I'm always amazed that so many feel strongly about car A looking better or worse than car B. The way people talk about the differences, it's like they're comparing an art nouveau house to a ranch style home -- you know, two things that have massive, immediately obvious differences.
But really, comparing cars (even across decades of time) is more like comparing trends in suits. Does it have two or three buttons? Single or double breasted? Single or double cuff? I'm amazed that anyone, barring a small minority with serious artistic sensibilities, can muster the energy to find one vastly different from the other -- at the end of the day, it's the same damn thing. A suit is a suit, a mass-market car is a car, and car appearance = 4 wheels, 4 windows, headlights, a color, generally aerodynamic shape. Everything beyond that is (in modern cars) some minor tweak. Even the two trucks the article gives as examples look basically the same to me; I'll grant that the newer model tries to look more "badass", but the metaphor of it going to bomb a village is pretty silly.
I guess it's a function of this being an extremely expensive object that was, for a long time, a status symbol. But I still can't see how people feel passionate about any of it -- again, excluding people like Jony Ive (who designs for a living) or own / desire models of car that are, in fact, vastly different (usually antiques or niche brands).
The second most expensive thing most people buy, they keep it years, and 'wear' it most every day as they go about their business. It's not surprising to me that people care about the way their car looks like they care about anything else closely associated with them.
There's a lot there to care about: gas mileage, the maintenance schedule and reliability, the interior feel, and most of all, the feel of driving it.
The exterior appearance is the least consequential, least differentiated and most boring aspect of a car. So it's also not crazy to think that, perhaps, people shouldn't care so much about it. And really, they don't -- from my observation, what people care most about is the brand of the hood ornament, with various post-hoc justifications about appearance after that fact.
But really, comparing cars (even across decades of time) is more like comparing trends in suits. Does it have two or three buttons? Single or double breasted? Single or double cuff? I'm amazed that anyone, barring a small minority with serious artistic sensibilities, can muster the energy to find one vastly different from the other -- at the end of the day, it's the same damn thing. A suit is a suit, a mass-market car is a car, and car appearance = 4 wheels, 4 windows, headlights, a color, generally aerodynamic shape. Everything beyond that is (in modern cars) some minor tweak. Even the two trucks the article gives as examples look basically the same to me; I'll grant that the newer model tries to look more "badass", but the metaphor of it going to bomb a village is pretty silly.
I guess it's a function of this being an extremely expensive object that was, for a long time, a status symbol. But I still can't see how people feel passionate about any of it -- again, excluding people like Jony Ive (who designs for a living) or own / desire models of car that are, in fact, vastly different (usually antiques or niche brands).