Citroen XM Forum

Neil, I agree with every word of what you've just said there

It's because blandness sells and at the end of the day, all car companies are there to sell a product and make money.

Dieselman wrote:It's because blandness sells and at the end of the day, all car companies are there to sell a product and make money.

Indeed. Sad isn't it...

Two car designs of recent years that had something about them were the Multipla and the Megane, then the series 2 cars were released and the blandness designed in

I have had both of these, 2 X Multipla Mark 1 and one Mark 2 and a 2002 Megane Coupe. I agree with the comments about face lifts being blander than the original, particularly in the case of the front end of the Multi, but at least it retained the interior design which was so effective.

Two backward steps in the Multipla design for Mark 2 were the loss of gas strut bonnet supports which "cheapened" the feel of the car and more annoyingly the fitting of an electro switch for the tailgate with the remote release from the driver's seat removed. Ok in theory but the pracice is that the switch seems to suck up the wet and crap from the roads causing it to freeze in winter and fail to operate at all after a while - then the only way to release the tailgate is to climb into the back and wiggle the catch (technical term). Even with a new switch fitted it continues to freeze.

The Megane coupe is a pretty car and in 1.4 form is a reasonable performer with decent fuel use but I hated it, my size and shape did not suit it! Also, it didn't compare well with the Fiat Coupe 20vt that I had owned previously as you might imagine.

The Megane only lasted a month or two but we have had a Multipla almost continuously for the last thirteen years and we shall try to keep our currrent one going for as long as possible. In fact if funds permit it will be getting a remap in the new year as a few extra torques makes a big difference to them.

Eddie nuff wrote:When you consider that for the past 20 or 30 years every designer has had to have a degree tucked under their arm before they're deemed competent why is it that car design has become so bland it's dire. Every marque has it's corporate nose, the boring interior pulled straight out of the parts bin, the drive-train from another manufacturer, is it the designer killing the design or the bean counters?

Two car designs of recent years that had something about them were the Multipla and the Megane, then the series 2 cars were released and the blandness designed in. The Multipla became another faceless MPV and the Megane is now an Astra lookalike.

There is a lot more that goes into designing a car than just sitting down with a pad and brio. I am not going to prattle on about it, but the things we were all learning in a our four years at Cov were quite extensive and then it doesn't really finish there. You can go on and study further but that is expensive and extremely selective. Coventry played it generally quite safe. They always taught us to be realistic. However when we had a load of Jag designers in to help with our last year degree clay models, they just encouraged us to go nuts and exaggerate forms ect. Almost don't hold back approach.

Modern car design bland and dire.... I personally think there is a lot of interesting designs being produced. But they aren't always attractive. That it think is the difference. It seems aggression sells at the moment.

It is a combination of things I think that makes modern car design the way it is. It isn't the designers killing modern car design as such. They are told what to design, in that, they will be given a brief and a package from the engineers and then the whole thing needs to be styled and designed. Then it's up to the design department to convince the bean counters. Ect ect. As designers, if possible, they will let rip and design some outrageous stuff. Very pie in the sky, very conceptual. But it's the board and bean counters that rein it all in. Manufacturing has to be cost effective, which means it's difficult doing anything really amazing. Although that is changing. I bet it was difficult getting Jag to get the rotary gear selector that pops up into production!

But essentially...Will has it on the button. These cars must sell. So they generally play it safe.

Anyway...I'm ranting again.

Funnily, the more we heard about branding and the importance of exciting design, the more boring things got. While I admire the relentless professionalism of certain VW products, this has been confused with very, very sober forms. You can also do wilder shapes very professionally. The first Ka is an example. It´s a pretty wacky sort of shape if you look at it with fresh eyes. The detailing is very good too, though. Alas, you tend to find that the companies who are focused on detail perfection prefer very conventional contemporary shapes and the ones who do "wacky" think that is an excuse not to sweat the small stuff. Bangle´s 5-series is a recent blend of the two approaches. The C6 was let down badly by bad detailing, in my view. With some tweaking it might have been both striking and well finished.

HI: It took me a while but I came up with this rather conservative interpretation of the 608 concept. My guiding principles were that it should not look flashy and that most of the "design" would be in the resolution of things like the door frames and other joints and connections. Looking at my drawing after a few weeks of a pause I can see it´s a bit distorted: I was never truly good at drawing these things. The rear door is too small relative to the front and the front of the car dominates the back. But with a little charity you might be able to see what I was getting at.
What the exercise got me to do was to think about the "undrawable" aspects of the design, the features which you can only see using real high-fidelity mock-ups to assess. That was why VW got a watch maker to help make interior models of the Phaeton concept. Apparently they spent a million euros on working out new and even more refined ways to put parts together which drawings couldn't show.

Here´s a revised version of the design. I noticed yesterday that the Honda Accord 2005-2008 has something of the style I had in mind. And in a way, Honda are doing what Peugeot did with some of their saloons.

You´ll notice the smaller wheels and the higher profile tyres. I tried not to do an image with mad-sized huge wheels and zero profile rubber. I also left off the bodyside rub-strip. There´s no reason for that, I just forgot to add it in the sketch!