QOTD: Which Current Vehicle Has the Most Timeless Styling?
Ahh, style. The word that means different things to different people. The khaki-clad middle manager and the 20-something hipster from Seattle both have a sense of it, even if wildly divergent. And this equally applies to cars.
For example, though many of the B&B complain about how all cars look the same now, I don’t think that’s true.
Your assignment today is to think about present-day exterior styling as applied to cars, and come up with a suggestion that’s suitably timeless.
Not all vehicles age as gracefully as others. The hot trends of the day don’t always translate well into the new dawn of the next decade. Check out the gone-soft styling of the new Discovery in the headline image. It’s a current example of what not to do. The blocky and upright design lineage of Discovery generations I-IV is gone in this new iteration. The floating roof, hiked-up rear belt line and obtrusive C-pillar are all things which won’t look great in a decade.
Keeping with this SUV thread, I’ve got a timeless design in mind which proves me right. Look at this.
The magnificent solid block of metal you see above is the Infiniti QX4, which had its last model year in 2003. Three-spoke wheels, xenon lamps, wood trim and brougham stuff — it was and is excellent. I propose this vehicle still looks great today, a full 14 years later. But what about a vehicle from the same year which has not aged so gracefully? I’ll be fair and use another midsize, semi-premium SUV.
And here it is: the 2003 GMC Envoy. Though these two vehicles are similar in many ways, right down to metallic beige paint and wheel design, the way they’ve aged is entirely different. The Envoy is a classic case of a design lacking in timelessness. This particular case is unusual, since the Envoy is largely made of straight lines, and doesn’t feature any of the swoops or flame surfacing which generally serve to age cars more quickly.
But neither of these (now ancient) examples are current vehicles, which is where we focus today. Time to put on our thin-frame designer spectacles. To your mind, what are the timeless designs you can go and purchase in North American showrooms in 2017? What’s your best bet if you don’t want your car to look all Envoy in a few years?
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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The 2003 QX4 is a good example of timelessness, except that C-pillar-mounted rear door handle bothers me all out of proportion.
Out of all the vehicles; the Mercedes Benz G Wagon has aged the best! It been a consumer item since 1978 and looks exactly the same! Of course; you have to have around $125K+ to buy it not including sales tax and registration fees! But it looks still fantastic! How many vehicles can you say that about?