Rogues Gallery of Busy Grilles and Front Ends

I've been hammering away for a while now about the current fashion for overly decorated designs.  I think an important reason for this fad or fashion is government fuel efficiency regulations that have driven engineers and stylists to wind tunnels in the pursuit of high aerodynamic efficiency.  The result is car bodies with nearly identical basic shapes, and this has led to the use of excessive ornamentation and aerodynamically irrelevant body surface sculpting as means to establish brand and model identification.

Another -- probably lesser -- reason is the normal pendulum swing from one extreme to another that is common where fashion is concerned.

This post presents examples of overly-busy looking grilles and front end ensembles on American cars of the 1950s, an era noted for extravagant styling themes.  Then recent and current examples are shown, illustrating that we now seem to be in a period even more extreme than the '50s.

The 1950s images are of cars for sale.  The others are manufacturers' publicity photos.

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1950s American Examples

1950 Buick
Classic overstatement that was toned down for the next model year.

1952 Packard 400 Patrician
This is a modernized version of the traditional Packard grille intended to better blend with post- World War 2 styling trends.  The sculpting is rather Rococo, but the overly decorated part is the "teeth" that thankfully disappeared on the 1953 facelift.

1958 Buick
If the decorations on the face of the hood were eliminated, the design would be a lot more coherent.

1959 DeSoto
A three-level grille-bumper ensemble, each level having a separate theme.

1959 Dodge
This design approaches the confusion seen in some of the recent images below.


Current and Recent Examples

2015 Nissan Juke
A small car with intentionally funky styling.

2016 Nassan Maxima
The Nissan badge and its chrome nest serve as brand-wide identification.

2017 Lexus IS
Variously termed as "hourglass," "spindle," and (by me) "back-to-back Lexus Ls, this has been a Lexus theme for several years now.  And, as seen farther below, Toyota seems to be adding it to its mass-market brand.

2017 Renault Mégane sedan
That enduring, yet somewhat inexplicable Moebius-diamond symbol reinforces an already somewhat cluttered design.

2018 Audi A8
Audi pioneered the theme of draping the grille over the front bumper.

2018 Genesis
Count the textures on the face of this Genesis by Hyundai.

2018 Honda Accord
This car has some interesting sculpting, but it gets carried a little too far on the front end.  The sweeping element atop the grille and its details do not relate well to what is below.

2018 Hyundai Sonata
This design is cleaner than most shown here.  But the faddish fake air intakes flanking the grille add to the clutter.

2018 Infiniti Q50
An odd, droopy look to the front.

2018 Toyota Camry
As mentioned above, Toyota's mainline American sedan is now getting a Lexus-like frontal design.  The hood face, the faux air intakes flanking the actual grille and the dark, two-level apparent grille segment do not work well together.

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Toyota's Cliché-Filled 2018 Camry

Toyota's Camry has been the best-selling standard size sedan in America for quite a few years.  So it's always interesting hereabouts when Camry get a redesign, which happened for the 2018 model year.

By now it is well known that Toyota Motor Corporation president Akio Toyoda has been crusading against previous Toyota styling that had been criticized as being too bland.  But the results seen in newer Toyota and Lexus models sold in the USA are, in my possibly humble opinion, too far on the other extreme.  Cluttered, confusing and overdecorated are descriptions that quickly come to mind.  So does one more: clichéd.

Maybe I'm being unfair.  After all, automobile styling is definitely subject to fashion, especially for brands that sell well.  That's because, to maintain good sales levels, the appearance of a brand's cars needs to be acceptable to a large potential buying public.  Certain design features are accepted as being appropriate, especially when seen on brands from more than one automobile firm.  Styling fashions therefore tend to change slowly, a few details at a time.  (Even large changes such as General Motors' introduction of panoramic windshields for 1954 were previewed by placing such windshields on some high-end 1953 Oldsmobile and Cadillac convertibles.)

What of the new 2018 Camry?  Its styling is whole-hog overdone Toyota.  Sales will probably remain strong if for no other reason than major competitors such as the Chevrolet Impala and Honda Accord are also fairly jazzy -- though not so extreme as Camry.

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A 2018 Toyota Camry seen in front three-quarter aspect.  The passenger compartment greenhouse is rounded-off and uncluttered.  This is contrasted by the sharp-edged detailing on the frontal clip.  Character lines and features on the sides -- especially the dished-in zone on the lower parts of the doors -- are found on many current brands.

Rear end design includes the usual sorts of V-shapes and contrasting angled creases that are common nowadays, though Toyota stylists worked to use such elements as distinctively as they could manage.  For example, the swelling or bulging of the lower trunk lid differs from the usual sculpting found on other cars.  On the other hand, the V-shape at the car's edge below the tail light assembly is clutter that's marginally related to the rest of the rear design.  It was probably added to try to relate the rear to all those V's seen at the front.

The Camry's frontal styling is edging towards that of Lexus with the pinched grille ensemble.  Flanking the functional radiator air intake are two fake intakes inspired by racing car intakes used for brake cooling.  But the dark areas seen there are simply solid panels with textured surfaces -- well, that's what I see on a '18 Camry parked two cars away from my car's garage slot.  What is the point of such grossly obvious phoniness?

To illustrate my contention regarding clichés, this is the front end of a 2016 Honda Civic hatchback.  Note the pinched grille zone and the flanking fake air intakes.

Another emerging cliché is the faux-transparent roof feature shown on this white Camry.  Functionally, at can be regarded as a two-tone paint job.  Might those be returning?  That's how fashion often works.

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Tiny Cars With Pretentious Names

There it is, posing by the Seine on the Quai de la Tournelle early on a Paris Sunday morning.  It's a 2009 Toyota iQ.

A what?!?

Well, the name strikes me as being utterly unimaginative.  That's because it was intended to compete with Daimler-Benz's Smart Fortwo.  And the name "Smart" also strikes me as being condescending.  That is, you are a half-brain-dead idiot if you fail to discern the wonderfulness of this tiny example of fatal-collision bait.  (Yes, I know Smarts were given crash tests, but I'd hate to be in one getting smashed by a camion at 130 kph on an Autoroute.)

Anyway.  Given that the Smart brand had been around since 1998, one might think that, ten years later when the iQ was introduced, Toyota marketing management would have come up with a non-aping, more creative model name.  As it stands, iQs are no longer on the new car market, production having ended March 2016.

Smarts continue in production, but have never sold well in the United States.  Their natural habitat is a large city such as Paris where street parking is hard to find for standard cars, but occasional small spots might be found that would accommodate tiny cars.

This post presents the second Smart version, produced 2007-2014, as compared to the iQ that was produced 2008-2016.  Due to their very small size, there was little for stylist to work with when designing them.

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Stylists on the Smart Fortwo project included side sculpting and headlight assemblies patterned after what is found on standard cars.

Due to its minimal length, all that décor yields little more that busyness and clutter.

I'm not sure that the rising character line should rise.  A horizontal line might make the car seem a bit less stubby.

The Fortwo, as the name implies, seats only the driver and one passenger.  But in 2004-2006 Smart also made a Forfour with four doors and, in theory, room for four people.  A Renault-based Forfour re-emerged in 2014.  Above is a 2004 version.

Now for the iQ.  It was designed to accommodate a driver and two or three others -- its small back seat was fit for an adult sitting crosswise or for two small children.  In terms of carrying capacity it's between the Smart Fortwo and Forfour, though it was basically competitive with the Fortwo.

Unlike the Smart, iQ's styling is largely decoration-free.

This rear 3/4 view of a black iQ shows the effort put into sculpting instead of visual jazz.  Its front end seems awkward, but what we see here is more pleasing.

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The Cluttered Toyota C-HR

The Toyota C-HR is a small vehicle suffering from over-decoration: yet another Styling Crime.  Previous similar examples I've written about include the Nissan Juke and the BMW i3.

A brief Wikipedia entry on the C-HR dealing with its international production status is here.   And a not-very-favorable reaction by Motor Trend magazine is here, in which it is noted that "C-HR stands for 'Coupe-High Rider,' and it’s neither."

Let's consider its styling.  Generally speaking, it is one more example of Toyota over-reacting against criticism of its cars' styling being too bland.  The result is a confusing mess.

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I have to admire the Toyota engineers responsible for the body stampings.  Note the door cut lines and how they cross the various bulges and creases while not interfering with the shapes of same.  The Motor Trend article linked above criticized the small windows on the rear doors, mentioning that they made it difficult for back-seat passengers -- especially children -- to see out.Try imagining the C-HR without all the visual jazz but with the same windows.  The underlying shape would have too much of a flat, empty surface aft of the center door cut -- the only cure being enlargement of the windows.  Yet the small windows have the "advantage" of reducing the car's weight and thereby enhancing fuel economy.

The side bulges that mimic separate fenders are linked by an Art-Nouveau curved bulge and a plastic protection panel lower down.  I suspect the design might have been improved if the separate fender scheme had been altered to eliminate the swoopy connection zone.

Given that the C-HR is a hatchback, it is interesting to observe the upper part of its cut line as it crosses over the top by the aerodynamic lip over the back window.  The upper curve of the side window line continues towards the rear of the car in a nice way.  I would have considered extending the rear side windows farther aft to coordinate more with the upper edge of the back window, styling cliché that it might be -- though perhaps Toyota stylists chose to avoid that.

The front is similar to other Toyotas, therefore providing some useful brand identity.  Its theme is better integrated than that of the rest of the car, though the effect strikes me as being slightly too heavy-looking.

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