I've just been looking at the 1968 Motorshow feature on 4Car. Wow, I'd forgotten how stylish that era was, even the Escort looks reasonable. The BMW 2002 is simply stunning. I know that there are some plug-uglies missing from the 10 cars shown, but doesn't it show what can happen when Italian stylists are widely used? And, conversely, doesn't today's collection of clones show what happens when you don't use Italian style houses? I know that not all the cars in the feature were Italian-styled, but, with perhaps the exception of the VW 411 (I owned a Variant which had dents all over it where I kicked it because it wouldn't start), all those cars are quite remarkable. The Japanese invasion that was about to happen back then might have brought us cheap and reliable cars, but it didn't make the place look any prettier. Oh for a time machine. South of France 1968, what a summer!
Well we're safe for now. Thank goodness we're in a bowling alley.
i drove an early seventies 1602 bmw and it felt a world apart from mk1 and 2 escorts and other compact rwd saloons from that time..a car which helped bmw on its way to its reutation for fine, sporting saloons..not at all special these days for sure, but well made, entertaining handling and good looking..the tii was the one to have for the sporting driver, unless you could afford europes first readily availble turbo car, the 2002 turbo...now that was a road burner c/w its deep front air damn and huge nothing nothing wait for it BANG WALLOP old school lag....
you cannot really compare cars of yesterday to cars of today though..you have to put yourself in the mind frame of someone who was driving one way back when and think of the competition it had when new....for instance, a traction avant, or even a ds or cx would be a dissapointment to many these days..but compare them to what was available as competition and they were pretty mindblowing..
spotted the nsu in that 68 top 10 .... still a decent looking car & very obviously related to the mid 1980s audi 100
-------------------------------------------- Two junior particle physicists were dismissed today after using the Large Hadron Collider to smash conkers into each other at near-light speed.
there is a pretty good case for the nsu ro80 being much more ahead of its time and every bit as technolgically advanced as teh ds was.....its styling cues are still around now...ya dont see many cars that look lie the big cit tho, do ya??!!
Originally posted by XNtrikalfaman: you cannot really compare cars of yesterday to cars of today though
The original comment was about style, not content. I find very, very few cars today to be stylish however 'styled' they may be. So many of the cars in the '68 feature were stylish, even classy. To my mind (small and damaged though it may have been, mainly in 1968), beauty is a rarity today. If something is stunning, that is different, so is sticking your fingers in an electrical socket. It is not the same as beautiful.
Well we're safe for now. Thank goodness we're in a bowling alley.
no argument here bro.....althouhg i feel we are heading into an era where cars wil become more outlandish, more stylish, more beautiful as the ybecome something that must be pleasnat to own and look at, hell, even to discuss, becuause over the next twenty years or so they are going to become more and more difficualt to USE...
They are becoming ever more practical though. This Civic is the perfect example of how far cars have come. In so, so many ways, it is streets, no continents ahead of any similar car from 20 years back.
Originally posted by XNtrikalfaman: althouhg i feel we are heading into an era where cars wil become more outlandish, more stylish, more beautiful...
I don't want to pick a fight here, but for me, the words 'outlandish' and 'beautiful' don't sit comfortably together. Like 'training shoe' and 'classy' don't, or 'pink stretch limo' and 'lady'. This is my point, that we've lost our sense of effortless beauty and replaced it with coarseness and vulgarity masquerading as style. Only the Italians and the British ever really mastered it with the French running a parallel course of chic - not quite the same thing, but still attractive and intellectually challenging. I know this is semantics, but humour me, I've been stuck in the Andes for months and am suffering a rush of oxygen. I'm also well on my way to being a codger. Where's that irascible Argentinian bloke gone?
Well we're safe for now. Thank goodness we're in a bowling alley.
whilst i dont think the terms are actually mutually exclusive, perhaps you are reading my post wrong...??...outlandish, beautiful, stylish..three seperate vitures....we are going to see many more beutiful cars...many stylish ones..many outlandish over the next decade otr so.....
sonmetinmes these attributes can combine, and again, it depends on the 'critics' personal taste, but few would disagree that, for instance, on its launch, the citroen ds or sm was outlandish??...also beautiful..and very stylish tho..?? others that may tick all these boxes for some....figoni et falachi delayhaye....lancia stratos....renault avantime...alfa disco volante...bugatti atlanitiqe, even the royale..??..
..again, its all down ot personal image and perception...i love the avantime but i can understand that many people dont..im cool with that..i know lots of people love the bamgle 5, 6 and 7 series, the z4 etc..i find them visually painful to look at...( 5 series tourer excepted...)...but like i always say, hell, im glad bmw made them..they are different...and not..bland...the bland uniformity of many of todays cars offends me even more than the metaphorical poke in the eye that many of bangles bimmers gives me..
