Design falls short in today’s cars

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There’s something about modern cars that make them increasingly difficult to fall in love with. 

Design is playing second fiddle, with looks that sometimes appear to have succumbed to geeky computer-generated images instead of being carefully crafted. 

I can remember being thrilled by renowned car designer Walter da Silva at Auto Africa many years ago, where he started drawing for us on an overhead projector, which would later become the Alfa Romeo 156. He spoke passionately about the aesthetics, with the Cuore Sportivo or motif taking centre stage on the grille and the rest of the design flowing from there.

Arbitrary yet mandatory things such as a licence plate were, of course, rendered to the side so as not to mess with the purity of the design. 

Make no mistake; the 156 was hardly a perfect car. In fact, it had several flaws, including that it wasn’t as well built as its German contemporaries. Performance, too, left a lot to be desired. But it was difficult to argue that it wasn’t one of the most beautiful cars of a generation.

Time is the great leveller. It was in 1998 when French car maker Renault astounded the world with two very different designs for luxury car travel. 

The first was the Avantime, whose name was a portmanteau meaning “ahead of its time”. It was the love child of a practical MPV (multi-purpose vehicle) and an oddball two-door coupe. It was clearly ahead of its time.

The second, the Vel Satis, was a far more interesting proposition. It suggested that customers opt for a large, luxury hatch as an alternative to the traditional executive saloon. Again, a bit of a stretch. It was the second car to score a five star New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) rating, following stablemate Laguna II. The Vel Satis may, however, have inadvertently inspired future design, or rather packaging.

The following oddballs were from BMW: the X6 and the 5 Series GT. The traditional SUV and saloons could be complemented, it seemed, rather than replaced. I can recall the wagging of tongues, most of them not positive.

Fast forward nearly two decades, there is a plethora of fastbacks, with almost everyone and their dog having one, even though they seem to attract the description coupe. They now receive glowing praise. If you will forgive the terrible pun, leading the charge appears to be fleets of electric vehicles, many with unimaginative front styling that we can discuss another time.

Could the current crop of modern-styled coupes and fastbacks signal the bell’s tolling for the humble hatchback and notchback? I hope not. The world as we know it would never be the same again. Both have resulted in some of the most legendary cars of our time. But then again, so were wagons and look where those ended up.