"Zesty Styling"
This Dale Buss article from yesterday's WSJ could have come straight out of The Substance of Style:
DETROIT -- Automotive companies are caught in the tension between Americans' continuing thirst for speed and horsepower, and their nobler impulses toward better mileage and cleaner emissions. But there's no ambivalence about something else: Consumers relish vehicles that simply look sharp, making design itself the new rudder of the automotive marketplace.
The renewed preoccupation with design is understandable, given a little history. The '70s and '80s snuffed out the industry's bolder renderings, victims of safety and fuel-economy concerns. And auto makers spent the '90s essentially copying the unvariegated "jellybean" design of Ford's best-selling Taurus sedan. But global competition, the rise of the SUV and the digitization of the design process have combined to produce a profligate number of new vehicle types and models these days.
With quality and functional differences among products largely having narrowed over the past decade or so, eye-catching design can be decisive. "Both consumers and the car companies are ready to see more chances taken out there," says Chris Chapman, director of automotive design for DesignWorks USA, a unit of BMW. "People are kind of sick of the same old thing, and they're looking for something new."
Thanks to reader Lawrence Rhodes for sending this free link from the Opinion Journal site.