When did American cars get so crap?

[swee'pea99]

I don't mean mechanically crap - they've always been that, and probably always will be - I mean design-wise.

My eldest last night showed me how to watch pirated tv online, so I could check out this Breaking Bad that everyone's been going on about, and the main character had a car of simply breathtaking humungousness. I mean, every time you thought it couldn't get uglier, they showed it from another angle and - it was uglier! It was amazing. The only non-American car I can think of that had anything approaching the same resemblance to Plug from the Bash Street Kids would be the Fiat Multipla - a notable automotive turd-on-a-rope. But the Multipla, in a poor light and after a fair few drinks, could be said to have a certain quirky, cheeky, something-approaching-charm. But this thing had none of that. Man, it was just *ugly*.

Set me thinking, how come America produced such fantastic looking cars in the '50s and '60s, and then just completely lost it? I can't think of a single yank car since 1970 that I'd put up against a filled nappy with a gloss finish in terms of looks. What went wrong? (And don't just say safety regs...all the Euro & Jap makers had to face the same regs if they wanted to sell in the US, and they still managed to produce cars that didn't make you want to lose your lunch.)

(Breaking Bad was awesome good, BTW. Maybe all the smart, tasteful people just left Detroit and went to Los Angeles...)

 

[Bollo]

I think it must be a taste thing. Bolletta skates in a team with a 'merkin kid whose dad is in the USAF and posted here. Of all the Yerpian cars they could have picked, they went for this horror of a Honda people carrier thing. It's huge so they can't park it anywhere and has that suspension that's still nodding 20 minutes after they've stopped. I can't remember the name, but if I had to describe it I'd just say "American-looking". I've not seen another, so I've no idea where they bought it.

 

[marzjennings]

A Pontiac Aztec is even seen by Americans as one of the ugliest cars ever produced...

... hence Pontiac as a car division are no more.

 

[Boris Bajic]

American cars have been pretty crap since before I was born... so well over fifty years.

Much is written and said about the styling, but the RVM is often rose-tinted.

The fins we now adore were seen as gauche, chintzy and cheap by the European market when current. Insofar as they made it onto European production models, it was usually with the European arm of one of the US Big Four.

People rave about T-Birds, Corvettes and Trans-Ams, but many of them were far from truly pretty. the big Dodge muscle cars were impressive for their figures, not their figure. Even the early Mustangs were just tidy and well proportioned in an E30 3 Series way rather than stunning. It is the legend that stuns.

The big, lazy V8 motors were a thing of wonder, but few put out any real Ooomph. And most cars did not have the potent versions. My honeymoon rental car was a Mercury as wide as the steet, with electric everything, bizarre whorehouse velour sofas, automatic seatbelts and all the driving pleasure of a bath tub. It was horrid to the power of n, but we loved it for being so unlike anything we had in the UK.

What the US auto industry did believe in was kit. A friend ran a '62 Galaxie ragtop with electric seats, electric windows and electric hood. That combination was almost unheard-of in Europe in the early 60s and the Galaxie was hardly a Lincoln or a Cacillac. To some extent, that mindset persists.

But I'm pretty sure that most US cars have been crap since the 40s. It is not a new thing.

 

[Linford]

We only import the best in terms of styling in the UK from the states.
Done Florida a couple of times, even though there is so much money there, the cars were very basic....nothinglike you see on TV. I dnd't see a single high spec 300CRD when there, but plenty of them in the UK

 

[Over The Hill]

Good point. At best they are bland but generally they are just so ugly.

We seem to be going the same way with horrid things like the Nissan Juke. Do buyers revert to being a 9 year old child and come home with a Tonka toy?

But amongst it all there is still..........

 

[Over The Hill]

We only import the best in terms of styling in the UK from the states.
Done Florida a couple of times, even though there is so much money there, the cars were very basic....nothinglike you see on TV. I dnd't see a single high spec 300CRD when there, but plenty of them in the UK

How soon we forget! Fortunately though very few UK buyers went for it and the design killed the car.

 

[EltonFrog]

How soon we forget! Fortunately though very few UK buyers went for it and the design killed the car.

It beggars belief!

 

[ceejayh]

Why?

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/chrysler/300c

It's a bleedin wardrobe on wheels, and twice as ugly.

 

[Peteaud]

If its from the good ol US of A and it aint got Fins & Chrome i dont want to know.

 

[MarkF]

Design wise they started to go crap in the late 80;s with Japanese "tie ins" and a desire to "Europeanise" their interiors. This was poo, because euro interiors have always been panoramic vista of interminable drab grey darkness, the Japanese went the same way, no more fake dials and chromed plastic.

I drove around in one of these abominations for 3 months in 1992, it was a Chevrolet, but really it was a rip off universal Japmobile.

 

[MarkF]

It beggars belief!

I like that Ford rear, a lot, it was the front that was horrible.

If its from the good ol US of A and it aint got Fins & Chrome i dont want to know.

1970's for me, more velour! You can't beat a '70's dash.

 

[swee'pea99]

"whorehouse velour" is excellent! The lack of oomph is also right on the money. I visited a friend in Los Angeles back in the mid-'80s, and when I went to pick up my hire car, found I'd been 'upgraded' to a 3 litre jobbie. Never having driven anything more red-blooded than a 1.6 Escort, I thought 'this'll be fun'. It had all the grunt, handling and urgency of a narrowboat with emphysema.

 

[EltonFrog]

'nuff said.

 

[Bollo]

And by 'like', I don't mean the car!

Good point. At best they are bland but generally they are just so ugly.

We seem to be going the same way with horrid things like the Nissan Juke. Do buyers revert to being a 9 year old child and come home with a Tonka toy?

But amongst it all there is still..........

...which is ironic as a lot of the Chrysler vee-hicles sold here are built on older Merc platforms. Without looking it up, I'm pretty sure the 300CRD is built from Merc E class bits and the truly shocking Crossfire has an SLK hiding in there somewhere.