What happened to happy-looking cars?
In late October, an old Land Rover Series III station wagon that I bought in the U.K. sailed into a California port on a vehicle carrier after three weeks at sea. It was parked in the sun and salt air of the dock to wait out what I believed would be, based on five previous imports, a couple of days of Customs clearance. A week went by. Then another, with barely any information despite repeated inquiries. My temperature began rising. I went around telling people that Customs adopted a new motto: E Screwitus Younum.
So perhaps I wasn’t in the best mood when pics of the new Lotus Eletre SUV dropped in my inbox. I like Lotus and I’m not opposed to luxury SUVs, but the styling did strike me as just another angry face in the crowd. The Eletre has pinched headlights and a scowling grille, and one imagines that Lotus’s designers were evoking a fearsome cobra. Or a warrior chief in the throes of doing his taxes. Or 5-year-old me tasting gefilte fish for the first time.
Thanks to relentless copying and the auto industry’s deep fascination with fads, cars today are almost universally unhappy. They fret, they glare, they scowl, they stew with festering grudges. They are at risk of developing deep and permanent worry lines. For decades, the Toyota Crown has been the upright and understated flagship of Japan’s taxi fleet as well as legions of sensible salarymen. Toyota just released pictures of the new Crown: slit headlights, a jutting chin accentuating an acute underbite, and a wall-to-wall grimace for a grille. Toyota has become enamored with inking its creations with random blackout panels, and the Crown is so thusly tatted that it looks like a gangbanger out on an assuredly brief parole. The new Crown is not here to provide safe, reliable transport—it’s here to swipe your watch and wallet.
Cars seem to reflect our mood. Columnist David Brooks wrote in The New York Times recently that “the negativity in the culture reflects the negativity in real life,” noting that researchers who analyzed 150,000 pop songs released over 50 years determined that the word “love” appeared half as often in later years, while the word “hate” had an uptick. From the endless downbeat headlines to the repeated surveys that say more and more people rate their lives as terrible, the world is in a funk, and it apparently wants its cars to be sad and angry, too.
This wasn’t a problem when most of our classics were built. They were given regal, technical, and forward-to-the-future faces. It helped that industry standard from the 1930s to the 1980s was a 7-inch round headlight (followed by a 5.5-incher), because round lenses backed by semi-hemispherical reflectors did a good job of concentrating light, especially from 6-volt bulbs. Darkness, both literal and figurative, was thus banished to the shadows. The ultimate happy car, the bug-eyed Austin-Healey Sprite, was born into a Britain mired in empire collapse, currency drift, nuclear threat, and increasing social disorder. Yet it keeps smiling (and making smiles) to this day, reminding us all to stop clenching and maybe lighten the hell up.
I waited out Customs with scant information, which sent me to black, enraging places where uncaring bureaucrats lounge through long coffee breaks and slow-walk approvals out of unwarranted spite. Finally, I talked to someone in the know and learned that old Land Rovers get extra scrutiny because theft and import fraud has become so rampant among them. The thin blue line was merely doing its job, and two weeks was actually pretty good—some Rovers have taken six months to clear.
And there it was on the dock, filthy, spotted with seagull crap, but still bright-eyed and chipper. Old Land Rovers have a simple face—just a cube, really, yet a welcoming and competent one. It’s a face that says, “Keep calm and carry on.” And, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Apparently, from all the thefts, it’s a face loved the world over, perhaps proving that we’re ready for some happier cars to take us to happier days.
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I like the grill on my 1958 corvette that shows all its teeth while smiling..
Frank
My ‘59 Fiat Jolly gets 45 ‘Smiles’ to the gallon! Driving it is like being in a parade with people stopping to look and wave.
For the recent auto styling trends, “Consumer Reports” has used the term “Angry Space Lizard” which, as Dave Barry might say, would be a great name for a rock band.
Good story. I’ve been commenting on forums about the same thing especially EVs with their smug no personality faces. Like humans who don’t smile back, I never trust a vehicle that does not smile at me.
2017 to 2020 Chrysler Pacificas aren’t just smiling, they’re laughing hysterically!
Yes, Bug-Eyes are tiny, set one next to a REAL (BMC ) Mini and you will see that have the same (80″) wheelbase ! To a Mini, the Bug-Eye is a BIG car 😉
I’ve owned several Mini’s, still want a Bug-Eye !
I really missed Sports Car Graphic when it folded with that black last edition. It was all about enjoying the different car personalities, does anyone remember the review of the Denbew Super Saloon Mark Two with the 1936 four cylinder 36 HP engine and the dispute over whether the brakes actually slowed it down or not, and the tools in the boot that included a putty knife, a hacksaw and a hammer?
Those were the days cars were fun.
I am so glad to know I am not the only one who is sick of angry looking cars who wear depressing shades of grey, black or white inside and out. No color and no lightness of being. Hopefully that trend can be turned around as there is nothing out there now that I want to buy. I love my old cars that have style, class, and an exuberant look to the future. And are in bright colors! We had a ’56 Ford growing up that I loved and now I have a ’65 Imperial LeBaron that also has won my heart. I can’t help but wear a grin when I drive it.
I take your point, but to be fair that (AWESOME) 72 Citroen DS with (AWESOME) Euro-market swivel headlights looks a bit serious too. But then, French.
Also, 1967-> Mustangs are pretty scowly.
I agree cars have become overly aggressive looking. And most of them are just flat out ugly. Why you ask? Well automobile styles are just like everything else we see in this current culture. Let’s face it we are seeing more and more obese angry people driving new cars. I even see special grills to make the Jeep Wrangler look uglier, mean and aggressive. Current culture reflects in everything we purchase today. Product development departments in large companies in industries such as cars and fashion know this. This is merely a reflection of who we are in our current society. So cars are getting uglier, meaner and antisocial. After all there is always a reason for this madness.
Not only do all the new cars look like shit, they all look the same too.
One more thing. I think it was a crime by BMW to put those new horrendous grills on the la1test BMW cars.
Those are some of the ugliest grills of all new cars.
After reading the previous comments it is refreshing to know this is one article were we are of unanimous
opinion . Aaron Robinson you just knocked this one over the fence and out of the park. Excellent observations.
Happy cars? What cars?
All anyone buys today are behemoth trucks with angry grills designed to intimidate me as they fill my rear view mirror from two feet off my rear bumper.
I am 100% onboard with your thesis of where have happy-faced cars gone. I’ll go one better (and likely controversial) and voice what I have thought for quite awhile. Modern cars are no longer beautiful. They are aggressive, purposeful, potent, get-out-of-my-way looking but they are not beautiful. There is no modern esthetic equivalent to the Ferrari 250 GT, Jaguar E-Type, Maserati Ghibli or Lambro Miura. Even the little Spitfire was consider pretty in its’ day. The current Corvette is a good example of modern stylists appealing to the transformer generation with its creases and hard angles. GM do what you must to sell these excellent performance machines but don’t pretend the stylist’s created something beautiful.