Comment by Jim Griffin after seeing photos from NAIAS on TrueDelta’s Facebook page.
Category: Car Design
Car Design
Has design at Toyota and Lexus turned a corner?
Judging from Toyota’s cars, design has been an afterthought at the world’s largest auto maker, something tacked onto whatever the engineers came up with. Even when the company decided to place more emphasis on design, this meant adding more extraneous details to a shape that was largely beyond the designers’ control. As a result, the cars appeared neither coherent nor… More →
Am I being overly picky?
Chevrolet has upgraded the interior of its midsize Malibu sedan as part of a complete redesign for 2016. Some aspects of the interior I like a lot. An increasing number of cars, including the Kia Optima I examined last week, have stitching embedded in molded panels. If you think about it at all, this makes no sense, especially not if… More →
AutoWeek Design Forum 2013
Each year following NAIAS (the Detroit auto show), AutoWeek puts on a design forum where the general public can hear car designers discuss their work. This year the program included the exterior design manager for the new Corvette, the executive in charge of Alfa, Lancia, and Maserati design, the well-dressed head of a design consultancy, and a pair of executives… More →
NAIAS 2010 impressions: Audi A8 best in show?
I attended the 1.5 press days of the North American International (i.e. Detroit) Auto Show earlier this week. You’ll find detailed coverage on many other sites. Here I’ll just post a few of my personal impressions, covering the makes in alphabetical order. First, a general comment. Like last year, but perhaps to an even greater degree, the auto show had… More →
Behind the Ford Flex Flop
Back in April 2007 I heralded the 2009 Ford Flex as a sign of life at Ford. By applying cues from the cult-inspiring styling of the Scion xB and MINI Cooper to a much larger three-row vehicle, I predicted that Ford had the magic formula for people seeking a people mover with style. Well, the 2009 Ford Flex arrived at… More →
Concept cars: what are they good for?
It’s auto show season again, so we’re being teased with a slew of new racy “concepts.” Time to wonder what these might indicate about future production cars, and wonder what the point is to the things in the first place. Over at the Autos Blog for the Detroit News, reporter Neil Winton laments that the Worthy New Jaguar XF Rejects… More →
Honda and Toyota – no longer risk averse?
Not so long ago and you could count on nearly every Honda and Toyota having about the most bland, conservative styling on the road. Critics charged that the cars were boring and mere appliances. But car buys didn’t seem to mind, sending many of these appliances to the top of the sales charts. Still, these companies learned from Detroit’s failure… More →
Auto Viagra: sometimes you need a little fake wood
When I first sat in the new Mazda CX-9, I was impressed by the upscale ambiance of the interior. Then I test drove one, and it didn’t measure up to my expectations. The difference, in a word, was trim. I sat in the CX-9 Grand Touring at the Detroit show. Then I drove the CX-9 Sport.
ISO the perfect door pull
Since I recently wrote about “The Feel of Quality, I was pleasantly surprised to see an article in BusinessWeek about GM’s drive to upgrade its interiors. While I agree that the upcoming 2008 CTS has a wonderful interior in terms of both design and materials, I also sat in the 2008 Malibu at the Detroit show, and despite what the… More →