I don’t think ANYONE likes American styling (is there such a thing?) – even Americans!

Yes Americans do like European designs. Look how well european cars sell here in the US. The reason why American manufacturers haven’t been successful building european-looking cars is that they really suck at building euo-looking cars. True, they should leave that to the europeans. Again, the issue is not what American public likes or wants, it is what American manufacturers can build well and have a competetive advantage in.

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Ford should be taking the European designs straight to U.S. dealers. The Euro Focus, Mondeo, Iosis concepts are much better looking cars then what they peddle to the American buyers. Seriously, the Focus RS? That would sell in the states no problem.

Jerry Flint is a horse’s ass. like Warren Brown but somewhat more entertaining. BMW, Mercedes, Audi, and Volvo are all dying for lack of US sales, right? Some of the cars he calls failures actually sold quite well; others failed for reasons unrelated to their “European” design. And why do so many Americans prefer “Japanese” design? It’s certainly different from “American”.

Personally I think it’s dumb, but whenever any car – American, Japanese, or Korean – looks good, reviewers say it looks “euro.” I’ve heard it said of the Elantra 5-door and the Mazda3. I’ve seen them in Spain, and they don’t look like the native cars at all; the Mazda3 especially looks as Japanese as it gets.

European design still has a mystique here. My guess is that it comes out of proportioning, which is the one design aspect that European cars consistently get right.

You can’t say that, there are so many different kinds of Americans. To wealthy Americans who want an excellent car but don’t want flash and style, theres nothing better than the conservatively-styled German luxury cars.

Yeah, Mercedes and BMW have limited success, when they’re selling cars whose average price is probably well over 40K and able to *only* capture 3% of the market. Sheesh. Referring to the ENTIRE market for cars, rather than merely MB/BMW’s percentages in the specific markets they compete in (luxury ______) makes for a completely imbecilic argument…

That said – yes, Detroit needs to work on establishing more unique, even controversial designs. It’s very telling that they get rewarded when they do – witness the 300C, the Escalade – geez, give the public more than bland vanilla. Even if it’s too flashy for many, it won’t be for others – trying to sell a car that everyone tolerates means that no one will love it. And without Toyota’s rock-solid reputation – it’s difficult to sell people-movers on reliability and price alone, because that market has many (and better) choices.

The Japanese have unremarkable styling but sell based on reliability, the europeans have poor reliability but make beautiful cars (new bmws excluded), the americans have poor styling and poor reliability, and only continue to hold the truck segment.

What is European styling? What Euro style are we talking about. To make generalizations about the vast diversity of Europe is ignorant.

I think this columnist is wrong. Americans do like European styling. I think what Americans like about European styling is that it is classic. Look at BMW, Mercedes, and some Audi’s. They aren’t using ground breaking designs, but they are designed in such a way that they look good even 20 years down the road. Also, European car companies pay attention to details. BMW headlights look like they took nearly as long to design as the body of the car. European cars don’t just slap some parts on and call it a day. Everything is thought out. Have you seen the wheels that BMW’s come with stock? No American cars come with anything nearly as nice. Even caddy’s come with crap wheels compared to BMW. There are a few other more important reasons why Americans like European cars, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

With all that that said, I think Americans do miss classic American styling. Something was going on in the ’60s, a lot of American cars just had great styling. They were distinctly American, they had a sort of proud swagger to them. Most American cars today, IMO are a hodgepodge of ideas that get dumbed down and when they finally are put into production, the original idea or concept is often lost. And a lot of times, they just start off with a bad idea to begin with. There’s also too much badge engineering with American cars. You don’t see a BMW 3 series and then some other brand that’s the same car with a different badge. But the biggest problem with American cars today…there are too many damn FWD American cars!!!

Americans don’t like FWD!! Americans used to love American cars because they were RWD with lots of Power. Even if they weren’t the most reliable back in the day, they were a blast to drive when they did run. Personally I think all American cars should be RWD or AWD. But now that’s all been disposed for bland 3.5 V6 FWD sedans. Then they come out with a “sport” version, but it’s still FWD. How is that sport? FWD is for cheap cars, and that’s why American companies have tried to switch to FWD. All in the interest of the dollar.

You know what happens when you cut so many corners, so that you can get the biggest profit? You get a big pile of junk, that has problems, isn’t fun to drive, and looks like ****. American car companies need to quit trying to cut corners. They need to change their image to a more respected and sophisticated one. Use better materials and parts, with a proper drivetrain set-up (RWD!) and then charge a little more if they have to. Or just have a v6 version that’s stripped down, so that the starting price is cheap, but also have available options. Do Americans buy expensive cars? Yes! Look at BMW. Almost every other freakin car here on the west coast is a BMW. The reason why Americans like BMW’s is they are solid, classicly stlyed (Euro), RWD!!!!, with power. Those used to be American qualities, but we were too busy trying to copy the Japanese that we lost the good thing that we once had. The cool thing about Japanese cars is they can pull lots of power out of small motors and get good gas mileage, and are reliable…which are all good things we should learn from them, but we need to stay American in our styling and drivetrain.

I’m glad to see some of the American cars starting to use styling from the American classics, and going back to V8’s and RWD. They only thing I’m afraid of is I think American companies are going to get too caught up in this “retro” craze that it bites them on the ass. I think with all the brands Ford, Dodge, and Chevy have, they could have one brand focus on classic/retro styling, and another on modern/future styling (but still American). Also I love the V8’s, there’s nothing better, but even if it isn’t V8, 4 and 6 cylinders with turbo work fine. RWD all across the board, I dont think I can stress this enough. Even if we had some 4 cylinder turbo economy cars that were RWD, I think that would give American cars an edge over the Japanese competition which is currently mostly FWD. Also how come when America makes economy cars, they have to look like a Japanese rip off? Why can’t we have something that looks like a smaller versio of a 65 nova? or Ford Falcon? Or a corvair? Why can’t our economy cars look American?

This topic really brought a lot of ideas out of my head, so to wrap all this up, American car companies, need to take what’s good from european companies (attention to detail), and take what’s good from japanese companies (reliability, and lots of power from small displacement), and then stick to American styling, and RWD. That’s it, it’s simple.

Wow. This guy just doesn’t know his stuff about why these cars flopped (it’s not the “European” styling and a lot of times is the stupid and costly Not Invented Here syndrome):

• Saturn LS–GM North Am. actually spent money to Americanize (in this case, wreck) the styling of the Opel Vectra this car was based on. I saw a prototype near Grand Canyon and couldn’t believe how cheap it looked compared to the original.

• Volkswagen Golf–it’s the hatchback configuration, not the styling. Note that when a trunk was stuck on the Golf (aka Jetta), it sold really well, esp. the last generation.

• Contour and Mystique–first, they didn’t fail. Second, the main reason they were less than breakouts: Small backseats compared to the competion–for an American family car.

• Ford Focus–huge success with its wacky original European styling. Only slumping now because Ford did a lame, boring update.

•Chevy Malibu—what are you smoking. Just like the Saturn LS, GM NA spent good money to Americanize the Opel styling–and it looks a 1000 times cheaper inside and out. Amazing!

I can go on, but you get the picture. Don’t have a clue how the writer reached his lame-ass conclusion.

IF–and only if–you have a good/great European design FROM AN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE, save some money and time, leave it alone and bring it over here. Oh, that’s what they’re doing with the Saturn Aura. Finally!

^^ what a mouth full….need i remind everyone that chris bangle is an america. need i also say that the majority of people DONT like the look of new BMWs. just ready any review of the new 3,5, or 7 and it will, for at least one sentence, say that its not as pretty as the old. but BMWs still sell well. yet another lesson for the american auto maker. cars sell well even if theyre ass ugly. so far ford and GM have tried to find out why they cant make it on their own land. everything from price points to design to safety to making greener cars. NOTHING has worked for them. perhaps they should move on to thing like the engine, transmission, or suspension. things that actually make a car what it is, design is only skin deep.

FU GSH! BMW’s are more sucessful than they have ever been. The original car eveyone complained about, 7-series, has been BMW most successful 7 ever. I have never read one article that complained about the styling of the new 3 or 5.

Just because YOU don”t like them doesn”t give you the right to speak for the MAJORITY of the people.

Mookie’s right, European styling really doesn’t exist. How can you put VW Group’s design in the same categary as Ferrari? You can’t. The difference in design between Europe and its competitors is that price cutting isn’t drawn into the vehicle. They’ll make beautiful lines and then figure where is the BEST place to save that doesn’t DETRACT. But here, its the enineers drawing carbon copies of whats the cheapest to build. Then spend a ton a platform, exec’s salaries, and most of all commercials. If a car is good you don’t need commercials that are a minute long explaining how cheap it is..just show us how cool it is in 20-30 seconds and not every 5 minutes!

AMERICAN COMPANIES: Design a car with focus… then figure out how to make it better, the reverse doesn’t work, we know.

PS: who pays Jerry Flint?

daveo youre an idiot, why dont you read my post before trolling. go read some articles from the biggest mags from the US and UK.

CarAndDriver on the 06 330i: “To be writing about a new BMW without first questioning the way it looks is a welcome change from recent history. The design revolution of BMW’s Chris Bangle has polarized opinion on everything from the blocky 7-series to the banana-curved 1-series.”

Motortrend on the 04 745i: “From its dark, ascetic cabin to its literally dazzling array of whiz-bang features, the big 7 overwhelms with its forbidding, techno-complex character. “I dislike more things about this car than I like,” was one of several similar remarks in the logbook.”

From the UK’s #1 auto mag TopGear on the 7 series: “The 7-Series has brains and brawn, but not much in the way of beauty.” TopGear on the 5 series: “The striking looks are a big departure from the old car, looking very similar to the contentious 7-Series. ”

CarAndDriver on the new 530i: “The BMW 5-series says the same thing-although with its bulging nose and swept-back eyes it looks more like a Z3 roadster wearing Kabuki makeup than a skeleton. Also, we’re convinced the rear end is angry with us.”

UK’s 5th gear on the new 5: “Time is mellowing reactions to the 5 Series’s once-controversial styling. The good news is that, underneath it, lies an unambiguously great car.”

All in all the point I was making was that BMW isnt doing well because of their design. But then again if you read my post you would know that…

I think the chrysler 300c looks good. That’s pretty American for you. Very bold looking. I also like the front end of the new charger…but the rear is a bit hideous.

The 300c is a rip off of the bentley – maybe americanized a bit, the only real American style was from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, muscle cars, fins, corvettes, after the 70’s it was the end for the American style, except for maybe the minivan.

With a few exceptions here and there, the majority of American cars lost any real ’style’ in the early 70’s with the implementation of ‘design’ based on meeting an onslaught of govt regs. (5 mph bumpers, CAFE standards, catalytic converters for emission controls, etc, etc.) vs. actual product advancement based design. By the time they’d somewhat recovered from that it was the early 80’s and Japan, Inc. was killing them as quality evaporated. They’ve been lost ever since except for pick-ups. As I see it, the problem with American car companies is they’ve never really been good at designing smaller cars, which is what most of the rest of the world drives day to day, so mainly comes out of Europe, Japan, Korea, etc. At the same time, they LOVED doing the annual parade of big boats in the day as well as, these days, traditional full size pick-ups and SUVs whihc are less as less relevant for most of us wiht $2.50+ gas. Until that sort of attitude changes, we’ll see (less of) the same mediocre stuff coming out of Detroit and people like me will look elsewhere when in the market for a new or used car.