How in the hell does Alfa make such sexy damn cars?
How in the hell does Alfa make such sexy damn cars?
The real question, which I ask myself alot, is how do all the other car companies manage to avoid making sexy cars 99% of the time?
I mean, why aren't we driving around in streets filled with Tesla-esque sedans, Mazda 6-ish wagons, and Alfa-inspired coupes? I think most people agree those are good-looking cars and the Camrys, Accords, etc are pretty meh. Is it cost? Is it just that we don't think a Camry is good-looking because we see so many? Is it the car companies "saving" their best designs for halo models?
I don't know what the deal is, but it bothers me. I feel like it doesn't really take anything more to make cars look a lot better, but few companies seem to really pursue the aesthetic to the extent that's possible.
Because Alfa 
Because Italians. Even some of the better looking cars offered by others had Italian penmanship in their designs.
All beautiful things are in some way an expression of truth.
We live in an ocean of relativistic nihilism, and it's nearly impossible for someone who doesn't believe that there is any such thing as "truth" to create something beautiful.
Italians also gave us the Fiat 500 that is taller than it is wide and looks like a gnat. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there are certain designs that seem to appeal to a lot of people and some that appeal to a smaller fraction of people.
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but Pontiac Aztec and Kia Rhondo were clearly designed by someone with a hateful view of the world. I agree, if the cost is equal to make a car attractive or ugly: go with looks.
JohnyHachi6 wrote: The real question, which I ask myself alot, is how do all the other car companies manage to avoid making sexy cars 99% of the time?
I don't understand it either. Making a bland car is easy but making a hideous car aka new Lexus with the predator mouth or the Audi grills, etc seems like it would take work.
This is actually relevant and impossibly cool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaiQT5SvAoA
It turns out the Italian flair for tailoring is part of what led them to design such beautiful car bodies. sewing up cloth patterns and using them as templates for the sheet metal never occurred to me.
The British made beautiful cars. The Italians habitually made beautiful cars with the odd aberration. The Germans made functional cars, some of which turned out to be rather beautiful if the lines happened to coincide with what engineering design allowed.
The Japanese can't make a beautiful car to save themselves. In the Good Old Days they got exactly two right - Toyota 2000 GT and the Datsun 240Z. Just about everything since then looks odd - jelly beans with handles on the back, or turgid heavy looking lumps, or.....
An example of an Italian 'miss' a Junior Zagato......just not a fan of the 'needle nosed ferret' style idiom I guess.
And the Mi To??
Funny thing is that the same car can elicit both praise form half the group and laughter from the other half. I once insulted a guy that absolutely loved this Abarth (hopefully a one-off) by saying it looked like an ant eater in search of lunch.
JamesMcD wrote: All beautiful things are in some way an expression of truth. We live in an ocean of relativistic nihilism, and it's nearly impossible for someone who doesn't believe that there is any such thing as "truth" to create something beautiful.
Agreed.
wspohn said: The Japanese can't make a beautiful car to save themselves.
I want to disagree, but I can't come up with a counter example. Maybe the FD RX7? I think they made some pretty cool looking cars, but i can't bring myself to call them beautiful in a discussion that includes alfa romeos.
wspohn said:An example of an Italian 'miss' a Junior Zagato......just not a fan of the 'needle nosed ferret' style idiom I guess.
I kinda like that car. Again, maybe i wouldn't call it beautiful, but I like it.
wspohn wrote: The British made beautiful cars. The Italians habitually made beautiful cars with the odd aberration. The Germans made functional cars, some of which turned out to be rather beautiful if the lines happened to coincide with what engineering design allowed. The Japanese can't make a beautiful car to save themselves. In the Good Old Days they got exactly two right - Toyota 2000 GT and the Datsun 240Z. Just about everything since then looks odd - jelly beans with handles on the back, or turgid heavy looking lumps, or.....
I agree for the most part with this. I can think of a few more good looking Japanese cars then those but they sure have plenty of misses.
93EXCivic wrote:wspohn wrote: The British made beautiful cars. The Italians habitually made beautiful cars with the odd aberration. The Germans made functional cars, some of which turned out to be rather beautiful if the lines happened to coincide with what engineering design allowed. The Japanese can't make a beautiful car to save themselves. In the Good Old Days they got exactly two right - Toyota 2000 GT and the Datsun 240Z. Just about everything since then looks odd - jelly beans with handles on the back, or turgid heavy looking lumps, or.....I agree for the most part with this. I can think of a few more good looking Japanese cars then those but they sure have plenty of misses.
FD-RX7 and the Infiniti M class (one of them, not sure which) are two of the better looking cars of all time IMHO.
wspohn wrote: The Italians habitually made beautiful cars with the odd aberration.
Yep. When they miss, they miss big and with Italian flare. You can almost see their hands flailing around....
Then you've got things like the Fiat Ritmo/Strada, the VW Golf/Rabbit and the Talbot Horizon/Plymouth Horizon/Dodge Omni:
Guess which of the above were styled by Italians and which weren't.
I like the Alfa Junior.. and rumor has it that Pininfarina helped Datsun/Nissan with the nose of the 240. Same with MG and the MGB
As for the Hatchbacks above. Guigaro Designed the Rabbit.. and I not sure who designed the Strada/Ritmo.. but I always wanted one
JamesMcD wrote: All beautiful things are in some way an expression of truth. We live in an ocean of relativistic nihilism, and it's nearly impossible for someone who doesn't believe that there is any such thing as "truth" to create something beautiful.
Beauty is defined differently to different cultures. When form follows function there is beauty in the result to those that can appreciate it and it's probably German. Possibly some nords too.
When function follows form and the form has the curves of a beautiful woman in some exaggerated proportion then you know the Italians were involved.
When it looks like something an army of little people in white hats would run from... then it's the Japanese.
When it has no thought put to the exterior except to make a comfortably large interior with wide doors, and 2 TVs... it was for the US market.
mad_machine wrote: As for the Hatchbacks above. Guigaro Designed the Rabbit.. and I not sure who designed the Strada/Ritmo.. but I always wanted one
You are correct that the Golf was Italian in design.
The Fiat was designed by Bertone (as they were doing much of the design work with Fiat at the time) and the Horizon was designed by Simca in France before morphing to the US version later after Chrysler took them over and added the required US bumpers :/
So to say that all German or American cars are designed to be ugly, etc. You need to make sure that you know for certain that it wasn't in fact designed overseas. Take Nissan for example. Thanks to their involvement with Citroen they've tried, and failed IMO, to integrate more French design cues into their cars and its not gone well. Then again there are people that really like them.
I always tread lightly when it comes to aesthetics. For instance I think that Bangle is a genius, then watch as my friends break out their pitchforks, tar and feathers. Cultures have personal characteristics. Northern Europe has a lot of things going for it (That's where my ancestors come from), but Southern Europe seems to have food and fashion more dialed in. (So I married a Sicilian!) Practically every car company has an era where their cars looked good. What's more telling is what their bad cars look like. Most current Alfas look like sex on wheels to me. Then again, Alfa also made such questionable cars such as 1980s vintage Milanos. The Milano OTOH is still a damn site better looking than such monstrosities as the Ford EXP and Pontiac Aztec. The whole era of creased-line styling looks so very dated on most cars, but somehow works on most Italians. They "get it".
JamesMcD wrote: All beautiful things are in some way an expression of truth. We live in an ocean of relativistic nihilism, and it's nearly impossible for someone who doesn't believe that there is any such thing as "truth" to create something beautiful.
I think most of the really good designs, regardless of country, originate with one designer. These days, too many cars are drawn by a committee, or engineers in a wind tunnel. Most of the cars that we consider classic Italian, or British, or American, were done by a single person mostly, for better or worse. To me good designs are like art, you either get it or you don't. The Italians do however tend to let their passion flow through into sheet metal.
Also, some don't remember that the 2000GT was originally a Nissan project through Yamaha, but when they dropped out, Toyota picked it up. The 240Z however was designed in house and not by Albrecht von Goertz as sometimes credited. As far as other Japanese cars that I think look good, one is the original RX7. It still looks pretty good, as does the FD, 2nd gen MR2, NSX, and the original G35; both 2 and 4 door.
One issue the Japanese have faced is that they do not have a lot of Halo car companies like the Italians, British or Germans. Everything they make has to be done within the confines of a corporation. It makes a difference. Alfa for years was owned by the Italian government, and if they wanted to make a few one-offs, no worries as it didn't have to make any profit. That lead to a lot of great Alfas, but a company that languished also.
One other thing to consider about Alfa, up until recently, most designs came from design companies- Pininfarina- the Giulietta/Guila Spider and then the modern Spider, Bertone- the Sprint, the later GT/GTV, Zagato did their "Z" cars, Guigaro the Alfetta, Touring did some cars... I'm not 100%, but I think Alfa did the designs for the nice looking Ti's and Berlinas, but they are not as nice as the classics.
My point is more that they hired special companies to do most of the iconic desings.
It does help that most consider Italy, Milan specifically, as the design center of the world. So it's natural that great car designers would be nearby.
I liked the Japanese built, Italian designed cars too
The Datsun 411 was penned by Pininfarina
The Corona by Battista Farina
Agree that the FD RX-7 is a beautiful car. I also like CSP311 Silvias.
Alfa has a history of swinging for the fences. They strikeout often, but also hit some definite home runs.
racerdave600 wrote: I think most of the really good designs, regardless of country, originate with one designer.
the Fiat 124 Spider, one of Pininfarinia's classic and well known shapes was designed by an American. Chris Tjarrda (I think that is the spelling) from the ground up. The only changes wrought on it involved safety and the use of the narrow 124 chassis and rims. The car was designed for a wider footprint than it came with from the factory
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