First of all let's make something clear, I'm not going to claim that everything used to be better - because it wasn't.
I don't want a child mortality rate like in the past, I don't want my daughters to serve in a military unit "of the past", I'm certainly not interested in the education methods of the past and certainly not for when deodorant was a rumor or all the men walked around with mustaches and you couldn't tell who Mr. Cohen and who just hijacks planes.
I do not.
And having said that, hell, when they designed cars, they really made them special.
Below this opening paragraph there are silhouettes of 4 vehicles, if you surf here, you will recognize them all, if you just happened to stumble upon here at least two will look familiar to you.
And it's not that all the cars used to be very different from each other, but I can bet if I had 4 silhouettes of modern cars there, the percentage of correct guesses was much lower.
Four silhouettes of very different cars, did you recognize them?
Give an answer in the comments/image processing, manufacturers
So what happened that all the cars at once became similar to each other?
For this you have to go back to December 11, 2009. Then the "United Nations Economic Commission for Land Transport in Europe" published a very disturbing document.
Rule 9 of this document contained a guideline for design that improves the safety of pedestrians. The pedestrian group is the most vulnerable and vulnerable From vehicles in a distinct way, and this UNECE committee decided to address the issue of improving the survival of pedestrians when they are hit by vehicles. To sum up the matter in one sentence, the regulation instructed manufacturers to build the front of the car in such a way that hitting a pedestrian would cause as little damage as possible.
It was not the first time that this committee issued such a fascinating document, because back in 1998 it issued the document with the very catchy name of: "Agreement regarding the establishment of a global technical regulation for wheeled vehicles.
Equipment that is suitable for installation and/or can be used in wheeled vehicles." From there, and over a decade, standards were formed that define everything, from windshield glazing to the standard in which door locks will be used, the height of the front and rear lighting units, and even the brakes.
But back to that "Rule 9", It is the one that has had the greatest influence on the design of vehicles since then, until today and in the coming years.
High hood helps reduce impact to pedestrians/manufacturer site
As soon as these regulations were published, car manufacturers who did not want to get into trouble with either the UN or their governments made sure to comply with them and since there is no logic in producing several fronts or different designs according to the degree of application of the regulations in each market, as soon as Hyundai, Ford or Subaru produced a new design - any The global cars of these manufacturers received a uniform front.
One of the distinct aspects of the implementation of these guidelines was the height of the hood and the distance required between the front of the car and the edge of the chassis and the engine area, for example. Its elevation enabled two things. The first is the removal of the can from the engine itself, so that in the event of an impact, going The leg will not be slammed into the engine head, but into a tin plate that will crumple into the space underneath. The second thing is that the pedestrian will "fall" the shortest distance before hitting the hood. Once the hoods were bigger, it affected the entire profile design of the car and components such as size The front wheels and wings, the angle of the windshields which affect the height of the seat and subsequently the height of the roof which in turn affects the size and angle of the windshield.
Another component related to safety concerns the thickness of the front beams, the middle beams and the rear beams. When vehicles are also tested for their resistance to overturning, they become a critical component .
So they also have technical requirements that affect the exterior design.
The crash tests are also responsible for the height of the car's sides, in order to produce a structure that better protects the passenger compartment.
When all car manufacturers work under the same guidelines, the end results are similar/Keenan Cohen
But it wasn't just the UNECE safety regulations that changed the design of our cars.
There is also the matter of fuel consumption.
And fuel consumption is a very critical component when manufacturers want to comply with air pollution standards, or present a tempting figure in the technical specifications of their product.
Physics and the laws of aerodynamics that apply to all vehicles are no less responsible than the United Nations for the design of our cars. The big change began in the second half of the 1980s, when more and more manufacturers began to use wind tunnels to test the aerodynamic efficiency of the vehicles.
And since the laws of aerodynamics are the same for everyone, whether it's Mazda, Toyota or Renault - all the designers of modern production cars are given along with the directive to design a car also a whole set of rules, computer dictates and formulas that they have to adhere to in order to improve this efficiency. Take the hybrid of 2000s for example - Toyota Prius, Honda Insight and Hyundai Ioniq didn't get their drop mirrors because their designers admired each other, but because of the tyranny of their engineers. Recessed door handles? Same story, the (bad) attempts to replace our mirrors with cameras? This is it. To make this point most clearly - look at the place where efficiency and speed are paramount - Formula 1 - there is a very good reason why all the cars on the track look the same.
The use of wind tunnels dictates compliance with aerodynamic rules/manufacturer site
The third main reason is the convergence of the industry, mainly since the 1990s to be based on the magic of platforms.
The same uniform engineering base that makes it possible to build a large number of bodies or types of cars on the same platform.
In the Volkswagen group, for example, you can find the Golf, Tiguan, Audi A3, Seat Leon, Skoda Octavia, and several other versions of which sit on the same MQB platform, for example, and it is not alone.
Where is this event going to go?
Judging by the state of things today - nowhere.
It is true that in the electric future we will already be less bothered by the fear of pedestrians and riders crashing into engine heads - but on the other hand, when it comes to design, the story of aerodynamic efficiency will become even more significant when every kilometer in the range is important and without the need for a "grill" in front, the phenomenon of sealed fronts in all So many models only exacerbates the situation.
Exacerbating it not only for car enthusiasts, but no less - for the manufacturers who fight to create a distinct visual identity for their cars and brand.
The magic of the platform, the orange part is fixed, everything else is changeable/manufacturer website
To a large extent, the story of the design of our cars today can be told through our mobile phones.
If you are old enough to remember the mobile phones from the second half of the 90s and even into the early 2000s, you also remember the time when we could tell the difference between Motorola, Nokia, Blackberry and more in a split second.
But all that changed with the advent of the iPhone.
who turned the purposeful design and intuitive use into a purpose of life, into a message.
Are we heading towards a future where our parking lots will look like the array of smartphones on the desk while sitting at work?
A row of identical-looking rectangles, only those with wheels?
Unfortunately for design enthusiasts and for the well-being of pedestrians - probably yes.
More on the same topic:
Cars
new car