Allure of Automotive Design

Podcast Episode: 0262
How has automotive design changed over the decades?

     Join us as we embark on an exhilarating journey through the evolution of automobile design, exploring key moments and iconic designs that have defined each era. We kick off with a look at how the automobile transitioned from a luxurious, aristocratic toy into a practical vehicle for the masses. Industry 

giants like Mercedes-Benz, who catered to the elite, and Ford, who made cars accessible to the average person, played pivotal roles in this transformation. ​

       After years of rating seriously, since 2008, AutoLooks has noticed that there's not a real lot of difference between vehicles that came out in 2008 and 2025. But in all reality, there are some differences. When you embed yourself so much in automotive culture, everything starts to blend together and then you don't realize that there are differences. And throughout the decades of the history of the automobile, there have been a multitude of different styles of design. Each decade seems to have its own key points for design, something that they all look at. But what are they? What are the big ones? Well, it's not exactly every decade, from beginning to end, that creates these defined designs. No, sometimes they flow from one decade into the mid-series of the next decade, or only for a couple years. But design elements have been going strong since the advent of the automobile, and today AutoLooks is going to take a look at decades of automotive design.

​      Welcome back to the AutoLooks podcast. I'm your host, as always, the doctor to the AutoLooks Podcast. I am your host, as always, the doctor to the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay, coming to you from our host website at AutoLooks.net. If you haven't been there, stop by, check it out. Read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings. Go to the Corporate Links website page. Big or small, we have them all car companies from around the globe all available on one spot, the Corporate Links website tab at the top of the page of AutoLooks.net. The AutoLooks podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by Podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over at [email protected]. 

​        So, we, like we said in the intro, there are different design elements across the entire history of the automobile and for the past 30 years it seems like we've become really stagnant in our design. But there actually has been some defining moments of automotive design within those periods and specific cars really bring out that cool design language.
 
        Now for us, if we really want to go back and take a look at automotive design and see how things changed and evolved, you have to take a look at two main car companies, two of the longest running car companies in history. We're talking about the automobile company that essentially put the world on wheels, Mercedes-Benz, and the company that literally put the rest of the world on wheels, the Ford Motor Company. Both of them have been around since the turn of the last century yes, Mercedes dating itself. All the way back to 1886 with the patent Volkswagen. They gave us a motor on a buggy, essentially what everybody called it back then, the horseless buggy. And that's what it was. It had all the fixings between a standard horse buggy and a bicycle Not all that much of a lot of difference. You had your motor controls and you had your gas pedal. Basically, they didn't go fast enough for you to even want to have a brake pedal on. The brakes literally weren't invented for the first few years. The automobile industry that came out later, because it wasn't until we started going faster that we realized we needed to slow down, because before then all these things didn't even go as fast as horse and buggies. But that's what they were. They were just buggies on wheels.
 
       Now, by the 1890s, the automobile into 10 years, the automobile started taking shape as more of a dedicated horseless buggy. It expanded upon the standard buggy design that we'd been utilizing for centuries. Before that it started adding some key features to making an automobile Well, lights, kerosene or even wax lights were used. At the beginning of the automobile industry, we also had a change from very thin bicycle wheels to bigger bicycle wheels. We needed a little bit more comfort Suspension was slowly starting to make its way in. But it had already made its way into the buggy industry.
 
         If you go back and take a look at one of the pioneers of the Canadian automotive industry, McLaughlin, which eventually became McLaughlin Buick, when they joined a partnership with William C Durant or Chevrolet and General Motors, they originally got started by making cutters and carriages. Well, all these things had comfort levels. You have to remember. Royals have been cruising around in carriages for years with that the automobile, because it was essentially a pastime for aristocrats and affluent buyers and even royals. The average person couldn't get their hands on it, so a lot of creature comforts weren't put into play. In the early days it essentially was just a toy for people to play with. It had lost its standard wood and iron base. That made it a buggy and turned it into more of a horseless buggy, because it looked like the buggies that we all had around, just without a horse. But things were about to change, as one man in the United States is about to make a major change to the automobile industry. If you actually go back and look at the original 1902 ford model a, you'll actually find the steering wheel on the wrong side. Well, depends on what country you are in the world, but in North America it technically was on the wrong side from what we would be accustomed to in the next decade. 

       Now the original Model A from 1902, we're now heading into the second decade of the automobile. We're starting to lose that luster of a horseless carriage and starting to see the automobile as a working mobility unit for all of us. Henry Ford wanted to make cars for everyone. See, Mercedes-Benz at that point in time was still looking at the high-end, high-class. They built vehicles for the aristocrats of Europe. Henry Ford saw the working man and wanted to find a way to make it so that anyone can have an automobile. Well, the original 1902 Ford Model A kind of did that. He looked at making the automobile its own presence. This wasn't going to be a horseless buggy, this is going to be the automobile. This is what we're going to see it as we're not going to see it as a horseless buggy, we're going to see it as its own mode of transportation on our streets.
 
        So, with very simple designs, they started to create something in automotive design. See, before it was essentially just a wagon a seat, somewhere to put your feet, a few controls and a motor underneath your butt. Really, that's what it was. The Model A started changing that. They covered the motor completely, gave its own area on the back. Essentially it was a mid-engine rear-wheel drive Kind of neat, huh, but it had wheel flares all made out of just standard steel. You got to remember this thing has to be cheap and easy for anyone to make and sell. Your horn was essentially just a little rubberized horn on the side of your vehicle, just like you buy for your own bicycle today. It literally was simple. But now we're just not adding our standard headlights or lighting fixture to a post. We gave way to actual headlights Now. Back in those days a lot of them were oil, kerosene or even wax inside a brass enclosure with a glass face. They had one on either side. Sometimes they even had them in the center to light up more of the road for you. So, they're starting to make the automobile look like something other than the horse and buggies that we've become so accustomed to over the past few centuries Hell, over a millennium that we got used to these things.
 
      The automobile was making a statement, but from there companies like Mercedes started realizing we need to make the automobile feel more like an automobile. And after finding out what Henry Ford was doing, Mercedes decided to go steps further by creating the first actual automobile. See, henry Ford was just working on a small, tiny little buggy. Mercedes was working on an actual automobile two seats up front and a bench in the back. They even added a door for extra safety for the rear occupants of the vehicle. Now drivers and front passengers could hop in, hop out. These things were starting to get a little bit faster. And think about it, some of these were coming with in between 50 and 60 horsepower. Now this is 1902. That's a lot of horses, which means you can go a lot faster than your standard buggies. And our headlights started changing, our horns started changing, we started adding something to the rear of our vehicle.
 
      A fully encased front engine eventually gave way, or gave us the original outline of the automobile open top, no windshield, no, nothing else. Literally a compartment for you to sit in in the center, a compartment up front that houses the engine and all the workings to make the vehicle move. We had springs underneath, like leaf springs, essentially that we now see on trucks apartment up front that houses the engine and all the workings to make the vehicle move. We add springs underneath like leaf springs, essentially that we now see on trucks. But early automobiles, that's what they had because that's what they had in horseless buggies or even horse to buggies at that point in time Carriages, leaf springs. We started to get more creature comforts. We started adding toolboxes and that to the side. We started covering our wheel well so we wouldn't get hit with rocks. And with that we started giving the automobile its own design. It was not just a replacement for the carriage; it was going to become its own thing.
 
       Eventually, by mid-decade, we started adding a convertible top, started realizing people didn't want to drive automobiles in the rain or the snow no, it's not always sunny everywhere in the world so they started adding these drop-down convertible tops. You just literally drop them behind yourself. And with that our first roof came into play. Now, it wasn't a fixed roof, but it was there to create some more creature comforts and yet again, only back doors. A fully enclosed carriage from landaulet or limos in European and American marketplaces started coming out near the end of the early 1900s. 

​        By the end of the decade, we're starting to roll into about 1910 in the teen years. Think about it, this is like 110 years ago right now, and we're just starting to add a windshield to the front of our vehicles. We're adding a fixed roof to our vehicles. We're starting to add a windshield to the front of our vehicles. We're adding a fixed roof to our vehicles. We're starting to add glass panes. We realize that royals around the world still want to be traveled around in their horsed carriages. Why? Because carriages provide all the creature comforts, they can sit inside where it's dry and it's warmer than it is outside.
 
         Over the end of the early decade of the 1900s, we realized that we needed to start doing that to the automobile. And because the automobile was becoming so prevalent in the world, we had to ensure that people being driven around in this thing had the same creature comforts as the original carriages. So, we started doing that and with that we were able to mold in our wheel wells to the side of the vehicle. Sure, they were still a hunk of steel on the side of it to make you get into or out of, or with running boards or to protect you from rocks shooting up. Well, things are starting to change and we were starting to enclose the bodywork, or coaches. We started getting these coach companies, so original companies that started building coach bodies for original carriage manufacturers started entering the automobile industry and by the teen years they were doing this. They were fully enclosing both the engine and the passenger compartments, but only the seating area of the passenger compartments.
 
        We only really had side windows if it was a high value vehicle, because we're talking about like the landaulets, the cabriolets and the limos. We're talking about products like Mercedes, Duesenberg, Cadillacs. These had enclosed limo backs to them. The reason why they had that is because royalty needed to be shielded, the standard person buying an automobile. All they needed was a roof that they could put on top of them when they needed it. Because you have to remember, even riding horse and buggy back in those days, unless you were inside the carriage, the driver always got soaking wet. There weren't a lot of ways the old school wild west with those horse and buggies, big canvas tops on them. Well, back then be more like wool or thread, but those gave you some sort of protection from the elements. The early automobiles were not. We were starting to get more intricate in our roof design and our body moldings were starting to become more in line with the designs.
 
       By the mid-teen years our automobile started to take shape. We didn't have side windows. We didn't have, essentially, mirrors on every single vehicle. We didn't have electric lights. We had running boards, a central carriage space for all of us and an engine housing. But with that came the introduction of being able to bolt your trunk onto the back of your vehicle. It's where you could store all your goods that you're bringing from town back home. If you're traveling, it's where you put all of your luggage. So, the automobile was becoming more of a part of the global climate.
 
      People were traveling and moving. Our vehicles originally started with wire wheels. Now we were starting to get into wooden spokes as the days of the automobile. The wheels started to get thicker. It started to decrease in size from being fully bicycle or carriage wheels into an automobile wheel, a specific tire made for the automobile industry. We were adding mirrors so we could see what's behind us. We were adding more chrome and brass to the vehicles. We were giving shape to what would become our main mode of transportation. 

       Moving from the teen years, our open top or fold back designs essentially a body on top of a frame started to change and by the 1920s, blending everything together that we already had was becoming big. Yeah, we're not talking about just a standard flat steel band for our running board and wheel wells now. We were talking about fully integrated wheel well covers, running bolts. We were starting to create flat windshields. Top of the line 1920 Mercedes Pullman limo was a fully enclosed automobile for the top tier people of the world. This is where the automobile was starting to go. It was showcasing to us that we could put a big engine under the front. We can have electric lights that we can turn on. Well, we can even have wipers to clean the windshield, because up until this time the windshield was just to keep bugs out of our face but it wasn't fully protection. When the Pullman came around it started enclosing everything and integrating everything into the original box.
 
       Coach builds design of the automobile. Coupes, Convertibles, all started to take that shape at the bottom end. When you're looking at you know entry-level Mercedes and that they're getting bland, they're getting boring. It's still just a standard coach. River mirrors and electric lights are starting to take shape, but we're starting to blend more into the body works.
 
      By the end of the decade even the bottom end of the automobile industry was starting to come together. We were starting to get away from these open-top buggies and fully enclosing our vehicles to protect us from the elements. Sure, a lot of vehicles back then were only two doors for four passengers. We started adding bumpers to the front to protect us. Same with the rear. The running boards and wheel well covers become fully integrated into the bottom frame of the vehicle where the carriage works, just dropped right on top. We had windshields, we had a visor protector to block out the sun when we needed it, something that's disappeared from automobiles Windshield wipers and rear mirrors. 

​        We were starting to take shape of the automobile of the future and wood spoke wheels from the late teen years and early twenties were starting to disappear. Now we were getting into wire wheels and our wheels were starting to get smaller in diameter but wider. By the 1930s we started rounding out the corners, kind of like the early days when the automobile first started moving from a carriage and then it moved into its own standard open top carriage and then we started rounding out the edges. By the 1930s, when you start looking at something like a Ford Model Y, all the edges are curved. The roof is no longer a canvas piece; it's a full steel top. It might have a removable midsection similar to a sunroof today, but that was only for safety. When we needed to get out, we had door handles, full-size doors going from the base to the top of the roofline, bumpers on the front and the back, colored wheels, smaller diameter wheels.
 
       Like everything was starting to move together and the 30s became a time when automobiles were starting to shed their carriage-like body styles from the past and we were starting to move into a fully-fledged, functional automobile of the future. The 30s, by the end of the decade, were starting to blend together. We couldn't really see the difference between the front engine bay and the passenger compartment. Everything was starting to merge together. It still had the basic shape of the original automobile created in the early 1900s, but everything was becoming more enclosed. Everything was becoming one with each other.

​        By the mid-1930s you couldn't tell the difference between the bottom frame and the carriage. Everything went together Fully welded steel frames, side windows. We were fully enclosed in our automobile. By the mid-30s, yet again, wheels were getting smaller in diameter. When you take a vehicle from 1935 and put it up next to a vehicle from 1925, you can see the catastrophic difference between the two of them. One of them looks like an old school carriage and the other one starts to look like an automobile. More rounded edges, blending everything together, we started realizing we didn't need to make every single vehicle look exactly the same and by the end of the 1930s the original shape of the automobile was being contoured together to give us something better. Our vehicles now were fully encased Back windows, front windows, side windows, you know. The wheels were fully covered. We covered in all the added spaces behind the wheel wells, you know, the dead cat hole at the top Gone. We were blending this all together. 

         The front radiator grille was starting to move into the front engine housing and to pop open the hood. It wasn't just got stuck and transferred in the early part of the 1940s, but as the 1940s eventually gave way and the end of war came, people came back and realized they didn't want to drive the same vehicles they had when they went to war. They want something that looks different, and that's what vehicles like the Chrysler Airflow were starting to come out, starting to take into consideration aerodynamics into vehicles. We were starting to blend everything together. Lights didn't have to become a separate fixture from the front of the vehicle. They could be blended in to the wheel covers, the grill can make a statement and tell you what type of vehicle it is. Not just by trying to figure out which logo is imprinted on top of the radiator you can now find from far away. People like BMW were starting to utilize their own grille designs. We're starting to blend together. Vehicles look nothing like they did 20 years previous.
 
       In the 1920s we were a carriage. By the late 40s our vehicles were completely enclosed together. By the end of the 40s vehicles started blending. Into the 50s we still had that original carriage work with the design elements, but by the end of the 40s we started merging everything together and with those new designs started coming out. We realized we didn't need to have exterior wheel wells. We could actually mount them inside of the vehicle. We can give more space to the engine bay because we can literally push out the edges of the engine bay to the far edges of the automobile. 

​           And now, with radial tires starting to come in, in the late 40s and early 50s automobile design made a major change for the better. All vehicles now are becoming one design. Sure, you can still have a frame underneath of it, but this is the 1950s. Unibody construction was being played around with and was available to the public. Unfortunately, it didn't take off in a big way, not until essentially, the 1970s and into the 80s during the gas crisis. But by the 1950s chrome was all the rage, windshields started to get curved, our rear-view mirrors started to make more of a presence even in bottom tier vehicles. We gave more emphasis to design. We were allowed to play with and do whatever we want.
 
         Something like a 1955 Ford Thunderbird was unheard of even in the early 40s. This was something for the 1950s. Fender flares, tail fins, covered lights, cowl hoods were all starting to move. But then Mercedes gave us one brand new introduction in 1955. The Mercedes-Benz 300SL gullwing door showed us that the standard operational doors or suicide doors that we've become so accustomed to, didn't have to make sense if we wanted to make our vehicle lower. To do that, we created the gullwing doors so you can get into and out of the Mercedes 300 SL a lot easier. It wanted to get lower to the ground so it can go faster. As Chrysler did with the airflow in the 1940s, Mercedes is starting to realize that aerodynamics can help it achieve even faster speeds than before.
 
        Now, by the end of the 50s, our vehicles were all starting to look very similar to each other. North America had its style and Europe had its style. Hell, the Japanese even had their own style. But all of them still had similar features big chrome grills, round headlights and sleek designs. But as the 50s were starting to change and we realized we needed to have products that looked different than each other, we started moving into the 1960s. And in the 60s we started realizing well, the 40s we started blending that carriage all together. The 50s we gave it its presence. 

       Well, the 1960s we started realizing we could do more with the automobile. We started working on two box designs, have the biggest space possible and see what we can do within it. And the 1960s was all about size. Vehicles are getting bigger. We were able to blend everything together. Bumpers were being integrated into front design. We were adding more headlights so we could see further down. The road Mirrors were either on the side of you or right at the front. Our windshields were getting curved. But our automobiles were essentially a two-box design A bottom box and a top box. We maximized the space.

​      We created flat edges or bland edges with no character whatsoever. Luxury car companies still kind of kept with their 1950s style but started to enhance the flat designs. By the end of the 60s we started seeing more new features with vehicles. The big, burly vehicles of the muscle car era were starting to hit the roads in the 1960s.  Two-box design was slowly moving into the 1970s. 

          But in the 70s, with the number of drugs and everything else that was out there in the world, it was becoming a more experimental place and people started working with all kinds of different designs. People wanted entry-level vehicles all the way up to these monstrosities of road trains. So, car companies did that. They played around with blending everything together and the 1970s became a day of big, wide, muscular vehicles. We started rounding out all those edges from the two-box designs in the 1960s to make them that big presence on the road, but curving them out so that things went together. If you take a look at a 1972 Ford Torino, the headlights are embedded in, the grille fits perfectly in the center and everything cuts at the right way. Vehicles were starting to move together. The two-box design was starting to become a two-box blob.
 
         But things were about to change yet again. We started getting into the gas crisis by the mid-70s and brand-new safety features like the 5-mile-per-hour bumper started to come into play, and for that these new integrations had to be put into automobiles. So, by the end of the 1970s, the big chrome bumpers that came out in the 1950s for all our automobiles Like we didn't just need the standard push bumper we saw in the 1940s and 30s, no, we had the big chrome ones. Well, these are starting to move out of the way, for fully integrated 5 mile per hour bumpers, square headlights were now becoming a thing. We're moving back to kind of to where we were in the 1960s flat, bland, two box design, square, hard edges, but our lights were either square or round, vehicles were still big and burly. But then, essentially by the end of the 70s, we were starting to get into that hard-edge design Flat, boxy and in some cases very boring. You look at a 1984 Thunderbird and then look at a 1973 Ford Thunderbird, and look at a 55 Thunderbird and then a 60 Thunderbird. You see how it changes, how it blends the big, chrome, sleek designs of the 1950s to the flat, two box design, to the 60s, to the big, powerful design to the 70s, giving way to the we just want to make money of a simple design in the 1980s. 

        ​The 80s became about very simplistic designs. Well, the world has just gone through the gas crisis and we were into another economic turmoil by the mid-80s. The computer age is upon us and we're starting to realize we can design cars on computers. And with that we started utilizing the simplest forms. And with new safety features having to be added to vehicles, we started realizing we just needed to work on all the key features for the automobile. We'll think about how we can blend that all together afterwards.
 
         So, vehicles started to go back to a bland, boring, simplistic two-box design. By mid-decade, bubble lights started coming into effect and we started doing like we did in the 70s. We started rounding out the edges of all of these two-box designs. The bumpers were no longer big, burly plastic things sticking off the front end. No, they were being blended into the designs. You could tell that they were plastic because we usually color-coded them compared to the rest of the vehicle or add chrome features. Fog lights were being embedded into these bumpers. They were moving with the vehicle. The days of those square headlights or round headlights or simple designs, burly things.
 
        The end of the 80s was becoming the curved two-box design. We were still utilizing that two-box design, but we were starting to curve it out. We were starting to give way to more of a smooth-fitting dimension. We realized that aerodynamics can play a big part in fuel economy and for us to reduce our fuel economy and get better mileage out of our vehicles we had to clean up the designs. So, in the 1990s we really started doing that. Taking a look at a 1991 Ford Probe and then a 1996 Ford Probe, you could really see how the early 90s to the later years in the 90s really changed. 

​         The beginning of the 90s was leftover from the 1980s. The two-box design that was being curved out. The simple safety features and blended-in bumpers were there. Bubble lights were here. They were taking everything. Not a single car you would find with square headlights. By the early 90s They'd all made way for the bubble lights.
 
         Bumpers are becoming part of our automotive design and by mid-decade of the 90s front and rear bumpers have now transformed into becoming part of our automotive design. They weren't an add-on feature that we just literally threw on as an afterthought. They weren't the five mile per hour bumpers, the horrible plastic things you saw thrown on to any cool design from the 1970s at the end of the 70s. No, they weren't these big plastic shards like we had in the 1980s. But the mid 90s we were getting into the teardrop days of clean, teardrop vehicles. Smooth, flowing edges was our automotive design. We still utilized a lot of the old features two box design, muscular forms they were all still present but they were all done in a clean, free, flowing way.
 
        And by the end of the decade these bubble lights started taking shapes of many, many different forms. We didn't just have to have the square wraparound style bubble lights. We can make them literally an oval with a pointed edge. Our vehicles started integrating every single aspect into its design. It became this giant gelatinous blob. As we now figured out how to put all these safety features into our vehicles, we can now work on the design form on the exterior. 

            By the end of the 90s those cleaned up boxes from the 1980s were now becoming the gelatinous blobs that would flow into the early 2000s. But the early 2000s kind of gave us some really cool vehicles because designers were allowed to do whatever they wanted. Now we now knew how to put all these safety features into a vehicle. We now knew about aerodynamics. So, by the end of the 90s and into the early 2000s was the greatest time to be an automotive designer because literally you were able to do anything. You can design headlights in nearly any form, same with taillights. Your grill didn't have to be a radiator style, it didn't have to stick right out the front, it didn't have to be these little slits. You literally can make it anything. You can have top ones. You can put them in the bumper. You can start adding front spoilers Like 1980s to clean up our designs of our boxes. We gave them ground effects kits. By the early 2000s, body kits were coming in play. Front and rear fascia were taking over from where bumpers once existed. A vehicle was now free-flowing from the ground at the front end to the ground at the rear end. We were able to do anything our minds can see.
 
          In the early days of the 2000s, the blobs started smoothing out the average vehicle. Like even just looking at Mercedes C-classes, Mercedes is going in a direction of blobby style headlights. Where in North America we were still fixated on our blocky style headlights, but our standard entry-level vehicles were becoming clean gelatinous blobs, we were starting to add more hard edges to it and if anything about the early 2000s, Cadillac CTS proved to us that the 2000s were going to become a box age. Yet again we were flattening and straightening out edges on these blobs. We realized that creating this massive blob on the road was a thing of the past. People wanted hard edges and that's what we started giving them.
 
         The early 2000s, like the Ford Focus ZX2s, really showcased the pinnacle of standard automotive design, giving us fully integrated front and rear bumpers, headlights, designs anyone can imagine, and tapering off the bottom. Everything was becoming flat, everything was becoming simple. There were no character lines. When Ford released the 2005 Mustang, sure it went back to the 1960s Mustang profile, but it was even simpler than what we had in the 60s because now the bumper was fully integrated into the designs. It was kind of a sad and depressing day, but the mid-2000s automotive design was starting to fade. Everything was starting to look like everything else on the road. Mercedes-Benz started creating new niches with the GLCs and the CLS 500, coupe profiles of CUVs and sedans. You know ford was giving us the simplest designs, like the Ford 500 and the Ford Freestyle, bland, boring, perfectly flowing vehicles. They're sad Even by today's standards when you look at them. The designs are sad.
 
           But by the end of the decade our design formula was starting to change, as Ford called it their kinetic phase. Designs were starting to add attitude and the teen years were about to show us that vehicles needed to become angry. Where the 2000s flattened out all those blobs from the 1990s, the teen years were giving us angry cars. We were starting to focus on hard-edged designs, clean, flowing lines and an angry face. We wanted our vehicles to be loud and proud, be right in our face and with that, design started evolving and changing. Every three years Ford went from the standard Beehive grill to the 3-slat grill and from the 3-slat they started going into standard black slits. When you got the Ford Kuga’s, designs were starting to get a lot more character features into them. We were starting to give our vehicles a feeling and a presence. Ground effects kits were all fading away. The aftermarket industry was starting to fall back on itself. Sure, we still loved it, but any vehicle out there started to look as good as vehicles from the aftermarket industry. See, the aftermarket industry blew up in the 1980s and 1990s only because all of our vehicles are bland or boring at that point in time. So, we wanted to make them look better. By the teen years of the 2000s. Our vehicle designs had so much character into them, anything looked good. The 2011 Ford Edge was a lot better than its previous model. 

        The first-generation Ford Edge came out in the mid-2000s and it was what Ford had Three bar, bland, boring grille, simple design and no character. With the teen years, we were starting to add character. We were adding wheels, character lines, hard edge corners and we were starting to make our headlights bigger. Yet again, these free-flowing designs that we were allowed to create became more blobs. Some of them were free-flowing blobs and by the early part of the decade, when the 2012 Ford Mustang came out, we started tapering down our hoods. We gave it an angrier look because we wanted our vehicles to have that big presence.
 
        Character lines became a mainstay in the teen years. Every vehicle had tons and tons of character lines and a bad attitude, both front and rear. The Mitsubishi Lancer of the mid-2010 years was angry both up front and from the rear. We wanted our vehicles to seem like they were performance cars, even if they weren't. Performance was king and aftermarket was part of it. Automotive designs were moving into a sporty sense. Anyone can have something that looked sporty and by mid-decade, by 2015, the Ford Edge moved from this blob with a little bit of added character into a blob which had a lot harder lines on it, a lot more character, a lot more features. We started utilizing all the empty space for something. Character became a main part of the teen years and when the 2015 Mustang finally came out, we saw where character was going Evil presence of that Mustang, the number of added features Front and side splitters, cowl hoods, hard lines. That's what we're moving into.
 
       But the teen years were starting to showcase to us new technology and where we can go. In 2016, ford gave us the third generation GT and, with it, a defining moment in automobile industry. We realized we didn't need to create a flat hood. We can use the air that came up from the bottom of the vehicle to come through the front to keep us on the ground, using the front hood essentially as a secondary spoiler. We can create fins on the side to add an extra spoiler. We could taper the rear of the vehicle because the engines don't have to be as big as they once were.
 
       We started realizing we can make more of a compact idea and, as the end of the teen years, we started going back to where we once were in the 90s the gelatinous, boring blobs, blob days we're back and even standard products like only a 2019 ford focus estate, bland, boring those hard character lines were now moving into a smooth, flowing lines. They were breaking them. They were literally just creating creases in the vehicle to add a little bit of extra character and with this all of our vehicles became round. Sure, the bad attitudes kind of stuck around and we're starting to get the evil grins and the smiley faces for the grills, but the vehicles weren't as aggressive looking and, into the 20s which we're in now, vehicles and their designs were getting again back to hard edges. 

       With the release of the new Bronco and even Bronco Sport, hard edges were back and defining moments for automobiles, like with the of the Ford Mustang Mach-e, our design started having a bad attitude on a simple design, but our biggest design elements today are the fact that our headlights are getting smaller and smaller. Headlights are essentially becoming the bland, boring flat lights on the front of all vehicles, with our standard daytime running lights being these little bands on the front to give it an even more aggressive appearance. Our lights are coming little bands on the front to give it an even more aggressive appearance. Our lights are coming down in size, the roof lines are coming down and our vehicles are becoming cleaner. We still have that blob style feature today and Mercedes is a king of that. When you look at like the EQE, EQS, they're all bland, boring blobs.
 
       The electric vehicle age is starting to bring that back out. But we have to remember we're in the early stages of the automobile for the electric vehicle age. We're just learning what we can do with it and we'll get more into design after that. So, designs today are becoming more like they did in the early 2000s Bland, boring, lack of character, lack of features. Eventually those will disappear.
 
       Looking at the 2024 Ford Mustang, you're starting to see an aggressive looking in, and even the 2024 Mercedes CLE. We're adding character back in. We're making these things aggressive but we're experimenting yet again. The 2020s have essentially become what the late 90s and early 2000s were, or hell. Even the late 40s and early 50s were an experimentation of designs. We're now realizing what we can do with the automotive world, what we could transform this into. We're still utilizing similar designs that we had over the past 20 years, but we're seeing where we can go with them even further.
 
        By looking at a brand-new Dodge Charger, having a front splitter on the hood really showcases to us where vehicles are going, where I'm finding space where I once was and realizing we can do more with it. We can create more aggressive styles. See, in 2008, when I started rating vehicles, there were so many bland and boring designs and things that you just wanted off the road. Today, there's more cars that are aggressive and stand out than any other point in history. The aggression factor is there. Angry factor, the power. We've taken the power from the 1970s. We've taken the two-box design from the 60s. We've created all the safety features and the curved aerodynamics between the 80s and 90s. We're blending all those designs into one and we're trying to find our place in the world today.
 
        So, the 2020s have become more of an experimental age for the automobile what it's going to be set for the future and as a new technology like flying cars starts coming into play, things will change even further. So, essentially, our automobiles have gone from a bland, boring wood buggy into an aggressive, hard-edged figure. We've enclosed our wheels. We've enclosed ourselves. The automobile has transformed significantly since its start and, as right now, we're starting to take witness of the next generation. When the BMW i8 came out, it started showcasing to us that we could do even more with automotive design similar to that of the Ford GT. 
     
​       These designs showcased to us that we could do what we never thought was imaginable. And in the 2020s, even if our key points of automotive design are smaller lights and more character on our blobs that we once had, then hell, that's what we're going to be going into, and from there it sounds like two box designs might be on their way back. So, in all reality, the automobile has made many changes and had many different styles across its heritage from buggies to flat panels, to streamlined edges, to two-box designs, to safety in mind, to aerodynamics and fuel efficiency, to an aggressive stance. We've gone through many; many different design variations and I look forward to seeing where the automobile is going to be in the future. 

       Vehicles that I designed myself 20 years ago. A lot of them were prevalent back then, but a few can become prevalent today, because they were so outlandish for the time that the time wasn't right. Like I said in our podcast about 30 years on, take a DeLorean from today and go back to 1995, and it's not going to turn as many heads as the DeLorean did between 1985 to 1955. Our design hasn't gone through as extensive change. We've only changed key features today, but with an experimental phase happening right now, that automobile is in for a major change in the coming years.
 
      So, if you liked our podcast, please like, share or comment about it on any of the major social pages or streaming sites that you found the AutoLooks podcast on.  Share us, like us, comment about us. You know, send us to our friends, your family, your well-wishers, your boss.  You know, your fellow co-worker that sits next to you that you know is stuck in the 1990s or the early 2000s. They can't get out of that generational gap and move into a future that actually borrows from the past. Send it out to them and tell them about it. Ask them what their favorite design decade was, because everybody has a favorite decade Mine, sorry to say. I really liked a lot of the change in the 90s, but hey, everybody's got their own opinion.
 
     For me, vehicles from the 1950s all the way up to the early 2000s were one of my favorite parts of history, but I'm not one of enthusiasts. I love all the different parts, but after that, stop by the website, read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings, go to the Corporate Links website page. Big or small, we have them all Car companies from around the globe all available on one location. The Corporate Websites link at the top of the page of the AutoLooks.net website. The website, the AutoLooks Podcast, is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by Podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over at email at AutoLooks.net. So, for myself and for Jay, the Ecomm Entertainment Group and Podbean.com, strap yourself in for this one fun wild ride that the world of automotive design across the decades is going to take us on you. 

Everett J.
​#autolooks