Why Is Good Design So Damn Expensive?

"William Byrd" (thedriver) 04/21/2015 at 11:52 • Filed to: None

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This just in, supercars are expensive . Hard hitting news, I know. I’ll give you a moment to collect yourself. But have you ever asked yourself why? Well, exotic materials for one. Carbon Fiber has gotten cheaper and easier to produce, but you won’t see it in the next Camry in the near term. So that CF tub sitting underneath your uber-expensive supercar wasn’t cheap to produce. Nor were the high end materials that make up its engine, suspension, and other internals that are stress tested for incredibly high horsepower, torque, speeds, G-forces, and temperature. Oh and that curvaceous body, wide and low slung, that must be expensive too, right? It appears to be. But why? Why is design so damn expensive? Why can’t normal cars have the flash and flair of exotics? Why can’t normal people with normal jobs drive something curvaceous and low? Let’s take a look at what goes into the design of a high end supercar.

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The Designer

An obvious starting point, the design must come from some talented person’s brain and end up molded into clay and modeled on a computer. Sometimes they are done in-house, and other times they are farmed out to design shops like !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who have penned many famous Ferraris from classics like the 250, through legends like the F40, and even the modern day 458 and F12. Unless Enzo worked out some sort of “rent control”-like agreement with Sergio back in the early 50s, that doesn’t come cheap.

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Lamborghini has in-house design for the most part and relative upstart Horacio Pagani designs his own damn cars thank-you-very-much. So there are a lot of talented people out there who get paid well to design cool cars. So I would agree that new, fresh, clean sheet designs will cost an automaker a lot of money. But we are many decades from the genesis of supercars, something like the the mid-engined Lamborghini Miura. Haven’t we documented the formula by now so that it’s not quite as expensive to produce? At last from an aesthetic standpoint.

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Notable Attempts

But it’s been done at a more affordable level in the past. Sort of. The NSX has long been known as the benchmark for alternative-exotic, something that came from a more “pedestrian” company that made the automotive world rethink what a exotic car was. It had the low, wide look (as the RFD founder, and former NSX owner Josh will tell you, it wasn’t really either of those). But Honda has a dirty little secret. They went to the same well initially that Ferrari drinks from, Pininfarina. They penned the Honda HP-X (Honda Pininfarina eXperimental) concept in 1984. This concept eventually evolved into a prototype sports car called the NS-X, which stood for “ N ew”, “ S portscar” and “e X perimental”. See what they did there. The production iteration of the NSX came from an in-house team led by Chief Designer Ken Okuyama and Executive Chief Engineer Shigeru Uehara. And as you can see from the HP-X below, they brought it a long way to the production version of the NSX we know and love.

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The 1990s brought us a treasure trove of what I could call cars with “exotic” design attributes but more mainstream prices. The MKIV Toyota Supra, FD Mazda RX-7, Mitsubishi 3000 GT, Nissan 300ZX; these cars brought us classic long hood, aggressive styling that we hadn’t seen in awhile.

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Even the diminutive MR-2 (which was also in the correct mid-engine configuration) had the right proportions and I would argue that the 2nd generation (W20) MR2 Turbo got it the “most right”. Mid engine, turbocharged, it just looked low and fast but it wasn’t incredibly expensive.

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One of my other favorites also hails from Japan, the Tommy Kaira ZZ. A car that’s been resurrected by a Japanese company called !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in partnership with Kyoto University. It’s a fresh, and electric, take on a 16 year old sports car (from an aftermarket company) that never was. Proof that it’s still possible.

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Other notables throughout history were Chevrolet’s Corvette, and to a lesser extent the Ford GT. While not free, the GT was a fraction of the price of Italy’s best and just as quick. I guess that’s why this next generation won’t be so cheap. So what is stopping modern day automakers from producing something low, wide, aggressive, but mass produced? If you Google Image Search “ !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ” you find, well, lots of expensive supercars. We can do better.

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Derivative styling. I know, it sounds like a sin, but hear me out. If you could drive something that looked like a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , or a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and I don’t mean carbon copies, but had the same general look and proportions, would you? Now, they may not be as fast, but they would cost a lot less. I mean a LOT less. Toyota has done it with the aforementioned MR2, heck even Lotus and Porsche have done it with the Elise and Boxster respectively, albeit not quite as inexpensive as I’m talking. What if VW sold a $25,000 baby Audi R8? It might have the engine from a Golf, and no real exotic materials to speak of, but I have to imagine people would buy them. Or are they, the manufacturers, too scared?

Is this all a big conspiracy amongst the major automakers to keep big design in league with big pricing? Are the Chinese, and kit car makers, our only hope?

I sincerely hope not, because Chinese cars are crap and the world’s Pontiac Fiero supply will run at at some point. And then what? Toyota Corolla based kit cars? Stranger things have happened, and if they could produce something that looked like a Lexus LF-A out of a Corolla and keep the price down, I’d go look at it. So internet, please tell me why this won’t work. This is where we excel, telling others why their idea is incorrect! I’m sure I am missing something.

You could pay a college automotive design student who loves supercars to draw you something interesting, if a bit a lot derivative. You could use a parts-bin approach for the engine, suspension, etc. So it may not be supercar fast, but give it a standard forced induction engine sourced something you are already producing, ala the 90s approach, and people will make it fast. Ok, so producing a mid-engine, rear wheel drive platform from scratch for a newly developed, possibly single use, new car would be expensive, I’ll give you that. But would be any more expensive than the MR2 or Elise (which was expensive in the US but not necessarily overseas, depending on iteration and spec)? To keep leaning on Toyota, a company with the resources to do this, take the GT86/FRS/BRZ platform and give me something that looks like the LF-A clone I was looking for. And don’t change anything else. Now is it too expensive? It’s certainly not quick, but as I said, we can fix that on our own.

So how would you bring exotic supercar looks to the mainstream?

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Sweet Trav > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:03

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As someone who works in the Industry... You have little to no idea how cars are designed, engineered or built.

William Byrd > Sweet Trav 04/21/2015 at 12:04

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Enlighten me then son. I’m not sure why a more mundane chassis, engine and suspension can’t have an exotic looking body. Unless they just don’t want to.

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:04

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Mid- engine RWD Beetle = baby 911 ;)

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:04

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It isn’t so much the design that is so expensive as it is the engineering. Throw in the impracticalities of a mid engined car and you’ll never see one with seating for more than three. There simply isn’t enough room to fit two rows of seats and an engine between the axles without the car becoming so long that it is cumbersome. Once you put the engine behind the seats you create all sorts of problems with cooling and airflow. These are problems that are expensive and difficult to engineer your way around. Now that you’ve got the basic layout you need to put it on a suspension. Since your weight distribution and suspension pickup points are so much different than a front engined vehicle you need to engineer that from a clean sheet. The MR layout is wildly inefficient in terms of space utilization for a passenger vehicle, so you’ll only ever see it on a sports car. Since the market for sports cars is small there aren’t the economies of scale to make it practical or easy to make a cheap MR sports car.

William Byrd > Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow 04/21/2015 at 12:04

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Exactly! haha

William Byrd > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 04/21/2015 at 12:07

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Agreed, but I also posited a front engined GT86 that looks like an LF-A. Technically very easy (all the internals are the same), I’m just curious why the outer aesthetic can’t be more dramatic and exotic. Plus, as I also mentioned, there have been several inexpensive MR cars like the MR2/MRS, Elise, even the Boxster to a lesser extent. I pointed out that building a new MR platform from scratch would not be cheap, but it’s been done. In the end my point was surrounding the cost of design vs. the engineering of the car though.

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:09

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Honestly, a modern day Beetle with a MR configuration would make for so many great possibilities. Like the resurrection of the Baja Bug!

William Byrd > Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow 04/21/2015 at 12:10

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Agreed, the New Beetle has become pretty stale, that would certainly rejuvenate the name a bit. New platform, harkens back to the original, etc.

random001 > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:11

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This sounds a lot like the ideal behind the Local Motors corporate statement.

Cebu > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:12

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More mundane chassis and engines, in this day and age, almost always means an already developed chassis. This restricts wheelbase and proportions, something that’s really important for car design. Also, something that looks awesome and drives... less than awesome doesn’t add up.

William Byrd > random001 04/21/2015 at 12:13

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Good point, I hadn’t even thought about them. The Rally Fighter certainly isn’t “cheap” but you are right, they certainly describes their corporate mantra. With the 3-D printed car and some other projects I’ve been following (esp. their crowd-sourcing “forum”) they could pull something like this off.

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:15

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They already tried to do the retro-design thing, and did decent with making it look more like an old school bug. Now just give us the engine/drive configuration and it would be golden!

William Byrd > Cebu 04/21/2015 at 12:16

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Oh I’m fine with that. As I said, take the GT86 chassis and put something considerably more exotic on top of it. Or take a crowd favorite like the Miata and do the same. That would drive appropriately “awesome” for most of us Opponauts and it it looked like a baby supercar, would that be a bad thing?

My point has much less to do with the chassis and what’s underneath, just positing why exotic design has to be solely used for exotic cars?

William Byrd > Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow 04/21/2015 at 12:17

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We’re talking rear-engined to keep the 2-rows of seating though, so it would need some fancy VW electronics to keep the rear end in line, depending on weight distribution. RR cars tend to be tail happy. That’s assuming it was RWD, which coming from VW it likely wouldn’t be. Stranger things though...

Sweet Trav > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:18

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Mostly safety regs and materials, which in turn boils down to cost.

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:20

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True, I should have noted that.

The tech is certainly out there to handle the RR setup, but it’d likely end up being a fair bit more expensive; at least for the first generation or two. :/

William Byrd > Sweet Trav 04/21/2015 at 12:23

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Huh? How would a GT86/FRS/BRZ chassis with an LF-A body on top of it (made of “regular” material, not CF) be less safe or more expensive? That’s just to illustrate the idea, you could use any automaker’s 2-chassis examples.

My point is that exotic design is solely used for exotic cars and it doesn’t have to be. Toyota built a budget mid-engined RWD sports car for quite a few years. Make it a tad more aggressive, wider, lower, and voila, budget supercar.

William Byrd > Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow 04/21/2015 at 12:25

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Yeah, it’s a bit fanciful. VW is clearly setting its sights on Toyota and using a similar (bland) formula to do it. So they would likely shelve an idea like this.

I still think my GT86 based LF-A clone would not only be doable but inexpensive.

KirkyV > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:26

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I’d do what Peugeot used to, and hire Pininfarina to design my ordinary cars.

If you’re looking for supercar design on a budget, it doesn’t get much better than an old 406 Coupé .

William Byrd > KirkyV 04/21/2015 at 12:27

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Damn you Pininfarina! haha Man they have gotten their hands on a LOT of cars. And most of them look stunning, like the 406. Good call.

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:38

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I own an FR-S, and from the right angles it actually has some similar traits. But you could definitely turn it into a multi-car platform, and create several variations; coupe (current, but perhaps change styling), sedan, hatch/wagon (pretty please?!), convertible, etc.

buford-t-justice > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:41

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Good ol Ontario plates

random001 > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:42

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Well, I mean, it's not super cheap, but it's not a $250,000 Ferrari, either.

That said, they have so many designs out there. I'm actually completely surprised and shocked that they don't have any other products yet, really.

LongbowMkII > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:43

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A FRS is actually quite exotic looking imo. But if you put a different body on it youre pushing at least 40k for a 200hp low volume, niche of a niche car. That just wont sell.

William Byrd > Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow 04/21/2015 at 12:44

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I wish they would. They could even market it alongside the Supra as a return to Toyota performance.

The FR-S Wheelbase is 8 ft. 5.2 in. (101.2 in.)

The LF-A Wheelbase is 8 ft. 6.6 in. (102.6 in.)

So 1.4” separates the two cars from a practical perspective. If you get into height and width, it’s a different story (LF-A is 5’ish” wider and a few inches lower). But shrinking down an exotic design like the LF-A for use on the FR-S doesn’t’ seem that challenging.

William Byrd > random001 04/21/2015 at 12:45

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I think they are establishing their logistical footprint before launching new products. Just read that they are opening a micro-factory here in DC.

William Byrd > LongbowMkII 04/21/2015 at 12:46

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Oh I agree, was looking at cars on my commute to see what looked “Exotic’ish” and that certainly does compared to most cars.

My point exactly, why did you just add $15,000 to the price of an FRS just by putting a different body on it?

LongbowMkII > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:51

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You’ve overlooked the biggest example of cheap stylish cars. The original mustang. Stylish coupe/fastback on a standard compact chassis. The problem is that this niche is filled now and companies arent going to take that risk and design something radical.

Although a stylish coupe/convertible corolla (to replace the frs/tc) might be able to save the scion brand.

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:55

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An amazing new performance lineup could look like this:

FR-S = AE86 revival

MR setup (much more difficult and would probably require a different platform) = MR2 revival

Change up the style and increase power = Celica GT or GTS revival

AWD system = Celica AllTrac revival

Convertible version (either on the FR-S or Celica model) = upscale Miata competitor

FT-1 = Supra revival (Obviously)

I really wish this would happen.

William Byrd > LongbowMkII 04/21/2015 at 12:56

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Odd considering how much of a Mustang fanboy I am. Good point though, the original Mustang turned a lot of the industry on its ear with regard to attainable, stylish, cars.

Scion needs help. A lot of help. This could be just the thing.

472CID > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 12:56

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Part of the problem is cheap practical utilitarian car shapes don’t lend themselves to looking good. Most sportscars, expensive and cheap, look good imo (Solstice, Sky, Miata, Toyoburus, 944s, etc) It’s worth mentioning that throwing int a big name designer (Pininfarinia in this case) doesn’t mean you get a good looking car...

William Byrd > Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow 04/21/2015 at 12:58

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Hell. Yes.

I would spread this love across Scion. They need it. You could divide it practically or by price, but if they decide to keep Scion in existence, they need some love.

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 13:01

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It could easily become the performance brand/line-up of Toyota.

William Byrd > 472CID 04/21/2015 at 13:01

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I never said it had to be practical and utilitarian. But if that were the case, then I totally agree.

No, I think that the cars you mentioned look “good” but not super or exotic. I had a 944 Turbo and while it was quick (turbooooo lag doh) it wasn’t incredibly exotic looking. The Miata certainly isn’t, and the Toyoburus could be better. The Solstice and Sky are interesting examples though and I hadn’t considered them. They are the right direction but still a touch bland compared to the exotic designs I’m talking about. Imagine a Solstice that looked more like a Jaguar F-Type R and you’re in the right direction. :)

Sweet Trav > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 13:02

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First, be happy that you can even buy a coupe in the 27-35k range. Nobody buys a coupe, except enthusiasts which are a dying breed. Cars now are global commodites, sure you can localize them a bit, but the car in America has to share the same basic structure with what is built in Shanghai, guess what else, safety standards are different in both locations, so are emissions and visibility requirements.

You have so little grasp on what it would actually take to build what you say. Start looking up the US crash regs and the the European regs, the build a design that will perform well in both... Lots of the special shapes and designs on things like a front fascia can’t be made in a mold like one for a Chevy cruze can be, the exotic materials of an exotic car can allow for much more variation in design.

LongbowMkII > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 13:02

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Pay designers, create new factory line, build new presses, train workers, new crash, emissions, and mpg testing. All for a few thousand cars.

Now as to why it wasnt more radical to begin with... When taking such a risk Toyota probably wanted to mitigate the risk with a restrained design. A brilliant design may have made it a hit, but as I look at Lexus.... that could have made the 86 project a failure.

William Byrd > Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow 04/21/2015 at 13:03

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This is the crap I get all excited about and then it doesn’t happen. Grrr. Maybe someone from Toyota will read this.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 13:10

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But compared to other exotics, the LFA isn’t that radical of a design.

William Byrd > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 04/21/2015 at 13:11

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Agreed, just trying to find something within a single automaker that would be plausible.

How about an R8 built off of a GTI platform. :)

William Byrd > Sweet Trav 04/21/2015 at 13:19

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You should work for an automaker. It’s that kind of “nope, can’t do it” attitude that has ensured that this doesn’t exist.

And you are still missing my point, why is DESIGN so expensive? You are getting wrapped around the car building and testing process. Let’s start over.

Pretend Toyota/Subaru were building the 1st GT86/FRS/BRZ right now. Would it have cost (them) radically more to bring it to market if it looked like an LF-A? I’m not talking about the LF-A’s components or materials, but just the design. I totally disagree that the materials used to make the body of FRS (or even a Cruze) couldn’t be used to make something in a different shape. That’s the essence of flexible manufacturing capabilities. Yes you would have to crash test it. Yes you would have to ensure it met the standards of the countries it was to be sold in. But guess what, Toyota and Subaru did all of that when the initially brought the current car to market.

To re-do it and build a new iteration that is completely different, yes they would have to do that crap again, but please, please, please, tell me why a better design couldn’t have been used when the car came to market? Or why it can’t be used for the next generation? Is/Was design really more expensive?

In your argument, cars never change. 911s aside, they do.

Gripevo1 > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 13:23

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As someone who is a final year automotive design student (and is currently working as an trans design intern), i can honestly say that you are vastly underestimating what goes in to designing a car for mass production/real world road use (not to mention that passes government regulations). Theres no doubt that with advances in production techniques,3d modelling advancement and material technology, we as designers are able to get away with having really complex surfacing and graphics(industry term for grills, headlamps etc.)...for example look at the batshit surfacing on the lexus is (ugly but visually imposing).

I think that you will see more and more trickle down from supercars like the p1, la ferrari etc, but the main reason those cars are so visually attractive to the average joe is not just because of fancy surfacing and crazy air intakes, but also the fact that they are very low, wide and rakeish. Unfortunately the market for cars with little usable space and bad ergonomics is very limited, so a large manufacturer would not be able to recuperate the design/engineering and manufacturing cost that goes into making a car like that. Sure low volume manufacturers can utilize exsisting parts bucket shit to make a low slung sportscar at realistic prices, but they just are not going to make a profit to justify the means (i.e. lotus).

As for your reference to pininfarina and Italian design studios, well all i have to say is look at whats left of them. Most have gone bankrupt or resorted to designing el cheapo chinese sedans. Sad, but no one wants to contract out design work anymore. Also, as to pagani designing his own cars...well yes he does have input but the concepts and real design work are done by others in his studio (also IMO the zonda was just a derivative 90’s group C racer..same with Koenigsegg..the Huyara is at least interesting but im not a huge fan of it in person).

There are actually plenty of cars that fit the description of what you want. Even though its a little pricey, the alfa 4c is gorgeous and pure classic supercar design. The lotus elise is getting long in the tooth but looks way more exotic than its underpinnings suggest. Even cars like the 370z have a similar proportion to the lfa you like.

my point being...its very easy to monday morning quarterback and say that designers are not doing a goodjob should be making sexy inexpensive cheap coupes, but the reality is we all are are enthusiasts just like you and want similar things, but the car business is there to make money and unfortunately small sporty coupes and sportscars usually are loss leaders (see brz/frs).

William Byrd > LongbowMkII 04/21/2015 at 13:23

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Good reply. But they have to do all those things whenever a significant generational change happens in any car. My point is that the design could have been (or could in the future) be more radical and exotic. Your point is well taken about being conservative, I’m curious if an inexpensive car that looked like a Lamborghini would sell.

Milky > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 13:25

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Obvious answer.

Real answer: Billions.

As in what it takes to make a develop a car.

The price tag to develop a new vehicle starts around $1 billion. According to John Wolkonowicz, Senior Auto Analyst for North America at IHS Global, “It can be as much as $6 billion if it’s an all-new car on all-new platform with an all-new engine and an all-new transmission and nothing carrying over from the old model.”

Remember Cadillac just saying its getting 12 billion for 5 new cars? Niche markets don't write automakers billion checks, mainstream cars do.

William Byrd > Gripevo1 04/21/2015 at 13:25

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There we go. Good reply.

I’m totally NOT hiring you to design my sports car though.

jjhats > Sweet Trav 04/21/2015 at 13:26

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you get this all the time im sure but how do I get into this field? I always have sketched cars and imagined it would be my future

Mikev > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 13:27

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Great article! What year is that RX7 from? I always thought that was the best looking of all the RX cars! Id love to get my hands on one, great car to either restore or find a nice unmolested one.

tromoly > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 13:31

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Raw Carbon weave is still much more expensive than sheet metal, combined with the much more labor- and time-intensive process of laying up Carbon is just one reason Carbon is much more expensive.

William Byrd > Milky 04/21/2015 at 13:31

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I don’t consider the 4C cheap, but it’s much closer to cheap than most exotic looking cars.

And you still missed some of the finer points of my argument. Yes I posited that you could build a new platform. But in a world where an FRS looked like an LF-A: New platform? No. New engine? No. New Transmission? No. New body? Not really.

I posted this elsewhere in here, but the FRS and LFA have about a 1.4” wheelbase difference. The Lexus is wider and lower, but why would a smaller LF-A body not fit on a FRS after some CAD work?

Do I think this will happen? Not really, but I’m consistently amazed that automaker’s can’t mass produce something that looks exotic. Is the design really that expensive? Especially in a world where so much of it is derivative.

William Byrd > tromoly 04/21/2015 at 13:33

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You didn’t read the article son! haha

I am not talking about using exotic materials. Quite the opposite, use normal materials but just build something more interesting.

William Byrd > Mikev 04/21/2015 at 13:37

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Thanks! I’d have to defer to my Canadian friends as to what year FD that is. With so many being modified, it’s hard to say. Looks similar to some of the JDM models like the Type R, Bathurst R, etc. Easy to do via the aftermarket though, and yes I would LOVE to have one.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 13:37

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That wouldn’t work because the R8 has different proportions than the wheelbase of the Golf. Also, you’d be losing the back seats and trunk space. No one would buy it because it’s not fast enough to be considered a performance car, and not practical enough for the average family.

William Byrd > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 04/21/2015 at 13:39

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You just described a Miata.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 13:51

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Then why would you want an R8 based off the GTI?

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 13:53

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Designers can draw whatever fancy shape they want for a car. The expense comes in when that design gets engineered into a body that meets FMVSS , cost requirements, manufacturing requirements and the million other requirements that it must meet. Simply stamping a relatively simple looking piece of sheet metal is an insanely complex engineering problem. The curvier or swoopier you make the stamping the more costly it is to engineer the stamping dies and the stamping process.

The LFA can look the way it does because of its carbon fiber construction. To make the same thing out of sheet metal would require a lot of complex stampings that you then need to assemble into a car. This means either having a ton of seams on the front which will look like crap or having to weld/braze all these panels together which is time and labor intensive and therefore very expensive.

William Byrd > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 04/21/2015 at 13:54

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Because it’s an exotic looking car that costs $25K and is still fun to drive (did you miss the original point of the article?) haha

My point in saying you described a Miata is that people buy Miatas. Yes, the Solstice and Sky were relative failures, but I blame GM vs. the concept.

William Byrd > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 04/21/2015 at 13:55

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Good reply. Come on 3-D printing!

Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 14:03

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One can only hope.

Or they will realize that I’m a marketing genius and hire me to save Scion! ;)

Milky > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 14:04

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Honestly I don’t think thats a good example because they aren’t that dissimilar, just visually speaking.

IMHO cars like C7 and Boxster are what you’re talking, they have dramatic shapes compared to normal cars. Its just that they aren’t as cheap as you want. When you sell a car for $25k (read: FRS, Mustang & Camaro) you make less per car …. so to sell more you need broader appeal. Thats why a Mustang will always look like a Mustang.

Also if this whole post is just about how you want a LFA’d FRS ….

William Byrd > Milky 04/21/2015 at 14:11

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Perhaps, but one sold for 12X as much as the other. As shallow as (some) supercar buyers are, they weren’t purchased solely for the V10 and insane performance and engineering. They were sold because of how they looked as well. Agreed on the similarities, but an LF-A still looks more “special” than an FRS, not just to us crazies on Oppo, but I would imagine to the general populace.

And the LFA’d FRS doesn’t quite hit the mark. haha Good find though.

I actually got thinking about Mustangs. I’m a Mustang guy after all. What if Ford had made a Mustang that looked exactly like an Aston Martin (heck they’re close with the Fusion and by association, the new Mustang)? Would the shape of an Aston Martin on top of all the internals and chassis of a Mustang all of a sudden make it a $200K car?

MultiplaOrgasms > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 14:39

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Question: What is good design?

Answer: You can’t really define good design. Good design can have many faces. Good design is not limited to simply the drama and excitement of a Supercar, or even good looks. It does not have to expensive either.

Case in point: The original Fiat Panda.

It is the antithesis of a supercar. It is cheap, slow, short, narrow and tall. It isn’t agressive, it isn’t dramatic and it most definetely isn’t pretty. It is design at its most bare-bones, most minimalist, it is design stripped of the design. But exactly in this absence of design lies its greatness. The design has been reduced to pure functionality, to pure utilitarianism. The entire function of the design is to be as cheap, basic, utilitarian and unpretentious as a car can get. It was a spiritual successor to the legendary Citroen 2CV and Renault 4 or even the Ford Model T, all icons of automotive minimalism themselves. This is what made the Panda a great design. A great design everyone could afford. If you take a look at some affordable modern cars, you’ll see that most try to emulate the drama of a supercar, sometimes with disastrous results. The Panda did the opposite, and it became motoring icon. Sure, sports cars are fine in their own way, but ask yourself, do you think a Lamborghini Huracán will be remembered as a design icon in 30 years time?

A good looking design may last for a few years, but only a great design will be immortal.

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 14:42

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WELCOME TO MY WORLD.

I have long postulated that it is just as expensive to stamp UGLY out of a steel panel, or mold it out of SMC composite, as it is to stamp or mold GORGEOUS out of that same material.

Yes, sure, proportions and chassis hard points, crash regs and pedestrian-crash regs regulate some of that...

But there are cars on the market that should disqualify whomever designed them from being called designers...

And there is such a thing as timeless and beautiful design, proper proportion, beauty in simplicity of form, and other principles of GOOD DESIGN...

Yet the only cars that seem to adopt that knowledge are expensive ones, as if it is some sort of elitist cabal.

But there have been gorgeous cars that were affordable in the past, and there have been expensive cars in the past that could be replicated and paid homage to on an affordable platform... yet isn’t.

Jaguar XKE was gorgeous... it informed Nissan 240Z and Toyota 2000GT that were initially less expensive. Toyota 2000GT didn’t last long, so started to appreciate, but 240Z, and to a certain extent, 28oZX continued that affordable tradition.

Now 370Z is abysmally ugly, and has no excuse for being so. 350Z wasn’t as bad, but that is still damning with VERY faint praise.

FT86 triplets were supposedly designed with visual DNA from 2000GT, but apparently only the rear quarter window shape... because NOTHING ELSE on the FT86 triplets looks anywhere near as gorgeous as a 2000GT, which was a long-hood fastback hatch...

There is nothing inherently expensive about FD-3S RX7’s bodywork, other than it being on a low-ish production car, with a rare engine type, and now highly sought out since the original F&F movie. It isn’t CF, it isn’t even aluminum... just steel stamped into a very pleasing form, not all that dissimilar from it’s successor designs, NB Miata, and the old MX3 FWD compact coupe.

RX8 was not that good looking. NC Miata wasn’t either... ND isn’t as bad, but isn’t quite as classically good, either.

Such impractical cars as sports cars, coupes or convertibles, have no excuse, and no reason NOT to be stone-cold GORGEOUS... and without it, they tend to fall flat on sales, in favor of something more practical.

If it isn’t going to be gorgeous, why not get something that isn’t under-powered, and isn’t too small to be more practically versatile and useful? Performance is one thing, but there is nothing that says performance shouldn’t be clad in beauty, rather than clothed in something much more mundane, or even ugly.

Milky > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 14:44

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Of course it wouldn’t cost $200k, but then it also wouldn’t look like a mustang and 95% of the fanboys would cry.

William Byrd > MultiplaOrgasms 04/21/2015 at 14:45

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Great point. The holistic aspect of my car-guy-ness agrees with everything you said about the Panda. Agreed that design, good design is not limited to supercars.

In the context of this article, I would term a “great” design as something like that Miura, or the original GT40, that has endured as an iconic shape and laid the groundwork for modern supercars. A “good” design IMO is something that elicits some sort of emotional response (in a positive way) but may very well be a bit derivative of something that came before it.

William Byrd > Milky 04/21/2015 at 14:48

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Ah, sorry I didn’t mean that it was actually a Mustang. I meant if Ford had built a car, call it whatever you want, that looked like an Aston Martin, but was built around a Mustang, would that vehicle cost $200,000? This is perhaps an even better argument that good design shouldn’t cost as much as it does. Would a change in sheetmetal to something swoopier, but 0 other changes (in internals, materials, etc.) result in a $170,000 increase in sticker price?

MultiplaOrgasms > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 14:54

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I believe that good design is something that people will remember after years, even if it might be for all the wrong reasons. (see Username)

William Byrd > MultiplaOrgasms 04/21/2015 at 14:56

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haha good example. Maybe notorious is better.

Sweet Trav > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 14:59

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First the car OEM’s are here to make a profit. They don’t care about you. Listen again… THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU. Why should they? You cannot afford a high performance car, a car they make money on. Do you know how poor the profit margins are on small non-performance coupes? Why do you think they don’t really exist any longer? They are niche market cars. To create a niche car it must be profitable e.g. expensive, or the Miata which carved out a niche almost 30 years ago. Look at how hard it is to get a niche vehicle to succeed, to see this we need to look no further than the flop that is the FRS/BRZ, it isn’t selling poorly because of the styling, its selling poorly because compared to the WRX for almost the same price it’s half the car. It has two less doors and it is slower. It is less practical and offers less to the consumer, when you aren’t driving like a lunatic.

You fail to realize that materials ARE a function of safety… have you ever seen what happens to carbon fiber in a wreck? It dissipates energy at a huge rate. Steel? Not so much. The same goes for mass production parts like fascia’s and tail lights, the mass production materials have different qualities that either limit what you can do from a safety standpoint or what you can do from a design standpoint. You simply would not believe the amount of federal regulations that exist for a fucking tail light, let alone a CHMSL.

There are economics at play that you simply do not comprehend. This is like a brain surgeon explaining why they can’t just cut a little bit into your brain and make you a math genius.

Here’s the long and veiny of it. The Automakers do not care about young enthusiasts. They have no reason to either. If you’re a corporation, and your only goal is to make more money, Why waste the time and resources on a 27k coupe with crappy margins when you can build a FWD based CUV off of you small car platform and sell it at a huge margin. And trust me they really care about margin, have you ever spent three hours negotiating over .037 cents per part? They really REALLY care about wringing every fraction of a penny of margin out of every vehicle.

If you’re salty that the automakers don’t build something you want, at a price you can afford… buy used or get a better job. Either way, stop complaining. The automakers do not care. I do not care. Consider this an education, Son.

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > Gripevo1 04/21/2015 at 15:01

1

I posit that since the 1990s, a truly grand-slam home run sport coupe has not been tried.

BRZ/FRS are not loss leaders, they are failing to meet expectations, because they were under-delivered, on power, styling, and versatility. Lack of versatility can be forgiven in a car that is powerful enough not to need ANY excuses, and so gorgeous that every owner MUST walk away from their car backwards, because they can’t take their eyes off of it.

370Z is not a dud because it is a horrible car.... it is an UGLY car, both objectively, and in reference to it’s lineage... and the V6 is rough and long-in-the-tooth.

Genesis Coupe is not great looking. Veloster is down-right-damned-UGLY.

Kia Forte Koup is boring. It could be spiced up, especially with a 270hp Turbo I4, AWD, manual, and a lift back hatch... or if it were replaced by the GT4 Stinger concept.

Challenger and Camaro are all style, but also RETRO to Grandpa’s glory days in the late 1960s... and similarly muscle-car-massive.

Caddy ELR is a GORGEOUS form, but is eco-warrior electric, not a performance car, and certainly not ‘affordable’.

BRZ/FR-S/GT86 should have been a new MR2 instead, and left Subaru free to build a new WRX Coupe with AWD... but it wasn’t. It is not gorgeous, certainly not enough to overcome such a huge lack of practicality and power, specifically torque. Too many excuses need to be made, similar to the excuses that W30 MR2 Spyder needed. Too little power, roughly ZERO practicality... and not good looking enough to make you forget those downfalls.

Ford Mustang might be as close as we’ve seen... and I would suggest that 2015 Mustang is a solid triple... but not quite a home run, mostly due to size and weight, and the styling being a bit too close to Fusion and other Ford products causing some dissent. I don’t personally have too much problem with the styling, just the mass, and the lack of a rear hatch. And Ford offers NO other coupes anymore, not even a Focus RS with less than four side doors.

If there WERE a car that truly were a grand slam home run, in terms of styling, power, handling performance, and value per dollar, and under 40K when new and well-enough optioned... it would do WELL, and not be a loss leader, nor need excuses.

Pronouncing the premise as a failure, without a proper example of objectively good execution is an incorrect conclusion.

The premise of an affordable sport coupe or sports car is a solid one... the execution of the current and recent past examples is the problem.

yamahog > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 15:06

2

I’m not really sure exactly what you’re asking. Is it “why don’t cheap cars look better?” or “why don’t they just crudely graft the looks of their top-of-the-line cars onto cheaper cars?”

Hint: when a question begins with “why don’t they just ...” as if it’d be sooo easy and no one wants to make money, there are typically many reasons why it’s actually not easy/profitable/desirable.

Also, what do you mean by “mainstream?” A mass-produced enthusiast car like a Miata or a mass-produced everyday family sedan like a Taurus or Impala being morphed into a GT or Corvette?

nerd_racing > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 15:08

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You keep mentioning the LFA like it is a thing of beauty. It isn’t really when you compare it to other exotic cars.

nerd_racing > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 15:16

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You don’t just “fit” a body onto a car anymore. It’s not like body on frame days. You need layers upon layers of custom sheet metal that is integrated into the very platform of the car itself. Once the car companies have a model produced, they don’t do much to change the metal work because the stamping dies already exist. They make their model refreshes in injection molded plastic bits because they have a design life in the tools and are less capital to recreate.

William Byrd > Sweet Trav 04/21/2015 at 15:17

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Great reply, if a bit testy. This was what I was hoping to get out this article.

But I’m 38 sonny (with a Masters and a 6-figure income, which is only relevant since you decided to accuse me of whining about things I can’t afford) and while I always enjoy learning new things on the internet, all you have done is explain why automakers are conservative. You are reiterating basic facts about which cars sell more. CUVs sell more? No kidding. That was never my point, nor my question for Oppo. VW built a Veyron. Did it help them sell Golfs? Did they make a lot of money out of it? As Patrick wrote, No. The answer to Why on earth did an automaker who hopes to be #1 bother with building something like that?

Consider this one. If Ford was still in possession of Aston Martin and they stole borrowed a full design for a DB9 and built it sitting atop a Mustang chassis. Same fascia. Same taillights. Same CHMSL. And it’s not made of carbon fiber, because it doesn’t need to be. It’s made of the same damn thing a Mustang is. Saying that CF absorbs energy better is yet another “no shit” point that doesn’t really impact the topic.

Are you saying it would fail? Are you saying it would still cost $200,000? Personally I don’t think either of those things are true. Sounds like a Corvette competitor to me.

nerd_racing > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 15:21

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The fusion looks exactly nothing like an Aston, about as much as the FRS looks like an LFA, and yes if they ran a mustang with sheet metal to look like an aston coupe it sure as heck would cost at least $40k for the base model. It would also be limited run and cost more because a lot of people wouldn’t buy it. The ones who could afford it would rather pay a little more and get the exotic performance to go with the looks.

William Byrd > yamahog 04/21/2015 at 15:23

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True, but with CAD technology, the ability to modify a design you already invested a lot of time and energy in for a new application is much easier than it was 5-10 years ago. So, of course they won’t just “stick it on there” but rather adapt something they already have to something else they already have.

And as I argued debated with someone else, this isn’t as much about the economics of it, more of a question of why mass-produced cars are as pedestrian looking as they are. I gave several examples of “mainstream”, the FR-S to LF-A was a good one. Sure the Toyoburu isn’t selling as well as they had hoped, but what if it looked more interesting? Would it really have cost more to make it look more exotic? That’s the basic question.

William Byrd > nerd_racing 04/21/2015 at 15:26

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Yeah, totally different. (can’t upload or embed, so I’ll link to this GIS )

You are basically describing a Corvette competitor. $40K for a base model? Ok.

William Byrd > nerd_racing 04/21/2015 at 15:27

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It was just to illustrate a point, I agree. The FRS has a comparable wheelbase and is already front engined, RWD.

Sweet Trav > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 15:37

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First ford can’t steal anything from Aston, it’a all ford to begin with. Engine is just two duratecs melded together and the rear suspension is from the thunderbird.

second, this isn’t about a car with 420 hp. This is about a slow car that looks like a super car. Those don’t exist simply because of margin and return on investment. I’m sorry that your masters degree and money make you think you know better than all the engineers and leaders at all of the major car companies. Trust me if your thought was an original one, your phone would already be ringing off the hook. Believe it or not I used to believe in something very similar to this, that it doesn’t cost any more to build a good looking car than it does an ugly car, but the issue is that in reality... It actually does. Because if it didn’t they would have done it already. Engineer and even purchasing people aren’t stupid, they aren’t passionless. They want to build cool things but the reality of it is that on a global scale, which outside of full size trucks, everything is a global project, you are limited by things like cost, safety and regulations. Your concepts and ideas do not work with large companies, perhaps lotus or caterham could do something similar, but then as a car it would be non-competitive. You have to have a decent interior, you have to have Bluetooth and navigation to be competitive today even in the small car segments. You’re an outsider looking in, and I can understand how it looks, but trust me when I say, nothing is as easy is “well if they would just do “x” everything would be perfect” in the auto industry

nerd_racing > William Byrd 04/21/2015 at 15:44

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Design is expensive because it gives the impression that something is higher quality, and that impression sells.

Ok now put that fusion next to a Lancer, or an Audi with the similar shield grill. OMG FORD RIPPED THEM OFF TOO!

William Byrd > Sweet Trav 04/21/2015 at 15:45

3

Again, good reply, even if we disagree. (that seems to slowly be calming you down, lol)

That was a joke, obviously Ford owned the AM designs. But it was about a 420hp car in that example, I never limited the concept to just slow cars with fast bodywork, merely cited a couple of examples where that was the case. The more I argue debate with you about this, the more the AM on top of Mustang makes sense. Well, it doesn’t now since they sold the company, but the concept is sound. Would taking AM body work and putting it on top of a Mustang chassis, with Mustang interior, etc. be so difficult and expensive that it’s not possible? I know, possible vs. plausible vs. likely, I get that. You must be an econ major. :) You would end up with a pretty quick car for, let’s call it $60K that competes with the Corvette.

You are right, if it was easy, they would have done it (with no need to call me). I’m just curious how what I am describing would be as expensive as a V8 Vantage which has a...420hp V8 and costs $120,000.