171–180 of 222 posts
Because it's dishonest. You also get all the discomfort and impracticality of a supercar with none of the benefits. You just project some status until people discover what car you're actually driving.
Somehow honesty does not seem the most salient characteristic of major car manufacturers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, this is the very practical definition of "tacky" design. It's when something visually promises something that it isn't in performance. Form and function are very much tied together and a car that looks like a Ferrari but feels like a civic would cause a negative cognitive dissonance
Something that's a bit more understated like a Maserati but driving like an average sedan would be mostly fine though.
In the documentary Objectified (recommended!), a BMW designer brings up the point that a car design should express what the car is . If there's a mismatch between the look, and how it feels to drive, it will be rejected by customers.
What would be fun is if manufacturers took more liberties with design. I loved my Scion xB because it was "ugly beautiful" and also very functional. I really like the new Civic: aggressive yet understated. More of this would be really nice.
A Scion minivan could easily be the VW microbus of our generation.
As far as models currently on sale go, I think the prize for the best-looking economy car easily goes to the Honda CR-Z [2]. Alas, as they say, its performance can't cover the checks its styling writes, which is probably why sales have been extremely poor. (You can get it with a performance package including a centrifugal supercharger, but then it's $30k.)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1994_MkII_MR2_nbvolks.jpg
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ferrari_F355_(8735086047)...
[2] http://images.hgmsites.net/hug/2015-honda-cr-z_100477517_h.j...
As other answers have essentially already said- because Ferrari is a brand, and past a certain price point brand names often matter more than the physical object. Its the same in cars as in designer handbags. The opposite question is equally interesting; why doesn't Ferrari produce a relatively cheap car, so that they can offer the Ferrari cachet to a broader market? Presumably as to not dilute their brand. But it me…
IIRC manufacturing numbers have gone back and forth on several lines of Ferrari more or less on this sort of need. While Enzo Ferrari was alive, Ferrari produced cars only to fund the racing team; it's probably not a coincidence that the most famous and best-selling Ferrari model ever, the Testarossa, was in production at a time when the team had no answer to the domination of Japanese turbo engines in F1. The team needed money to fight, and more and more Testarossa were made.
This said, Ferrari has been substantially bankrolled by FIAT "sight unseen" since the '60s. Things might change now that they are a public company. We'll see.
Growing up in the Detroit area where literally everyone works for the big 3 or a molding plant for them, I guess I could give a little more insight...
The answer is a lot simpler. Car companies have a pre-defined set of models. A lot of work and planning goes into new models. Part of that planning is a pre-determined quota of estimated cars sold during 6 months, 12, 24, etc. if they don't feel they can hit this rather large quota, the project is scrapped.
So..to answer the question: It's because cars are built to favor the mass general public, both visually and on price-point. People have so many different tastes that it turns out this task is rather quite hard. Ferraris are a niche product, even if they were sold for $20k the Impala would still outsell it by leaps and bound (assuming a Ferrari and Impala were both sold by chevy and that Ferrari didn't have a huge luxury reputation behind it).
It's simply to appeal to the masses to sell millions of cars.
I can offer an opinion not yet seen in this thread. It comes down to tolerances. My father works for GM as a tool and die maker. He says that GM is obsessed with tolerances in their panels. This means that the gap between the hood and front quarter panel is the same near the windshield as it is near the headlights. Same goes for all other areas of the car. It's hard to get right. If you start to get more complex desi…
As you reduce the purchase price, you need to increase volume to ensure profits. Similarly, you want to absolutely minimise construction cost to maximise said profit.
As you increase volume and minimise construction cost, you rapidly reduce the scope of possible manufacturing techniques. You narrow down to tried and true methods of fabrication and assembly. Now the parts must be readily handled by robots, reproducably accurate between the same parts, parts must be able to swap between mating parts without bespoke tailoring (ie: the opposite to Apple's vision system to pick the right set of parts to assemble together), it must reliably assemble and stay assembled, it must be easily and quickly maintainable by cheaper labour for aftermarket cost minimisation, it must perform well in the battery of safety tests yet not become structurally complex to pass them, it must be light to minimse raw material costs, etc. etc. Deviating from this essentially adds cost, and even a small additional cost adds significant burden due to volumes and small margins.
With all of those constraints in place, you then consider a middle-of-the-park design that isn't polarising in its appearance or function to maximise market share. Thus, you converge towards a relatively inoffensive sedan shape that Just Works for all parties and still satisfies that litany of constraints on the design, manufacture and maintenance.
Middle class cars don't look like a Ferrari because the Ferrari body and look enforces some decisions on the designers and the drivers of that car. No hauling around of crap for you. Even if you manage a child car seat, the kid will be screaming the entire time when it feels every hard bounce in the road. Your body is jarred as well. It's a sensitive car that requires an alert driver. Will you enjoy having that alertness day after day drive to work and back in congestion? Probably not... You want an easy driving car with a comfortable ride and room for crap. And voila you have a modern sedan.
Edit: voila and not viola. I've got orchestra on the brain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this still true nowadays with almost entirely automated manufacturing? If you look at modern car models, even the cheapest ones have way more "shapes at odd angles" than sports cars.
Nowhere near as much of automotive manufacturing is as automated as people think. Fitting panels etc is often a robot assisted job but not 100% machine. During production trials for new cars ALOT of time is spent trying to get the panels to fit together correctly, even getting the doors to seal correctly and be water proof isn't a given to begin with.
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