When I saw an old Citroen CX estate today, I thought it looked very odd, the narrow and high tail. The same with many older cars, they somehow look wrong with the larger glass area and skinny tyres.
Surely, bigger windows are better for the car, but my brain don't think so. Is my brain slowly and gradually changing what is the 'norm' for what a car should look like?
Since most cars around me on that day seemed to be SUV, I kind of felt more comfortable with that beefy look. So that's now becoming the new norm for what a car should look like. Damnd!
What is a pain in London with those tiny windows on an SUV is you can't see through that vehicle from an ordinary car when the SUV is parked right on a junction as they always seem to be round here. Making getting out of a side street more tricky. Might as well be a van from that point of view.
Now there's a thought: perhaps high-end autonomous cars will come equipped with a periscope. Or even better a high-speed drone so eg it can also tell when it's safe to overtake on a blind bend (an option that it is to be hoped could be disabled by ex-drivers who are unsure of their bladder/sphincter control).
To me, the arrow shaped bonnet on a CX looks 'wrong'. Pedestrian safety has forced manufacturers to have a beefier looking bonnet, and that seems to give smaller windows since they still start about bonnet height.
Ped impact has required a higher bonnet nose, so the ped rotates about a point above the knee. This means they measure out less of the bonnet and don't put their head though the windscreen. The ped also mustn't be impressed by the engine, which requires deformable plastic engine covers and a higher bonnet. That increases the height of the scuttle.
Thicker and taller doors are for side impact which is occupant safety cell test. Glass just shatters, metal door skins and pillars bend absorbing impact.
I really don't like cars that resemble WWII pillbox. Big ugly blocky things with slits for windows.
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A low waist line with large airy glass house was a very distinctive feature of the E8 BMW 3.0 CS/i/L. First time I saw one I just stood and gawked, it was a wondrous thing of beauty. Slender front and rear pillars, pillar-less coupe, chrome accent strip to make it look even lower and longer. Vivid green metallic paint, green tinted glass. Possibly the best looking saloon coupe in the world. We will never see the like ever again. The price tag is fully warranted, while so many modern cars should be crushed the day they leave the factory assembly track.
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In a proper car, most of the time you will looking at people's door handles.
What really gets on my t*ts is the increasing proportion of large, chunky vehicles that virtually fill standard parking slots. I don't doubt that the owners get better safety from this, at the expense of convenience for the rest of us who don't feel the need to be so conspicuous. I would *really* like to see VED based on the literal footprint as well as the carbon footprint. (Also slightly pissed off at the £250 VED notice today for my tiny 1.3 petrol Carry van).
Now I loved my CX 8-seaters. OK 4.6 metres long, but significantly narrower than my current Jazz. (I have a narrow shared drive and I have to retract the Jazz mirrors, the CX had big mirrors but went straight through).
The vehicles have got wider and longer to meet the requirements of modern safety standards. A typical family car's doors are twice as thick as they used to be and front and rear crumple zones are required. Assuming a need for the same interior space for a family car (actually more is needed due to legal requirements for child seats), the car has to be bigger. The problem is that the size of parking spaces has not been adjusted to allow for this.
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