When you think about car brands, some can easily be identified from a distance. The more successful a car brand has been in creating an obvious ‘look’ or ‘style’, the more desirable that brand becomes in customers’ minds.
Car manufactures continue styling cues that are embedded in their DNA without straying too far from a proven formula. In the eye of the consumer, the way a car looks is often more important than how it drives.
Styling of cars has evolved dramatically in recent years due to fuel efficiency goals, advancement in engine technologies, manufacturing techniques and safety requirements. Yet we can still recognise a car’s origins due to subtle styling that remains true to the parent company’s design ethos.
Car designers over the years have created brand styling that owners have formed emotional bonds with. We can all identify the type of manufactures with a glimpse. The shapes, symbols and body lines make up our perception of quality and refinement that has taken billions of dollars and decades of evolution to refine.
Initial styling was based around a radiator to cool the large engine that lay behind an unsafe chrome bumper, which has made way for crumpling crash structures designed to absorb and deflect impacts.
Inefficient box shaped cars have morphed into sleek, round aerodynamic cars for fuel saving, as petrol prices soared in the 1970s and ‘80s.
This begs the question, what will cars look like when the concept of an engine at the front and a boot at the back is thrown out the window? When cars are powered by a battery that lays under the floor? There will be no need for a bonnet, let alone a driver’s seat once driverless cars are perfected. A car’s styling will instead revolve around a space to simply relax and unwind as you get from A to B. The concept of car styling in the near future will be tipped upside down and is going to be revolutionary in the years ahead.