Image via Complex Original
We love cars, and because we love cars, we are constantly analyzing them. This means that we also come up with a lot of cool design ideas, and get tired of some others. Of course, we're not trained transportation designers, but that doesn't mean we never look at a car and think "it would be so much better if..."
In fact, we do that all the time. Why are some design elements immutable, as if they were passed down by the elders as the word of the automotive pantheon of gods? We might get cast into the firey pits of hell along with the Yugo and the Iron Duke Camaro, but we're going to defy said pantheon and talk about 10 Automotive Trends We'd Like to See.
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Shooting Brakes
Hatchbacks and wagons are infinitely more practical and versatile than sedans and coupes and this is not up for argument. However, tall hatchbacks with four (or five if you're European) doors just don't have the sex appeal of a sleek coupe.
The shooting brake, on the other hand, does. Shooting brakes are two door hatchbacks that usually taper a bit more aggressively than their more practical siblings, as well as have lower rooflines and all-round more aggressive styling. The VW Scirocco caused a huge splash, but, sadly, no other automakers are jumping on this awesome bandwagon (see what we did there?).
Heritage Without Retro
Yes, we fully understand that retro cars like the New Beetle, the PT Cruiser, and the new Ford Thunderbird made a splash when they first showed up, but they lost their luster very quickly.
That said, we don't want to see old car companies forget their history. We love that if you look at the side of a new Benz you can still see that "falling line" that has been there in one way or another since the '30s intersecting an arch over the rear wheels, and that the AMG models sport a pair of creases on the hood like the 300SLR did. Likewise, we don't want to see a BMW that has no Hoffmeister kink, or a Viper with no NACA duct.
There are some companies that seem to have forgotten the cars that made them great, though. When was the last time Ford made anything that had a similar vibe to the Gran Torino? When was the last time you looked at a new car and thought "Sinatra would have driven that?"
Unfinished Structural Materials
Why do we buy cars with carbon fiber chassis, cover the fiber with leather and carpet, and then pay $1,200 to glue some carbon fiber to the interior of the car?
Meanwhile, Alfa Romeo has created a unique and cool interior by simply just leaving the carbon fiber chassis visible in the cockpit (McLaren, too!). We'd love to see more of this kind of thinking, since aluminum can also look fantastic and is very useful for car construction.
Trickle Down From Motorsport
We have the Lancer Evolution and the Subaru WRX, with their badass flared wheel arches, aero effects, and spoilers, because two companies went racing on dirt. The Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale was made to give Alfa's racing tech to its road-going customers. Hell, we got traction control and all-wheel drive from racing.
Why then, don't we see road cars that are in any way related to Le Mans prototypes? Why isn't there a snorting Hyundai Veloster GRC edition with AWD and a symphony of blow-off valves? Why don't NASCAR cars have anything to do with real world cars at all (they still have carburateurs)?
Haptic Feedback
Touchscreens in cars are here to stay, as terrible as they may be when people need to be looking at other things, like grandmothers, that they might crash into. What we need is really, really good haptic feedback. Give us a touchscreen that a driver can operate by feel and we'll love that shit.
Wood That Looks and Feels Like Wood
Luckily, this trend seems to be actually happening, but we're hoping it becomes common across the industry. Right now ze Germans are leading the pack by putting wood in luxury cars that isn't laquered to the point of being indistinguishable from the fake wood in your grannie's Mercury. It has a satin finish, and if you touch, it you can feel the grain. It's awesome.
More please.
Alternative Door and Seating Arrangements
The Mazda RX-8, the Hyundai Veloster, the McLaren F1, and the Mercedes-Benz 300SL all made big splashes not only because they were great cars, but because they created new ways of arranging things like seats and doors that weren't just creative, they were functional.
The RX-8 gave a sedan's practicality to a sports coupe without sacrificing the coupe's styling. The Veloster's asymmetrical door layout gave the car a clear driver's side and passengers' side. The F1 gave the driver a perfect, central driving position, just like a formula car. The 300SL had the first gullwing doors not to be flashy, but to make space for additional chassis reinforcement at the base of the car.
Why isn't the McLaren P1 a 1+2? Why don't we see more creative doors that engineers, rather than designers invented?
Leather With Some Depth to It
See those seats from the BMW Pininfarina Grand Lusso Concept up above? Why do they look infinitely more interesting, cooler, and more luxurious than any other car seat you've ever seen? It's because the leather isn't just one flat color. This sort of depth is what we look for in a pair of hard bottoms, a bag, or a jacket, but why do we accept that leather in a car has to be a dull, uniform mass in a car that is so lifeless it's genuinely hard to tell the difference between the real stuff and the fake stuff?
Luxury Fabrics
Two years ago, at the Mercedes-Benz design center in Stuttgart, we were told that the company was working on silk, cashmere, fur, and linen that would be able to stand up to automotive use. We were promised linen with in-seat A/C in the summer that could be swapped out with a wool-cashmere blend for winter. We were promised silks that would turn the S-Class into a modernized version of a roaring '20s whip.
Basically, we were promised options other than leather and crap, and we want them.
Taking Risks
We published an editorial talking about this in much more depth than we'll go into here a few months ago, and it remains the one thing that we most want to see. Most companies seem to be in the business of offending as few people as possible, rather than making the coolest cars possible.
Lamborghini's crazy concept cars have not been universally well received, but they have created conversation, pushed the brand forward, and made some people fall in love. They only needed three people to love the Veneno enough to buy it, so why not make it crazy?
