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Joined:
Feb 09
Posts: 1781
seant says:
One day you wake up and notice how much everything has changed. Did they do it whilst you were asleep? Likely not, you just weren’t paying attention. So it is with automotive design - changes happen, genres appear and a simple history is confected. But often the actual genesis is more complex, and credit, or otherwise, is given to the wrong people. What are the true Missing Links, the first examples when anything from a particular styling cue to a complete identifiable type of vehicle, were first seen?
THE COMPACT MPV
Of course Renault get the easy prize for this with the Scenic but, just as the Espace overshadows its less stylish conceptual predecessors, the Toyota Space Cruiser and the Chrysler Voyager, so does the smaller Renault make us forget what went before. The Nissan Prairie was a great idea, good headroom, sliding rear doors and no B pillar. In reality, it showed enough body flex to demonstrate why engineers almost always piss on stylist's chips when they productionise those lovely suicide door show car concepts. But it was there long before Renault.
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THE 4 DOOR COUPE
Suddenly everyone has decided that they want all the practical advantages of a three box saloon from the waist down, but a neck ache inducing lack of headroom and visibility of a coupe from the waist up. Where did this appear from? The quick answer is the Mercedes CLS. My proposal from further back is the Rover P5 Coupe, a car that passing time has been kind to, but that I remember as being oddly proportioned when new, and a strange way of paying more to get less.
THE NON-BOXY HATCHBACK
If I wanted a practical hatchback, I’d be pretty pissed off that much of what is now on the market seems designed to flatter the driver’s self-image whilst discomforting their passengers. The lack of rear headroom, visibility and easy access in so many current bread and butter vehicles in the quest for someone’s idea of a cool exterior is now the norm, rather that the exception but, if I wanted to point at a car that, at the time seemed rather refreshing for breaking away from boxiness, I’d nominate the Mazda 323F from the early 90s.
Aug 06
Posts: 2261
lokinen says:
The guy that designed the Chrysler 300c was inspired by the time he used to smoke around his home town with his mates in his Dads P5 coupe. I just knew there was a missing link that keeps drawing me to this modern car.
Beep Beep
A comparison between the 30 year old Nissan's pilarless layout and the 'revolutionary' one of the Ford B-Max. Though it must be said that the Ford's is a bit more 'considered'.
Mar 08
Posts: 4885
Batty says:
I know it is an obvious one, but the Matra Rancho for the SUV that isn't one.
Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha.
Aug 07
Posts: 3693
AReader says:
Ref compact MPVs: Tokyo Show 1975, Toyota displayed the MP-1 concept featuring rear sliding doors.
seant said: THE 4 DOOR COUPE My proposal from further back is the Rover P5 Coupe.
My proposal from further back is the Rover P5 Coupe.
Definitely agree. Amazing to think that design will be 50 next year. I'm so familiar with the Coupe that I'd forgotten that there was also a more formal saloon version of the P5 from 1958.
If the criteria here is a low roof line and letterbox windows, then from ten years earlier I'd propose the 1949 Lincoln and Mercury four door sedans, or from 30 yrs earlier the 1930 Stutz Montecarlo. All these cars have a sporty look.
Hard Top Convertible.
Ford Fairlane Skyliner from 1958. Was there any earlier than this? Has anyone ever seen one operate?
Feb 07
Posts: 568
Goatboy says:
It may not look much in the glaring light of 2011 but the Austin A40 Farina was a trendsetter. Pininfarina was going through a very fertile phase during the late Fifties and the A40 embodied the pioneering work carried out with Lancia in the wide grille flanking the headlights, relatively unadorned flanks, vestigial ‘finlets’ and in this case, a sharply truncated tail. This in particular was a novel solution which lent the A40 a great deal of its styling character.
In doing so, it also became the precursor to an entire generation of two-box small car shapes. In many ways, the sober little A40 was the prototype for the superminis which were to become ubiquitous a decade later. When BMC launched the Countryman version with its Range-Rover style opening rear window, the small hatchback was born. A shame then, that BMC didn’t have the wit to realise what they were sitting on. Nothing less than the future shape of the small car.
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