely low, around what a new Tesla Model S can do.
.36 is nothing too crazy, a 90s toyota previa minivan or a 2018 dodge ram have the same drag coefficients.
> .212 is insanely low
Yep. It is surprising that that claim held as long as it was at it is clearly so far out of reality. But yeah "industry standards" was a bit different thing back then.
The real answer is that when petroleum was relatively cheap it wasn’t as necessary to make fuel efficient cars, so they made them look cool instead. People were buying more on looks than fuel efficiency.
>Nobody gives a shit about efficiency.
...in the US.
Pickup-trucks are virtually unsellable in places like the EU. And SUV's in the EU are often just higher compact cars.
We’re starting to see some US-sized cars in Australia, and you’re absolutely right, they take up way too much fracking space on the road. Can’t park beside them or pass them on the highway half the time.
I don’t like to stereotype on matters of personal taste, but driving one of those makes the owner an inconsiderate jerk because there’s simply no way not to be. And they’re giving up their own freedom for the privilege—they can’t fit in a normal parking space, so if every second spot is taken, they can’t stop.
The new cars use crumple zones, which convert the force into heat and displace the energy. This doesn't really answer OPs question of why they don't make them to look like the older cars.
It does, though. Crumple zones aren't the only thing that changed for safety
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a19660495/designer-genes-how-regulations-dictate-the-look-of-new-cars/
"Hyundai’s Chapman says that means the design of a car is “set up” at the base of its A-pillar, with shoulderlines rising and greenhouses slimming from there. " what are these words?
1) cars all mostly look the same because they figured out the optimal car shape for minimum drag. The reduction makes the car require less power to keep moving, saving fuel.
2) the shape is also influenced by crash safety. Crumble zones don't help pedestrians for example. The shape also makes it more likely that when you impact something, you will sort of slide off instead of hitting dead on. The shape also works with the Crumble zone to move crash forces around instead of through passengers.
I think people aren't getting that you're making a crumble vs *crumple* zone correction joke.
Indeed, a CRUMBLE zone would be bad for a car, and its passengers. A crumple zone, though? Those are good.
I would agree with the safety regulations but would disagree on the efficiency aspect. We're still building jeep wranglers that objectively have not so great aerodynamics. Also let's never forget the abomination that's the nissan cube
People seem convinced that it's impossible to squeeze a 5 star safety rating into the body shape of a 69 Camaro (e.g.). I'm no expert and it seems complicated so I'll assume they know what they're talking about and that's true. What about a 3 or 4 star safety rating tho? Like it's not exactly designed for lugging the kids to soccer practice or family road trips anyway. I'd be willing to accept a certain level of personal risk, same as accepting the risk involved in riding a motorcyle or bicycle.
For efficiency, even if it's not nearly as aerodynamic as modern designs it'd be way more fuel efficient than an actual 69 Camaro. Lighter weight, better designed and more precisely machined parts etc.
Since we're just talking looks not performance it could even have like a Prius motor in it, or be fully electric. There are also plenty of people who don't even give a damn about efficiency. I'm probably wrong but it seems like it'd be doable if a car company really wanted to do it.
Reading [how stars for safety are assigned in major markets](https://www.euroncap.com/en/about-euro-ncap/how-to-read-the-stars/) it looks like unless you score pretty highly out of the gate, then your car could essentially become illegal to sell after 6 years. Most car models are produced for longer than that and I would expect manufacturers would not want to limit the production lifetime because of this.
I don't really know shit about this concept but I know cars and have looked into this a bit in the past.
To me, safety for the person being crashed into and safety for the driver are two VERY different things and the passenger safety seems a lot harder to achieve. I'd take a 3 star passenger rating if they could make a cool car again. Shit I almost bought a 2nd gen Miata a few weeks ago, that thing's a fucking death trap in the modern world of building sized trucks and crossovers. But it's probably the safest thing out there to be hit by, except maybe a child on a bike.
I just want some car manufacturer to make a fucking cool consumer car again. Doesn't need to be fast, doesn't need to be fancy, doesn't need to be safe, just needs to look cool, be cheap, and fun to drive. Think EG Civics or the aforementioned Miata. Those are fun, reasonably priced cars with no frills and built on a mistranslation of safety. (before someone says just buy one of those: too big for Miata and it's hard to find a car from the 80s/90s/early 2000s that won't require **heavy** maintenance in the next 5 years)
All I know is if some half-aware soccer mom can drive a Tahoe at 85mph I should be allowed to have a small car that doesn't have every feature pointing towards safety. I'm fine with safety but when that's the point of every aspect it starts turning into a boring car. I've never been in an accident so forgive me if I want the suspension to be suspension instead of trying to coddle me when I don't need it to. As long as the other person in an accident isn't at greater risk because of my want then I don't care.
When riding a motorcycle or bicycle, you generally don't have to worry too much about killing someone with your vehicle (moreso with the bike than with the motorcycle.) With cars, people aren't just worried about what happens to *you*, they're worried about what happens to whatever you hit.
Based on [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_safety_through_vehicle_design) it sounds like there is much more focus on use of more impact absorbing materials (and fancy tech) to reduce pedestrian injury than altering the body shape. They do mention lower and deeper bumper profiles can reduce leg injury though.
It's kinda like a case of converging evolution. Things like aerodynamics and safety regulations create a pressure towards an "ideal" design. There may be a few approaches to that, but they're limited to what the intended niche for the vehicle is (sedan, SUV, truck, etc.). That means most roles have a limited variability on the "ideal". Though, evolution doesn't really work towards "ideals", more like what works well enough.
Two examples in biology are the fox and the hyena. The fox is related to canines, but evolved in an environment where there weren't any cats to fill a niche for solitary, agile hunters of small animals. So, they filled that role and ended up with feline aspects. Hyenas are the opposite case, a feline evolving in an environment without a canine equivalent. So, they ended up filling the role of a medium sized canine pack hunter, chasing down large game in packs.
Very interesting! I never thought that I’d get a biology lesson as to how foxes and hyenas came to be and why they act the way they do on a post related to car designs. The more you know!
Tons of cars today are shit designs for efficiency and safety. The real answer is it would cost too much in R&D and they'd have to completely change their manufacturing lines for one car. There's not enough profit in it.
People always say it but I dont buy this.
Wrangler or Jimny or Gwagon exist so efficiency is not actual issue if sales are good.
I also dont buy that engineers just dang cant figure out how to strengthen the structure for A pillar or whatever unsatisfactory safety comes from the old look.
I think that it is all about manufacturers believing they would not sell well.
Yeah I get 60+ mpg in my car and I wouldn’t dream of buying something under 55 mpg. Finding out there are cars out there that do _16_ mpg was mind blowing.
Don’t forget that US gallons are about 25% smaller though, so their MPG is lower. 24 mpg is 28.8 in imperial gallons. And 16 is 19.2. Still terrible but it’s important to bear in mind when comparing the same cars in the US and Europe. European cars don’t magically have better fuel economy.
Today i learned that not only does the US have a weird system of measurements, they also use the same name for a different size measurement. Because it wasn't confusing enough.
If a liter/litre can be (and is) defined as a kilogram of water, why can't an Imperial gallon be defined as ten pounds of water? It relates the definition to a real-world object.
I believe that federal regulations on trucks and SUVs are looser than on sedans and coupes.
So even if people wanted a cooler-looking car, they couldn't get one in the mainstream 1960s style, but they can get lots of unsafe and inefficient SUV and pickup designs.
But pickups and SUVs from back then were fewer in number, and not glamorous.
It’s not about just strengthening an a pillar here and there. It’s about designing a chassis that crumbles and crunches well enough to absorb the forces from an impact before that energy reaches the occupants in the cabin and kills them.
It's not just interior strength that's about safety. Those pointy fins are essentially spears for skewering pedestrians. A lot of those design features add extra weight to the front and rear of the car, when ideally you want the weight to be concentrated near the center of the car for stability. (Look at every mid-engine race for an example.) Extra weight at the ends increases the likelihood that you'll have trouble controlling the vehicle.
A really long hood that you have to look over makes it more likely that you'll have trouble seeing approaching traffic at a stop sign, and you're more likely to pull out in front of another car.
>when ideally you want the weight to be concentrated near the center of the car for stability. (Look at every mid-engine race for an example.) Extra weight at the ends increases the likelihood that you'll have trouble controlling the vehicle.
Another reason mid-engined supercars are made that way is it makes them more manoeuvrable. Most of the weight centralised means they're more able to rotate about their own axis. Like holding a pair of heavy weights out to your sides at arms length and trying to spin (and more importantly, change direction of that spin), versus holding them tight to your chest.
Smaller passenger cars are required to be way more fuel efficient than the crossovers & SUVs on the road today.
The automakers are intentionally designing almost all "cars" nowadays with what used to be considered truck wheelbase sizes, and with various other design elements that allow the vehicles to be categorized as "light trucks" instead of passenger cars. They are doing these things in part to *lower* the fuel economy standards which they're required to meet.
A lot of what's driving this is also just 1. fashion (everyone thinks a small car looks old-fashioned); 2. actual & perceived safety (it's fine to drive a top-heavy vehicle that causes more fatal accidents with no special training, as long as *you* feel safe inside); and 3. momentum/lack of choice (economy cars are already a slim minority, which makes them less popular, which leads to fewer being made).
>it's fine to drive a top-heavy vehicle that causes more fatal accidents with no special training, as long as you feel safe inside
Especially when you're not the one dying in the fatal accident as well. Sure, you're pretty likely not to see pedestrians with your ridiculously high bumper, but you're not the one to die if you run one over anyway.
The big one with SUVs is rollover. Their tall bodies and large ground clearance means that they're a lot more likely to roll where a lower car would slide.
It’s not a huge priority. And there are workarounds that the companies can use to just re-classify certain models so that less-strict standards apply. But at least for sedans and SUVs, they’ve gotten curvier, less boxy.
Of these, the Challenger was only one that really came to mind as maintaining the retro look to a degree.
And we'll just consign that early 2000 attempt at a retro_styled Thunderbird to the memory hole because it was horrible.
That retro Thunderbird was shit, but not because of the styling. That's one of the few things they got right; it looked great. The problem was... everything else.
When you look at what the prior mustang design language was vs the one that started around 2005 or so, it’s pretty obvious that it was a “return to roots” design ethos
This was my thought too lol. Very inspired by the classic muscle look.
Though I'm a little surprised one of the big manufacturers hasn't just literally made a body replica of the late 60s design for a limited release.
2005 Mustang was pretty close to late 60s/early 70s designs. Same with the earlier CHallengers from the late 2000s. There was also the Chevy HHR, which was a quasi crossover El Camino thing, the Thunderbird. The current Bronco is somewhat retro in that it's similar to the original, moreso than the previous generation that stopped production in the mid 90s.
I have a few options for you.
1.) Steal someone else's honda and put a 3' wing on it.
2.) Put your car in a large box. Then pay someone to maybe put a 3' wing on it. Then never look at your honda again.
3.) Tow a trailer with a 3' wing on it
4.) Buy a previous generation Civic type R. They have massive wings from the factory.
Hope this helps!
Something I've always wondered too. Why can't car manufacturers make some sweet looking classics again, but everything else is modern? Modern safety features like crumple zones, modern electronics etc. Just the body styling is old school
Don't forget the much maligned New VW Beetle oh and the plymouth prowler and chevy SSR and all the dodge muscle car ones.. oh yeah and the Ford Thunderbird and Ford GT. Now that I think about it there have been a bunch.
Oh yeah the new Mini and Fiat 500 and Jaguar S Type and Mercedes SLS and FJ Cruiser and new Bronco and ...
A couple answers to that would be 1) aerodynamics for fuel efficiency, and 2) pedestrian safety. New cars are designed to send people up and over instead of down and under should you manage to hit one. Volvo even has an external airbag to keep said pedestrians from smashing into the windshield.
>New cars are designed to send people up and over instead of down and under should you manage to hit one.
Modern Pickup trucks and SUVs would like a word
Everyone keeps saying fuel efficiency but what's that mean? Are we talking about a standard that needs to be met or just that consumers are beginning to prefer cars that get better gas milage?
Average consumers usually prefer somewhat fuel efficient cars, most cars significantly below average for their category often get bad reviews, outside of sports cars and trucks.
Example: if you are into the sedans category where the average is 32mpg, if anyone releases one with 10mpg due to the old school brick wall aerodynamics, its gonna get terrible reviews and bad sales by extension.
Both. If you had the choice of 2 cars and they were identical but one got 30% better fuel economy, you would choose the more fuel efficient car.
Technology improvements make it easier, so you might as well. Consumer demand is usually the biggest driver. When gas prices are high people choose cars based on fuel mileage more and manufacturers eventually respond.
What if you had the choice of 2 cars and they *werent* identical, because that’s what the thread is about? Lol
One is fuel efficient? The other has classic styling?
Well I wouldn't but that's what I was thinking when I asked. I feel like a lot of people DO buy cars with shit mileage cause they like how the car looks.
That's only partly true. There isn't any law outright banning pop ups. Car manufactures just haven't found a way to make a car that meets pedestrian safety laws, looks good, and has pop ups.
also pop-ups were a solution to have good aerodynamics while there were still only like 3 legal headlight assemblies you could use, all of which were large. only way to have a big headlight is to have a flat spot to put it on, screwing up your aerodynamics or have them pop up so it is only bad at night.
Plenty of people like popups as a form of nostalgia but I imagine the desire doesn't outweigh the pain in the ass of having to have pop ups especially when they aren't needed anymore
You wouldn't be able to just remake the car; they wouldn't meet any safety regulations. It would need heavy modification, and would ruin the look and the point.
Low volume manufacturers are exempt from safety regulations, but they're limited to ~300 cars a year last I saw the law. So between the raw costs of tooling up production, and the limited amount they could sell, they'd have to be ludicrously expensive to make any financial sense. On top of having to make a new company. Chevy or whoever probably can't just make a new subsidiary because they would obviously be cheating, so whoever this new group is making the cars is going to need to license the Chevy namesake or get sued into oblivion.
So at that point it makes more sense to just buy the original old car and restore/restomod it.
Modern cars are designed to meet strict safety standards that didn't exist in the past. Features like crumple zones, airbags, and seat belts are now standard in most cars. These features require different design elements that prioritize safety over style.
Everyone out here talking about efficiency and aerodynamics yet we have 2023 broncos that are a straight box, scion cube, vans. There are so many cars and vehicles out right now that are new and aren't as efficient as can be, but with new materials and designs for crumple zones you could still do classic designs with newer safety features, I'm sure it's possible.
The real answer is car manufacturing plants are capital intensive and expensive to build. Most manufacturing plants are designed to build just a couple different models that usually use the same frames and mostly the same parts. People’s tastes also change quickly. Car manufacturers don’t like taking risks. It’s that simple. Instead they would rather sell engines and parts to affiliates. For example the Ford Bronco. Ford makes the new ugly modern one. But you can buy a retro look Ford Bronco brand newly manufactured from a ford affiliated Bronco manufacturer. It’s a $140k truck. But it exists. Many newly manufactured retro looking makes and models do. They are just expensive.
Yeah but when people say aerodynamics and efficiency is important, that doesn’t mean every single car is efficient and has low drag, but the market as a whole is much more guided by regulations and aerodynamics than before. Old cars are stupidly blocky and have turbulence everywhere, they had enormous hoods and the front seats were one row without seatbelts lol. There’s just a lot going on. Yes there are SUVS because people like them but as long as they pass the safety standards (airbags, reverse cameras, hazards, etc) they can go into production.
A mistake so many car enthusiasts make is believing cars are made for them.
They're not, we're just a fraction of the market brother. If they really made factory resto mods 97% of the average car buyer would go "lol why are you making this old shit".
The car enthusiasts I know might not even want the remake. I think most of them would want to find and fix an original 19whatever sports car instead. As it is, sports cars aren't really making up the majority of car sales, it's a bit of a niche market. With the newer safety features even a base model would be priced pretty high and that's going to cut out even more potential buyers.
perfect example is the mazda mx5 (miata). If you were to believe reddit that's the perfect small car. It gets outsold by a standard ass mazda 3/cx3 and sales figures aren't even close.
Some companies do and they make a killing out of it, Aston Martin did a limited edition run of the DB5…unfortunately you had all the James Bond stuff tied to it, but it sold out.
Safety and fuel efficiency are a couple of factors. But also they don't have the same feel. Take the Mini. In the 1960s, it was very cheap and very basic. To open the door from the inside, you just pulled on a bit of string. Everything was as basic as you could get. It had a speedometer, fuel gage, oil pressure light and an ignition light. That was it.
Nobody is going to buy a car that basic today. Which cars are made depends solely on the m=new car market. I got a new car less than a year ago. My choice was primarily influenced by fuel consumption, boot size, and number of doors. Looks are of little importance.
There's a lot of safety things, but there's more to it than that.
It's definitively a fashion thing. If you're going to sell a unique pair of leggings or shirt, the average consumer is willing to spend 30 bucks on something avant garde that they like. When you're selling a car? You might find a few people who will spend 25k on a car that bucks the modern conventions, but you're trying to sell it to millions of people, not a few thousand eccentrics.
These answers aren’t dreaming big enough. Why can’t manufacturers take a modern more curved sedan and build out using extremely flimsy material, which would instantly disintegrate in a crash, to make things more boxy and angular? It would lose fuel efficiency sure, but wouldn’t this allow a car to “look” like a classic without impacting crumple zones and other safety requirements?
Yeah I don’t get why everyone is saying “safety would be compromised”. You wouldn’t be making an exact replicate with all the same materials, lol. It would have modern safety standards and modern materials but LOOK retro
At the same time, old trends are rediscovered like in the 90s when 70s flares came back... and zoot suits.
And so too with cars, you get 40s nostalgia like the PT Cruiser and Plymouth Prowler, the Mustang went through a 64-1/2 throwback phase and just to make me feel old, they made an 80s nostalgia Bronco.
The 60s certainly had some great slick designs, but the 80s cars were all about boxy monstrosities. I rather never see a return to those awful 80s designs.
There are a few modern cars with retro styling. VW Beetle looks about the same as it did in 1960. Jaguar S-Type, Bentleys etc. have not changed much aesthetically. Ford released a modern Mustang and modern T-bird both with retro style.
Reviews are mixed on them. I think you overestimate how much most people want a car like that.
mostly because they botched getting them to feel like the older cars. The new beetle has actually been decently successful as well, maybe more so when it first relaunched
A lot of the cars nowadays look the same because the designers are trying to meet much higher safety standards + as high fuel efficiency (aerodynamic) as possible. In the 50s and 60s, gas was cheap and safety as basic as seat belts weren't a universal thing so the look of cars could be more about style and manufacturing.
The car designers can test all sorts of shape designs and do computer simulations of airflow and crashes and iterate on them so then a lot of the designs end up looking similar.
Take for example [the original Challenger](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.KWPdLXZo2t_PwkRhwjvjfgHaFj%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=54c4c73083f011b16113cc8bd3086675efc7a10638c7506d8d7b65243f660902&ipo=images). Trying reproduce that same look in modern times with a car that meets modern safety standards and required fuel efficiency levels results in something similar [but a bit different](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.businessinsider.com%2Fimage%2F585456e6ca7f0c1c008b64e5%2Fimage.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=2fdf101c5472ee11c8b545bd3e37291729ac4256b1ba0263dfc152ed27ad4bca&ipo=images)\--a lot thicker for the crumple zones and safety around the cabin and then adjusting the aerodynamics where necessary.
Passenger jets basically look the same as 55 years ago/the late 60s. The only major changes have been getting them down to 2 engines + winglets. Aerodynamics is the same + they're using lighter materials and better engines to increase fuel efficiency. You'd have to go to something with significantly different parameters like supersonic flight to make a plane that looks different, like the Concorde.
> as high fuel efficiency (aerodynamic) as possible.
Interestingly, the same effort somehow doesn't apply to pick ups.
Also older style looking cars can be designed with new safety standard. PT Cruiser, Prowler.
The new cars are more aerodynamic, fuel-efficient, and safe. Odds are, the older designs are probably cheaper to produce since they are just iron and a little bit of wiring.
Newer vehicles are also designed to crash or, more precisely, designed to be far less likely to kill or maim the people in them in the event of a collision.
Newer vehicles also have a lot more features and amenities than those older models. I happen to like things like anti-lock brakes and traction control. I also like all the other bells and whistles that a decent car has these days.
That being said, I absolutely adored my ['77 Mercury Cougar XR-7](https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1977-79-mercury-cougar-xr7-the-thundercat/) *with* the 351 V8. It was a *beast*. I probably couldn't afford to fuel that monster in this day and age, but I loved it. I would love to have one today but it would be more of a garage decoration than something I drove everyday.
Feature by feature modern cars are cheaper to produce than old ones.
Less parts, less manufacturing steps etc.
That's why you can get features in a Golf now that you would expect from an s-class one or two decades ago.
Nobody has yet addressed how much easier older cars are to service yourself. Most modern cars are designed to make it almost impossible to do maintenance and repairs without taking the car to the dealer or a certified mechanic.
In my 1991 Corolla I could at least change the spark plugs without a fully equipped mechanic shop.
My 2009 Corolla doesn’t even have spark plugs. It has something called spark plug clips. Changing those requires a fairly invasive process.
I *could* probably do it myself, but it would likely take a whole day, and if I didn’t get the torque just right when reassembling it then I’d end up having to have it towed to a mechanic to fix my mistake.
That’s the part about older vehicles that I miss the most. Being able to work on them and enjoy it.
A lot of the shapes of modern cars have to do with safety regulations and efficiency.
Yes and also computers have dramatically improved our ability to design cars that are aerodynamic. Back in the day, we didn’t have such a precise knowledge of what shapes were best for efficiency. The modern car shapes are a result of advancements in knowledge and testing.
Is that why trucks are so massively oversized now?
Loopholes to get around EPA regulations
Yup. They've increased tonnage to qualify them as a 'work' truck and not need to stay under certain efficiency rules because that's hard to do when you *need* a vehicle that can haul a certain amount of weight around with equipment, supplies, worker, etc. The issue is that most of these people don't in any way need this type of vehicle, they just like it because media tells them they should and that they're a real man for getting one or it somehow legitimizes their working class or country persona in the middle of a suburban hell.
What bugs me is that these vehicles are designed to get around passenger vehicle regulations yet you can drive them with a regular license. I think they should close the loophole by requiring separate license class.
What bugs me even more is that their bumper heights are such that if you so much as touch them with a normal car, (or get touched by them, the arguably more probable outcome, I’d say) your car will get absolutely obliterated while they’ll barely show a scratch because their bumper is at fucking hood level. *DEFEATS THE POINT OF A FUCKING BUMPER, DOESN’T IT?*
Can confirm. Had a 2007 F-150 (for actual work!) and was hit hard from behind while I was stopped at a red light. Lady's car (she was okay) was totaled. Like hood crumpled, airbags off, engine smoking. I had a softball sized dent in my chrome bumper.
The direct weak spots on trucks are the wheels. I had a 07 GMC that just didn't want to die. It was still running strong on 700,000 KM. But that truck same situation rear ended at red light golf ball sized dent. Wife hit a ford explorer head on into the rear quarter panel and mangled the entire rear end of that SUV, the truck had a slight dent in the front bumper. But magically some old lady that shouldn't have been driving because she had dementia forgets what stop signs are for and smashes her car into the driver side wheel and the truck became a total loss.
Fuck. Sorry for your loss. We also had an 07 Sierra and she was wonderful. My husband gave it to his sister when he got a new F150. 6 mos later she hit someone else’s beemer (thankfully he was a friend and didn’t throw her under) and had zero damage in comparison. THEN it got stolen a few times over the holidays in a rough neighborhood in the city, and it just absolutely ate shit after the third theft. God that truck was a bad bitch. 10/10. Would truck again.
I touched the rear bumper of a truck bc of a set of bad circumstances. (happens at least once to everyone) And by touched, I mean TOUCHED. Like, no more than 10mph at time of collision; probably sub-5mph. The entire fucking front end of my car had to be replaced, along with the radiator (there was a tiny leak) when such an accident would have done exactly zero meaningful damage (possibly dislodged a bumper at worst) if I had hit a normal vehicle. I legit think that we need a standard bumper height regulation. Throw headlight regulations on there if there aren’t any, while we’re at it. Include a maximum ride height for basic license vehicles, too, because I swear the bigger trucks and such are just designed to throw pedestrians underneath the wheels on impact rather than onto the hood.
This makes me want a f-150 lol
My mom was exiting a parking lot where the driveway sloped up to the sidewalk and then sloped down to the road. A full size pickup truck came over the hump behind her and didn't see her car. The bumper of his truck descended onto the spoiler of hers and destroyed it. Luckily that was the only damage (including on his car, I believe), but the guy driving literally could not see her. Blind zones can extend up to 15 feet in front for [full size pickup trucks.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/suv-blind-zone-deaths-consumer-reports-safety/)
It blows my mind that a Ford transit connect van can't use a parkway, but an F-150 can. It makes no sense.
Yep, cars are held to a far higher standard, so manufactures simply stopped making cars - convincing the public what they really want is a truck instead. Quite sad really how easily we're swayed by marketing, and the very negative outcome of the policy. Should never have had that loophole (which carmakers lobbied for, ofc).
> Is that why trucks are so massively oversized now? No. There is actually an import tax that got passed that basically kicked small trucks. > The Chicken Tax is a tariff of 25% on light truck imports. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/chicken-tax.asp.
Tatra 77 has the drag co-efficient of a early Prius. It was built in 1935.
It also killed a shitload of people because it was so unstable
What made it unstable?
>What made it unstable? Jokes aside, the same thing all rear engined cars did (and still do to an extent, but has mostly been mitigated thanks to decades of research by porsche) , during turns it had a nasty habit of oversteering resulting in people losing control of the vehicle It also meant during panic stops because people aren't typically keeping the rest of their body stationary when trying to brake in a hurry people would accidently turn the wheel too much and...well it wasn't pretty Insanely influential car, but a poorly designed death trap none the less. Being back heavy wasn't a good thing for a car
Good thing modern cars don't do that! *MR2 stares menacingly*
Is an MR2 even modern anymore? It hasn't been in production for over 15 years. The SW20 was the one with the most snap oversteer tendency and that was last made almost 25 years ago
>MR2 stares menacingly Yeah, not the same thing. The MR2 didn't spin out under nornal use, it had a snap oversteer issue caused by people taking turns too quickly allowing the wheels to lose traction and then not knowing wtf they're supposed to do (as it is unintuative) It's something any experienced driver can completely prevent and maintain high speeds without issue. The tatra77 and other early rear engines weren't a lack of knowledge thing, it wasn't losing traction that was the problem but the weight literally causing interia to do what interia does best (you wanted to stop? Lol no, make me ya fuck) There wasn't a way around those issues beyond simply go slow and "brake" by coming to a rolling stop
I’ve heard driving a Porsche is different because of the engine position. Learning how to turn in corners requires a different input than common setups.
Driving it
Can’t argue with that
/r/technicallythetruth
I’m dead 😂😂😂
Did you drive one?
Lack of airbags and all-rigid steel construction of it. With a lot of those old cars they’re so heavy that you’ll see little to no damage in a fender-bender, but any collision over 55mph? You’re human purée
This is a big thing that most people don't realise when they talk about how 'flimsy' modern cars are. A 15kph crash in a 60s car might scratch the paint and give you a little dent, but in a modern car it may crack plastics and require a new body panel. However, a 100kph crash in a 60s car will turn the car and everything inside into impressionistic modern art (it's the impression of your organs all over the interior of a crumpled car). A 100kph crash in a modern car will turn the car into that same impressionistic sculpture right up until the actual place where people sit, at that point it will it is ridiculously strong. Watch this video to see an amazing comparison https://youtu.be/fPF4fBGNK0U
Crumple zones. Also they worry about the person on the outside of the car too. Bit more protection for victim if hit someone.
That's true for cars, but the new lines of pickup trucks are killing people left and right.
Rrmember when they banned bull bars in UK as perfect for killing children. Expect height profile similar in trucks.
I got hit by a Subaru like 6 years ago and hitting the hood of the car was like being thrown onto a mattress. I super appreciate what they did there. Don't appreciate the dudes insurance company trying to collect damages from me though, absolute fucking garbage human beings.
Damn, watching that, just think of how many lives have been saved by repeated testing and design advancements. It's the difference between "I had the worst day" and "Could you take a seat? We're sorry..."
Volvo invited the three point harness (seatbelt) and let everyone use it for free. It’s amazing the work these people have done.
"If you get in an accident in this, they just hose you off the dashboard and sell it to the next guy." - Jay Leno, about a 1950s Buick Roadster (possibly misremembered)
.
but that's the point of the question, really. they should be able to build all the modern safety features into a vehicle that has the same or nearly the same body shape as old cars. Best of both worlds.
Didn't it kill a lot of Nazis though? I guess it's little win at least
I feel like they should advertise that fact.
But a lot of the people it killed were nazis, so... maybe let's build some more?
"The smooth body of the T77a gave a coefficient of aerodynamic drag of 0.212. Some sources, though, claim that this figure was based on a 1:5 scale-model test, and it has been confirmed recently that the drag coefficient for the real full-size car is 0.36."
.212 is insanely low, around what a new Tesla Model S can do. .36 is nothing too crazy, a 90s toyota previa minivan or a 2018 dodge ram have the same drag coefficients.
> .212 is insanely low Yep. It is surprising that that claim held as long as it was at it is clearly so far out of reality. But yeah "industry standards" was a bit different thing back then.
The real answer is that when petroleum was relatively cheap it wasn’t as necessary to make fuel efficient cars, so they made them look cool instead. People were buying more on looks than fuel efficiency.
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>Nobody gives a shit about efficiency. ...in the US. Pickup-trucks are virtually unsellable in places like the EU. And SUV's in the EU are often just higher compact cars.
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We’re starting to see some US-sized cars in Australia, and you’re absolutely right, they take up way too much fracking space on the road. Can’t park beside them or pass them on the highway half the time. I don’t like to stereotype on matters of personal taste, but driving one of those makes the owner an inconsiderate jerk because there’s simply no way not to be. And they’re giving up their own freedom for the privilege—they can’t fit in a normal parking space, so if every second spot is taken, they can’t stop.
To elaborate with examples, the sloped hood shape and massive C pillars found on most cars are products of this.
The C pillar is the vertical piece of metal that would be next to your head if you were sat in the back. It's to protect you if the car flips.
>safety regulations and efficiency. And cost. Tail fins are heavy and expensive (for example).
The new cars use crumple zones, which convert the force into heat and displace the energy. This doesn't really answer OPs question of why they don't make them to look like the older cars.
It does, though. Crumple zones aren't the only thing that changed for safety https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a19660495/designer-genes-how-regulations-dictate-the-look-of-new-cars/
"Hyundai’s Chapman says that means the design of a car is “set up” at the base of its A-pillar, with shoulderlines rising and greenhouses slimming from there. " what are these words?
[Pillar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillar_(car\)) [Greenhouse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_(car\)) [Shoulderline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_automotive_design#S)
1) cars all mostly look the same because they figured out the optimal car shape for minimum drag. The reduction makes the car require less power to keep moving, saving fuel. 2) the shape is also influenced by crash safety. Crumble zones don't help pedestrians for example. The shape also makes it more likely that when you impact something, you will sort of slide off instead of hitting dead on. The shape also works with the Crumble zone to move crash forces around instead of through passengers.
>Crumble zone The most delicious car safety zone!
*crumple
I think crumble zones are the opposite of what cars want..
I think people aren't getting that you're making a crumble vs *crumple* zone correction joke. Indeed, a CRUMBLE zone would be bad for a car, and its passengers. A crumple zone, though? Those are good.
Reddit sure is a curious place sometimes :)
If the energy of a collision isn't absorbed by the car (by crumpling), it's absorbed by the bodies inside the car (by turning to jelly).
Right. Crumple. Not crumble.
https://youtu.be/C_r5UJrxcck
But they don't look as cool! I want an electric lowrider.
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Have you seen the Hummer or the Tesla pick up? They don't care about the other car...
I would agree with the safety regulations but would disagree on the efficiency aspect. We're still building jeep wranglers that objectively have not so great aerodynamics. Also let's never forget the abomination that's the nissan cube
People seem convinced that it's impossible to squeeze a 5 star safety rating into the body shape of a 69 Camaro (e.g.). I'm no expert and it seems complicated so I'll assume they know what they're talking about and that's true. What about a 3 or 4 star safety rating tho? Like it's not exactly designed for lugging the kids to soccer practice or family road trips anyway. I'd be willing to accept a certain level of personal risk, same as accepting the risk involved in riding a motorcyle or bicycle. For efficiency, even if it's not nearly as aerodynamic as modern designs it'd be way more fuel efficient than an actual 69 Camaro. Lighter weight, better designed and more precisely machined parts etc. Since we're just talking looks not performance it could even have like a Prius motor in it, or be fully electric. There are also plenty of people who don't even give a damn about efficiency. I'm probably wrong but it seems like it'd be doable if a car company really wanted to do it.
Reading [how stars for safety are assigned in major markets](https://www.euroncap.com/en/about-euro-ncap/how-to-read-the-stars/) it looks like unless you score pretty highly out of the gate, then your car could essentially become illegal to sell after 6 years. Most car models are produced for longer than that and I would expect manufacturers would not want to limit the production lifetime because of this.
It’s not just about your personal risk, though, it’s also about you crashing into someone else.
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They don't, but they make sure their design stays just within(or outside) spec.
They are specifically exempt from many of these regulations because money
Yeah, the Tesla pick up really cares about that.
Well, when they figure it out, I'll trade in my Challenger for an electric with an identical body shape.
I don't really know shit about this concept but I know cars and have looked into this a bit in the past. To me, safety for the person being crashed into and safety for the driver are two VERY different things and the passenger safety seems a lot harder to achieve. I'd take a 3 star passenger rating if they could make a cool car again. Shit I almost bought a 2nd gen Miata a few weeks ago, that thing's a fucking death trap in the modern world of building sized trucks and crossovers. But it's probably the safest thing out there to be hit by, except maybe a child on a bike. I just want some car manufacturer to make a fucking cool consumer car again. Doesn't need to be fast, doesn't need to be fancy, doesn't need to be safe, just needs to look cool, be cheap, and fun to drive. Think EG Civics or the aforementioned Miata. Those are fun, reasonably priced cars with no frills and built on a mistranslation of safety. (before someone says just buy one of those: too big for Miata and it's hard to find a car from the 80s/90s/early 2000s that won't require **heavy** maintenance in the next 5 years) All I know is if some half-aware soccer mom can drive a Tahoe at 85mph I should be allowed to have a small car that doesn't have every feature pointing towards safety. I'm fine with safety but when that's the point of every aspect it starts turning into a boring car. I've never been in an accident so forgive me if I want the suspension to be suspension instead of trying to coddle me when I don't need it to. As long as the other person in an accident isn't at greater risk because of my want then I don't care.
When riding a motorcycle or bicycle, you generally don't have to worry too much about killing someone with your vehicle (moreso with the bike than with the motorcycle.) With cars, people aren't just worried about what happens to *you*, they're worried about what happens to whatever you hit.
Based on [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_safety_through_vehicle_design) it sounds like there is much more focus on use of more impact absorbing materials (and fancy tech) to reduce pedestrian injury than altering the body shape. They do mention lower and deeper bumper profiles can reduce leg injury though.
It's kinda like a case of converging evolution. Things like aerodynamics and safety regulations create a pressure towards an "ideal" design. There may be a few approaches to that, but they're limited to what the intended niche for the vehicle is (sedan, SUV, truck, etc.). That means most roles have a limited variability on the "ideal". Though, evolution doesn't really work towards "ideals", more like what works well enough. Two examples in biology are the fox and the hyena. The fox is related to canines, but evolved in an environment where there weren't any cats to fill a niche for solitary, agile hunters of small animals. So, they filled that role and ended up with feline aspects. Hyenas are the opposite case, a feline evolving in an environment without a canine equivalent. So, they ended up filling the role of a medium sized canine pack hunter, chasing down large game in packs.
So you're saying cars will eventually look like crabs?
Crab people, crab people. Look like crabs, talk like people.
Close, they are all eventually going to look like a 1998 Ford Taurus.
I'm pretty sure Tesla based most of their models after that generation of Ford Taurus. Models X, 3, and Y especially.
That's probably why all 90s sedans looked like used bars of soap.
Very interesting! I never thought that I’d get a biology lesson as to how foxes and hyenas came to be and why they act the way they do on a post related to car designs. The more you know!
Woah. I never knew hyenas were cats.
They aren’t, exactly, but they’re in the cat-like sub-order of carnivores, so closer to cats than dogs.
Those old designs are shit for efficiency and safety.
Tons of cars today are shit designs for efficiency and safety. The real answer is it would cost too much in R&D and they'd have to completely change their manufacturing lines for one car. There's not enough profit in it.
People always say it but I dont buy this. Wrangler or Jimny or Gwagon exist so efficiency is not actual issue if sales are good. I also dont buy that engineers just dang cant figure out how to strengthen the structure for A pillar or whatever unsatisfactory safety comes from the old look. I think that it is all about manufacturers believing they would not sell well.
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Yeah I get 60+ mpg in my car and I wouldn’t dream of buying something under 55 mpg. Finding out there are cars out there that do _16_ mpg was mind blowing.
Don’t forget that US gallons are about 25% smaller though, so their MPG is lower. 24 mpg is 28.8 in imperial gallons. And 16 is 19.2. Still terrible but it’s important to bear in mind when comparing the same cars in the US and Europe. European cars don’t magically have better fuel economy.
Today i learned that not only does the US have a weird system of measurements, they also use the same name for a different size measurement. Because it wasn't confusing enough.
The US gallon (3.785 liters) is the old British wine gallon. The UK gallon (10 pounds of water) is the revised version.
> 10 pounds of water Every scientist everywhere just died
If a liter/litre can be (and is) defined as a kilogram of water, why can't an Imperial gallon be defined as ten pounds of water? It relates the definition to a real-world object.
What do you own?
That's exactlty their point...
I believe that federal regulations on trucks and SUVs are looser than on sedans and coupes. So even if people wanted a cooler-looking car, they couldn't get one in the mainstream 1960s style, but they can get lots of unsafe and inefficient SUV and pickup designs. But pickups and SUVs from back then were fewer in number, and not glamorous.
It’s not about just strengthening an a pillar here and there. It’s about designing a chassis that crumbles and crunches well enough to absorb the forces from an impact before that energy reaches the occupants in the cabin and kills them.
It's not just interior strength that's about safety. Those pointy fins are essentially spears for skewering pedestrians. A lot of those design features add extra weight to the front and rear of the car, when ideally you want the weight to be concentrated near the center of the car for stability. (Look at every mid-engine race for an example.) Extra weight at the ends increases the likelihood that you'll have trouble controlling the vehicle. A really long hood that you have to look over makes it more likely that you'll have trouble seeing approaching traffic at a stop sign, and you're more likely to pull out in front of another car.
>when ideally you want the weight to be concentrated near the center of the car for stability. (Look at every mid-engine race for an example.) Extra weight at the ends increases the likelihood that you'll have trouble controlling the vehicle. Another reason mid-engined supercars are made that way is it makes them more manoeuvrable. Most of the weight centralised means they're more able to rotate about their own axis. Like holding a pair of heavy weights out to your sides at arms length and trying to spin (and more importantly, change direction of that spin), versus holding them tight to your chest.
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Yeah my 86 LeBaron made like... 12 MPG city on a good day
Who cares, Jon Voight drove it!
No, John Voight drove it.
That was my first car! Thing was HUGE!
My 88 Merc was like that. I'd think, "Fuck, I'm burning gas like crazy" Then I got a normal car.
Smaller passenger cars are required to be way more fuel efficient than the crossovers & SUVs on the road today. The automakers are intentionally designing almost all "cars" nowadays with what used to be considered truck wheelbase sizes, and with various other design elements that allow the vehicles to be categorized as "light trucks" instead of passenger cars. They are doing these things in part to *lower* the fuel economy standards which they're required to meet. A lot of what's driving this is also just 1. fashion (everyone thinks a small car looks old-fashioned); 2. actual & perceived safety (it's fine to drive a top-heavy vehicle that causes more fatal accidents with no special training, as long as *you* feel safe inside); and 3. momentum/lack of choice (economy cars are already a slim minority, which makes them less popular, which leads to fewer being made).
>it's fine to drive a top-heavy vehicle that causes more fatal accidents with no special training, as long as you feel safe inside Especially when you're not the one dying in the fatal accident as well. Sure, you're pretty likely not to see pedestrians with your ridiculously high bumper, but you're not the one to die if you run one over anyway.
aren't drivers of SUVs themselves more likely to be injured in an accident? of course, its the *feeling* of safety that really matters so whatever.
The big one with SUVs is rollover. Their tall bodies and large ground clearance means that they're a lot more likely to roll where a lower car would slide.
But they had tailsfins! Didn't those make them more aerodynamic?
If fuel efficiency was really a priority, then they wouldnt allow so many american citizens to drive around in gas guzzlers.
It’s not a huge priority. And there are workarounds that the companies can use to just re-classify certain models so that less-strict standards apply. But at least for sedans and SUVs, they’ve gotten curvier, less boxy.
The big 3 already did this about 15 years ago...the current Camaro, Mustang, Challenger, Charger are all "retro" based on the late 60's models.
Of these, the Challenger was only one that really came to mind as maintaining the retro look to a degree. And we'll just consign that early 2000 attempt at a retro_styled Thunderbird to the memory hole because it was horrible.
That retro Thunderbird was shit, but not because of the styling. That's one of the few things they got right; it looked great. The problem was... everything else.
When you look at what the prior mustang design language was vs the one that started around 2005 or so, it’s pretty obvious that it was a “return to roots” design ethos
This was my thought too lol. Very inspired by the classic muscle look. Though I'm a little surprised one of the big manufacturers hasn't just literally made a body replica of the late 60s design for a limited release.
...not retro enough.
2005 Mustang was pretty close to late 60s/early 70s designs. Same with the earlier CHallengers from the late 2000s. There was also the Chevy HHR, which was a quasi crossover El Camino thing, the Thunderbird. The current Bronco is somewhat retro in that it's similar to the original, moreso than the previous generation that stopped production in the mid 90s.
I think it'd be nice if all cars didn't look exactly the same.
Thats why you put a huge 3’ wing on your unmodified honda civic and de-badge it. To be unique
Every time I put a huge 3' wing on my unmodified Honda it turns into a modified Honda. What can I do to fix this?
Easy. Remove the huge 3' wing.
But I need to have my unmodified honda be unique and a 3' wing is the only way
I have a few options for you. 1.) Steal someone else's honda and put a 3' wing on it. 2.) Put your car in a large box. Then pay someone to maybe put a 3' wing on it. Then never look at your honda again. 3.) Tow a trailer with a 3' wing on it 4.) Buy a previous generation Civic type R. They have massive wings from the factory. Hope this helps!
They kind of need to be in order to maximize fuel efficiency, aerodynamics, and safety.
Who tf cares, I want pretty cars :( Edit: /s before you guys destroy me with downvotes lol
I walked past an old Volkswagen Golf yesterday and could tell what brand and model it was from a distance. Shame it's impossible nowadays.
Something I've always wondered too. Why can't car manufacturers make some sweet looking classics again, but everything else is modern? Modern safety features like crumple zones, modern electronics etc. Just the body styling is old school
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Don't forget the much maligned New VW Beetle oh and the plymouth prowler and chevy SSR and all the dodge muscle car ones.. oh yeah and the Ford Thunderbird and Ford GT. Now that I think about it there have been a bunch. Oh yeah the new Mini and Fiat 500 and Jaguar S Type and Mercedes SLS and FJ Cruiser and new Bronco and ...
Don't forget the Pontiac Solstice. That car was beautiful, but impractical as hell.
> Pontiac Solstice What classic car was that supposed to look like? Looks like a clean sheet modern design to me.
A couple answers to that would be 1) aerodynamics for fuel efficiency, and 2) pedestrian safety. New cars are designed to send people up and over instead of down and under should you manage to hit one. Volvo even has an external airbag to keep said pedestrians from smashing into the windshield.
>New cars are designed to send people up and over instead of down and under should you manage to hit one. Modern Pickup trucks and SUVs would like a word
Ah, see the trick is that those are generally not classed as "cars" but "trucks" which have far lower safety standards.
Everyone keeps saying fuel efficiency but what's that mean? Are we talking about a standard that needs to be met or just that consumers are beginning to prefer cars that get better gas milage?
Average consumers usually prefer somewhat fuel efficient cars, most cars significantly below average for their category often get bad reviews, outside of sports cars and trucks. Example: if you are into the sedans category where the average is 32mpg, if anyone releases one with 10mpg due to the old school brick wall aerodynamics, its gonna get terrible reviews and bad sales by extension.
Both. If you had the choice of 2 cars and they were identical but one got 30% better fuel economy, you would choose the more fuel efficient car. Technology improvements make it easier, so you might as well. Consumer demand is usually the biggest driver. When gas prices are high people choose cars based on fuel mileage more and manufacturers eventually respond.
What if you had the choice of 2 cars and they *werent* identical, because that’s what the thread is about? Lol One is fuel efficient? The other has classic styling?
Yeah, I'd definitely pick the one with the styling I prefer. That's hugely why I landed with my current car.
Would you buy a car with shit gas milage just because you thought it had a cool aesthetic? *edit: rich people are nuts and I don't understand them.
I can guarantee you that people would do that. It doesn't mean you'd use it as a daily driver.
A lot of people already do that.
Do you think people that buy dodge rams or f150s do so for the great gas milage?
I absolutely fucking would. Maybe not shit, but ‘slightly less efficiency for prettier car’ is a price I’d be willing to pay.
They're called SUV's.
Well I wouldn't but that's what I was thinking when I asked. I feel like a lot of people DO buy cars with shit mileage cause they like how the car looks.
See Singer restomods
Charger and Challenger would like to have a word
One specific design - pop up headlights - is not allowed anymore due to the pointy-ness being a much greater hazard in the event you hit someone.
That's only partly true. There isn't any law outright banning pop ups. Car manufactures just haven't found a way to make a car that meets pedestrian safety laws, looks good, and has pop ups.
also pop-ups were a solution to have good aerodynamics while there were still only like 3 legal headlight assemblies you could use, all of which were large. only way to have a big headlight is to have a flat spot to put it on, screwing up your aerodynamics or have them pop up so it is only bad at night. Plenty of people like popups as a form of nostalgia but I imagine the desire doesn't outweigh the pain in the ass of having to have pop ups especially when they aren't needed anymore
You wouldn't be able to just remake the car; they wouldn't meet any safety regulations. It would need heavy modification, and would ruin the look and the point. Low volume manufacturers are exempt from safety regulations, but they're limited to ~300 cars a year last I saw the law. So between the raw costs of tooling up production, and the limited amount they could sell, they'd have to be ludicrously expensive to make any financial sense. On top of having to make a new company. Chevy or whoever probably can't just make a new subsidiary because they would obviously be cheating, so whoever this new group is making the cars is going to need to license the Chevy namesake or get sued into oblivion. So at that point it makes more sense to just buy the original old car and restore/restomod it.
Modern cars are designed to meet strict safety standards that didn't exist in the past. Features like crumple zones, airbags, and seat belts are now standard in most cars. These features require different design elements that prioritize safety over style.
Everyone out here talking about efficiency and aerodynamics yet we have 2023 broncos that are a straight box, scion cube, vans. There are so many cars and vehicles out right now that are new and aren't as efficient as can be, but with new materials and designs for crumple zones you could still do classic designs with newer safety features, I'm sure it's possible.
The real answer is car manufacturing plants are capital intensive and expensive to build. Most manufacturing plants are designed to build just a couple different models that usually use the same frames and mostly the same parts. People’s tastes also change quickly. Car manufacturers don’t like taking risks. It’s that simple. Instead they would rather sell engines and parts to affiliates. For example the Ford Bronco. Ford makes the new ugly modern one. But you can buy a retro look Ford Bronco brand newly manufactured from a ford affiliated Bronco manufacturer. It’s a $140k truck. But it exists. Many newly manufactured retro looking makes and models do. They are just expensive.
Yeah but when people say aerodynamics and efficiency is important, that doesn’t mean every single car is efficient and has low drag, but the market as a whole is much more guided by regulations and aerodynamics than before. Old cars are stupidly blocky and have turbulence everywhere, they had enormous hoods and the front seats were one row without seatbelts lol. There’s just a lot going on. Yes there are SUVS because people like them but as long as they pass the safety standards (airbags, reverse cameras, hazards, etc) they can go into production.
Safety unfortunately. I miss chrome bumpers too
A mistake so many car enthusiasts make is believing cars are made for them. They're not, we're just a fraction of the market brother. If they really made factory resto mods 97% of the average car buyer would go "lol why are you making this old shit".
The car enthusiasts I know might not even want the remake. I think most of them would want to find and fix an original 19whatever sports car instead. As it is, sports cars aren't really making up the majority of car sales, it's a bit of a niche market. With the newer safety features even a base model would be priced pretty high and that's going to cut out even more potential buyers.
perfect example is the mazda mx5 (miata). If you were to believe reddit that's the perfect small car. It gets outsold by a standard ass mazda 3/cx3 and sales figures aren't even close.
Some companies do and they make a killing out of it, Aston Martin did a limited edition run of the DB5…unfortunately you had all the James Bond stuff tied to it, but it sold out.
Safety and fuel efficiency are a couple of factors. But also they don't have the same feel. Take the Mini. In the 1960s, it was very cheap and very basic. To open the door from the inside, you just pulled on a bit of string. Everything was as basic as you could get. It had a speedometer, fuel gage, oil pressure light and an ignition light. That was it. Nobody is going to buy a car that basic today. Which cars are made depends solely on the m=new car market. I got a new car less than a year ago. My choice was primarily influenced by fuel consumption, boot size, and number of doors. Looks are of little importance.
Plus... Most redditors definitely wouldn't fit in their...
Newer cars' design is safer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPF4fBGNK0U
There's a lot of safety things, but there's more to it than that. It's definitively a fashion thing. If you're going to sell a unique pair of leggings or shirt, the average consumer is willing to spend 30 bucks on something avant garde that they like. When you're selling a car? You might find a few people who will spend 25k on a car that bucks the modern conventions, but you're trying to sell it to millions of people, not a few thousand eccentrics.
These answers aren’t dreaming big enough. Why can’t manufacturers take a modern more curved sedan and build out using extremely flimsy material, which would instantly disintegrate in a crash, to make things more boxy and angular? It would lose fuel efficiency sure, but wouldn’t this allow a car to “look” like a classic without impacting crumple zones and other safety requirements?
Yeah I don’t get why everyone is saying “safety would be compromised”. You wouldn’t be making an exact replicate with all the same materials, lol. It would have modern safety standards and modern materials but LOOK retro
And they talk about efficiency while driving their F150...
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At the same time, old trends are rediscovered like in the 90s when 70s flares came back... and zoot suits. And so too with cars, you get 40s nostalgia like the PT Cruiser and Plymouth Prowler, the Mustang went through a 64-1/2 throwback phase and just to make me feel old, they made an 80s nostalgia Bronco.
all i want is a 1st gen 4runner, if they remade thay I'd be soo happy
Cars don't look the same as they did in the 60s to 80s for the same reason that car crash victims no longer look like open faced sandwiches.
The 60s certainly had some great slick designs, but the 80s cars were all about boxy monstrosities. I rather never see a return to those awful 80s designs.
Those early 90s Mustangs were some of the ugliest cars ever
F40, Countach were nice. Even the 930 was great.
My 1st car was a '69 Camero 3 speed. No ac. Living in west Texas
There are a few modern cars with retro styling. VW Beetle looks about the same as it did in 1960. Jaguar S-Type, Bentleys etc. have not changed much aesthetically. Ford released a modern Mustang and modern T-bird both with retro style. Reviews are mixed on them. I think you overestimate how much most people want a car like that.
mostly because they botched getting them to feel like the older cars. The new beetle has actually been decently successful as well, maybe more so when it first relaunched
A lot of the cars nowadays look the same because the designers are trying to meet much higher safety standards + as high fuel efficiency (aerodynamic) as possible. In the 50s and 60s, gas was cheap and safety as basic as seat belts weren't a universal thing so the look of cars could be more about style and manufacturing. The car designers can test all sorts of shape designs and do computer simulations of airflow and crashes and iterate on them so then a lot of the designs end up looking similar. Take for example [the original Challenger](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.KWPdLXZo2t_PwkRhwjvjfgHaFj%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=54c4c73083f011b16113cc8bd3086675efc7a10638c7506d8d7b65243f660902&ipo=images). Trying reproduce that same look in modern times with a car that meets modern safety standards and required fuel efficiency levels results in something similar [but a bit different](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.businessinsider.com%2Fimage%2F585456e6ca7f0c1c008b64e5%2Fimage.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=2fdf101c5472ee11c8b545bd3e37291729ac4256b1ba0263dfc152ed27ad4bca&ipo=images)\--a lot thicker for the crumple zones and safety around the cabin and then adjusting the aerodynamics where necessary. Passenger jets basically look the same as 55 years ago/the late 60s. The only major changes have been getting them down to 2 engines + winglets. Aerodynamics is the same + they're using lighter materials and better engines to increase fuel efficiency. You'd have to go to something with significantly different parameters like supersonic flight to make a plane that looks different, like the Concorde.
> as high fuel efficiency (aerodynamic) as possible. Interestingly, the same effort somehow doesn't apply to pick ups. Also older style looking cars can be designed with new safety standard. PT Cruiser, Prowler.
Those cars were death traps and it was because of the designs
The new cars are more aerodynamic, fuel-efficient, and safe. Odds are, the older designs are probably cheaper to produce since they are just iron and a little bit of wiring. Newer vehicles are also designed to crash or, more precisely, designed to be far less likely to kill or maim the people in them in the event of a collision. Newer vehicles also have a lot more features and amenities than those older models. I happen to like things like anti-lock brakes and traction control. I also like all the other bells and whistles that a decent car has these days. That being said, I absolutely adored my ['77 Mercury Cougar XR-7](https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1977-79-mercury-cougar-xr7-the-thundercat/) *with* the 351 V8. It was a *beast*. I probably couldn't afford to fuel that monster in this day and age, but I loved it. I would love to have one today but it would be more of a garage decoration than something I drove everyday.
Feature by feature modern cars are cheaper to produce than old ones. Less parts, less manufacturing steps etc. That's why you can get features in a Golf now that you would expect from an s-class one or two decades ago.
First and more important, because they wouldn't sell outside some very small niches. Second, safety regulations.
Nobody has yet addressed how much easier older cars are to service yourself. Most modern cars are designed to make it almost impossible to do maintenance and repairs without taking the car to the dealer or a certified mechanic. In my 1991 Corolla I could at least change the spark plugs without a fully equipped mechanic shop. My 2009 Corolla doesn’t even have spark plugs. It has something called spark plug clips. Changing those requires a fairly invasive process. I *could* probably do it myself, but it would likely take a whole day, and if I didn’t get the torque just right when reassembling it then I’d end up having to have it towed to a mechanic to fix my mistake. That’s the part about older vehicles that I miss the most. Being able to work on them and enjoy it.
2009 Corolla has spark plugs. Takes 10 minutes to replace them. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt020ue1wpI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt020ue1wpI)
I’ll take a look this weekend when I have the time. I’m pretty sure the manual said spark plug clips, but now I can’t find it either.