japanese style interior design history
if you look at cars from the 1970s and carsfrom the 1990s, there’s really one big difference in their designs. the ones from the 70s are boxy, and the onesfrom the 90s are curvy. for some car models, you can even tell theexact year when that change happened. just look at this commercial for the buicklesabre, showing the 1991 model — and then the 1992 model. see the curves? let’s watch that again. ‘91 is boxy, sharp edges.
‘92? smooth and round. since then, cars have become curvier and curvier. so how did this happen? when manufacturers started making curvy carsin the 90s, it wasn’t a totally new concept. back in the 1930s, streamliners like this chryslerairflow used this sleek design to reduce wind resistance. but as the 50s and 60s rolled around, americanstreamliners stopped selling well — they were outsold by bigger, boxier cars.
gas prices were on fairly steady decline atthis point, so streamlining for fuel efficiency was less of a concern. well into the 1970s, just about every carmade in america had sharp edges and very few curves. they were basically designed as a series ofthree boxes — the hood, the cabin, and the trunk. that model worked really well in the us market. but in europe, fuel was always more expensive. in the 60s, a gallon of gas in france costa whopping 73.1 cents while it was just 31
cents in the us. so european designers started experimentingwith more aerodynamic designs to help cars move more easily so they’d waste less gas. automakers like porsche, bmw, audi, mercedes-benz— they all started rolling out car models that had curved exteriors. eventually american automakers started tocopy the european aerodynamic look to try to attract upscale consumers. the mass market was a different picture. in europe, a designer named uwe bahnsen wasthe first person to push for a curved design
for the average driver, and he did that withthe 1982 ford sierra. it was curvier than any car in its class atthe time. but critics just laughed at it. and it didn't sell very well at first. it was nicknamed the “jelly mould†becauseof how much it looked like the kind of circular shape you’d make jell-o with. but one of the designers from that europeanford design team — this guy, jack telnack — took over the us design team in 1980. american gas prices at this point were skyrocketingdue to conflict in the middle east. so telnack brought wind tunnel testing intothe design process.
he first did that with the 1983 ford thunderbird. but the real breakthrough came a few yearslater: "the result was the groundbreaking 1986 fordtaurus." it might not look that groundbreaking now,but this style was revolutionary at the time. it was a mass market car with curvy edges— and people liked it. “taurus! now a north american car with a shape anda feel we’ve never seen before… taurus for us!â€
they used it in robocop as the car of thefuture. the sales basically saved ford, which hadreally been struggling at the time, and it inspired a whole wave of copycat curvy cars. and streamlining became even more popularbecause manufacturers were facing new fuel economy regulations in the us. starting in 1978, the average fuel efficiencyof each manufacturer’s passenger cars had to meet higher and higher levels. according to one ford designer, aerodynamicdesign was a much more affordable way to boost efficiency than doing engineering work underthe hood.
the rise of computer modelling in the 80salso made it easier for car makers to design and manufacture curved lines. all these years later, the influence on today’scars is pretty clear. even the models that we criticize for beingridiculously boxy these days — like the scion xb — are actually really round. and if our modern day sci fi movies have anythingto say about it, that won’t be changing anytime soon.