Time, for better or worse comes for us all. Our bodies age and no longer function as well as they used to. Not much can be done to reverse the internal degradation, but external adjustments can help delay the inevitable. I’ve been prescribed reading glasses for a couple of years now, but stubbornly refuse to wear them, because I’m president of the vain goths club. The technology to upload my brain into the synthetic body of my dreams hasn’t been invented yet, so I’ll either have to put up with this shit state of affairs or start looking at package holidays to somewhere hot and with a lax attitude to cosmetic surgery.
The humble automobile is not immune to cosmetic improvements either. It’s not only the surface that gets tweaked and updated throughout a model’s lifetime. Constant improvements under the skin take place pretty much as soon as a new model is being stamped out on the production line. It’s not a new thing that Tesla invented. OEMs have been carrying out rolling upgrades for decades. Grab an old car magazine and read any road test from decades back and somewhere in the copy there will be a list of tweaks that have been made to justify the testing of the latest model. Incremental improvements happen because cars are so complicated even with massive development programs and thousands of test miles, it’s not possible to get everything perfect for launch. Building cars by the thousand in three shifts is a more complicated endeavor than hand assembling pilot builds, so ramp up snafus are common. Chimp fisted customers who could break an anvil subject their vehicles to the types of abuse development drivers have nightmares about, so they expose weaknesses and failure points that might need remedial fixes. Or dealers might complain about the lack of a third shade of silver being available, so can the product mix and paint selection be altered please? All this is a long winded way of saying you shouldn’t buy a car in the first year of production.
Despite these incremental quality of life updates, every so often a more substantial overhaul is required. The shelf life of a model in a manufacturers range is usually about seven to eight years, although it can be a lot longer or a lot shorter. Anything on sale for that amount of time is going to require some nips and tucks somewhere along the line. They normally happen after about four years or so on sale, but the scope of a facelift, or to use a wanky designer term ‘mid-cycle refresh’ varies significantly according to circumstance and business necessity.
They’re Not Done For Cynical Reasons
Rampant advances in consumer technology over the last couple of decades has led to unrealistic expectations of what it is possible to update in a car: infotainment systems for instance have to be automotive rated (like flight rated but not quite such a high standard) and take years to develop. They have to work in extremes conditions and cost millions of dollars that has to be amortized. This is why these systems lag behind the phone in your pocket. Unlike your phone though, they shouldn’t crap out when subjected to Arizona heat or sub-Alaskan cold. It’s not just digital features – sometimes regulation can force change. When I was at Land Rover one particular model was stuck in mid-cycle refresh purgatory for years because there wasn’t the space anywhere to put the battery pack for a plug-in hybrid version, which was needed to avoid the swinging EU fines for going over allowed emissions limits. Eventually the facelifted model did hit the market, but there’s still no plug-in version available, and won’t be until an all new model on a more flexible platform is released.
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Facelifts don’t happen for cynical reasons. Once on sale, a car takes two to three years to pay back its design, development and investment costs and start turning a profit. So a long shelf life is an economic necessity in the auto business where the margins are tight. It amuses me when people throw around terms like planned obsolescence when General Motors used to update sheet metal every year with the sole purpose of encouraging customers to buy new cars. That was relatively easy to do when everything was body on frame, but by the time the Japanese turned up with properly built cars in the seventies, bolting new sheet metal on an old frame every year was no longer sustainable. Thanks to the advance of digital tools in the studio, the way cars are constructed and the sheer amount of stuff that has to be packed into them, everything is much more integrated now. It all fits together like an intricate three dimensional jigsaw, so the scope for big appearance changes is much more limited.
In putting together this article, with a little help from my nemesis The Bishop I came up with a list of facelifted cars, and then made a note of whether I considered them bad or good. It would be arrogant of me to say that the original version of a car is always best because it’s closest to the designer’s intent, but there was far more dross than delight. That being said, something I’ve talked about before is that car development and production is planned out years in advance and the timescales for the most part are immovable, so sometimes the design studio has to put down their pens and stop pissing about. You have to go with what you’ve got, knowing you can attempt to fix it come facelift time. The best way to discuss this is to have a look at some successful and not-so successful facelifts and see what we think.
Alfa Romeo Spider
The Alfa Spider had been on sale since 1966 and had three substantial make overs before it underwent the knife one final time in 1990. The overall sales figures were not that great, but after 24 years on sale it was probably all gravy. A new, front wheel drive model was on the slate for 1994, but what probably forced Alfa Romeo into keeping the original on sale for a few more years was the arrival of the Miata in 1990.
The original Duetto Spider was clearly a product of the 1960s. The discipline of car design had advanced out of all recognition by 1990, and the final Spider demonstrates the difficulty of upgrading such an old car. Lengthening and reducing the height of the tail reintroduces some of the elegance of the boat-tail original, painting the bumpers body color makes them look more integrated and of the nineties. I don’t think it’s without its charm though. There’s something quite endearing about the ham-fistedness of this fourth generation car that works better than the black plastic tat adorning the third generation model it replaced.
Verdict: Might not get you into bed with Mrs. Robinson, but still likable.
Jaguar F-Type
One of the best looking cars of recent memory came from my old friends at Gaydon – the Jaguar F-Type. Jaguar had long wanted to replace the E-Type, and after several false starts and cancelled projects the F-Type finally emerged in 2014. As perfect a design as has ever emerged from a design studio, it looked every inch the modern fast cat. The problem was Jaguar didn’t really know what they wanted the F-Type to be: it was oddly positioned in the market against the 911 but without the benefit of +2 rear seats.
Jaguar cocked about with different powertrains and various not-so-special editions, but the worst crime was neutering the F-Type’s looks come facelift time in 2019. Gone were the sensational headlights and in came a boring family look. What was once an individual looking sports car now had a bland front like the rest of the Jaguar range, and no one was buying those cars, either.
Verdict: The E-Type got worse as it got older as well.
Dodge Challenger
I’ve made no attempt to hide my love for the Dodge Challenger. When it entered production in 2008 the surfacing and proportions were clean and modern, leaving the quad headlights and full width taillights to hit the retro pleasure center. An energy drink sugar rush of nostalgia based on a butchered LX platform with a ton of Mercedes bits, the interior was greyer and more depressing than a wet Monday in Gary, Indiana, but it didn’t matter. Shrewd marketing and an all things to all customers model line up ensured it sold and sold.
Realizing they had a money printing machine on their hands, Chrysler didn’t facelift the Challenger until 2015, a full seven years after it went on sale. Industry convention says they should have been readying a replacement, but not wanting to spoil a good thing Chrysler wisely brought the old horse right up to date. There was an improved dashboard and interior with better materials, and the front and rear graphics came into line with prevailing fashions with halo quad lights up front and racetrack taillights out back.
The center section of the grill was made more aggressive (yes I realize not all the new models got the aggressive grill but trying to parse which versions had what was too tedious), and Dodge cunningly kept bolting in more and more powerful V8s, as well as releasing a series of shameless throwback special editions. It worked brilliantly, giving the Challenger another seven years of life and incredibly, an increase in sales.
Verdict: Rare example of the facelift improving the original car.
XJ Jeep Cherokee
Another Chrysler legend with an extremely long shelf life, by the mid-nineties the XJ Cherokee was very much looking its age after 13 years on sale with no major updates. Jeep gave the old stager a thorough going over inside and out, tidying up the side moldings, sprucing up the interior with a new dashboard, and bolting on a softer, more aerodynamic nose. It was still very much the Cherokee everybody knew and loved, just subtly tweaked and made a bit more cohesive for the nineties.
These changes enabled the XJ to remain on sale for another four years until it was not really replaced at all by the ghastly KJ Liberty (which bizarrely was still called the Cherokee in Europe).
Verdict: An earlier Chrysler product where the facelift was arguably better than the first version. Mopar seems to have a bit of a knack for this.
Chevrolet Camaro SS (6th Gen)
Going back to muscle cars, the General has plenty of clangers in the cupboard they like to drop every now and then, and they did just that when in 2019 they facelifted the Camaro. Opening up the somewhat squinty and squashed graphic of the 2016 sixth generation car, for the SS trim level Chevrolet weirdly moved the bow tie emblem from the grill to a black cross bar running between body elements jutting into the front fascia from the fenders.
This redesign was met with howls of derision from pretty much everyone with eyes, so Chevrolet was forced to emergency facelift the car just one year later after showing a better version at SEMA. Again, it’s a redesign that’s so successful it’s arguably what should have been released in the first place, which makes me wonder if it was an alternate proposal that was initially rejected.
Verdict: They got it right eventually, although the non-SS versions were fine. Typical GM.
Chevrolet Camaro (4th Gen)
Sticking with the Camaro, what happened to the fourth generation car? When it appeared in 1993 it was a swoopy, organic update of the themes that had appeared on the seminal third generation in 1982. The laid back windscreen, wrap-over rear windshield and blacked out quad headlight openings were all slicked off and smoothed out ready for the nineties.
Six years later that classic down the road graphic was binned for a blobby, anonymous front clip that looked more like a Chrysler 300M than a snarling muscle car. What’s worse is this was the Camaro GM finally decided to sell in Europe, in one of their half-assed export adventures. Yep, we finally got the Camaro officially and they sent us the ugly one. Good old GM.
Verdict. Jesus throw it back into the ocean!
Ford Cortina
We’ve looked at long life facelifts, good and bad facelifts, and the emergency facelift. We could do this all day, but let’s wrap up with the expedient facelift – done to keep a car in production for a few more years because the replacement isn’t ready and you need to wring a few more years of sales out of the existing car. A while back I wrote about the Ford Sierra and what a seismic shock it was not just for the market but for car design in general. The problem for Ford at the time was they were chasing their tails trying to figure out how to replace the UK’s favorite three box sedan of the seventies, the Cortina (Taunus in Germany). Market research told them by the beginning of the go-go eighties, customers would become more discerning and design literate, so Ford was going to have to come up with something sensational.
Realizing at the time existing proposals were not it, Bob Lutz cancelled the program and ordered a restart. This would kick the Sierra replacement a couple of years further down the road, so he instigated an emergency facelift of the existing TC2 Mk IV Cortina to become the TC3 Mk V Cortina, enabling it to remain on sale for a further three years, giving Ford breathing space to develop the Sierra.
Although the two cars appear superficially similar, side by side they share almost nothing externally. Even the roof was flattened out to be more aerodynamic. The TC3 gained wrap around indicators and the slatted aero grill to bring it into line with newer Fords, and the taillights were extended and gained a sawtooth surface treatment. Coupled with the usual Ford trick of trowelling on the features and trim and doing basically nothing to the mechanicals, this design sleight of hand worked to the extent that early in 1982 customers preferred the Cortina over its replacement.
Verdict: Good but conservative and demonstrated why the Sierra was such a shock.
These days facelifts usually amount to new lights and new bumpers, as these are relatively straightforward to do without expensive changes to the sheet metal. Although lights are probably the second most expensive part of a car to tool up for after the body in white, given the importance OEMs place on the down the road graphic and the rapid advances in lighting technology, changing them is a reasonably cost effective way of giving an existing model a glow up.
Remember what I said about facelifts also giving you the chance to fix in post something you couldn’t get right for launch? If you’re ever stuck in traffic behind a Discovery 5, the pre-facelift version has tiny brake lights because they couldn’t be integrated into the main lit element in time. So that was a quick bodge to get them out of jail and made sure the car wasn’t delayed. Come facelift time this was sorted, but they didn’t take the opportunity to change the most controversial part of the car, that stupid off center license plate.
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Regarding the latest batch of Ford-rebadged industrial VAG products (Caddy, but most specially, latest Transitporter) I think another good design topic to talk about would be how hard it is to successfully transfer brand DNA in rebadges, specially in industrial vehicles… this, plus why is still a thing to churn out those press sketches of orthographic fronts or sides going from Mk1 to Mk whatever of an storied model name -in order to reassure the DNA traits have been carried on through all of the generations…-
The Ford media pages have a series of those sketches for the new Capri, showing how it might have looked had it stayed in production after 1986. They are complete and utter bobbins.
In another life I was fortunate to own an M3, a few Porsche’s a couple of E55’s, a C63, an E63 and even a C43 – They were all great! Things change (thanks GFC) and now I have a Catfish Z28. I friggin love it! It’s an old school, two door, making 350hp (the only place they ever made 310hp was in the catalogue) from the LS1 – a massive improvement over the old LT1 – and they’re inexpensive, even here in NZ. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess. They’re interesting and few people know what it is, at least here. No one ever stopped me to talk about my Z3 M…
Fried Egg Porsche 911 ranks up there among bad decisions.
I quite like them. Prefer an original 996 over the facelift.
As the former owner of a 2013 Civic Si that’s one of my favorite examples of an emergency facelift. There was an article about it here I believe…
Anyway great article – this isn’t a car I’m terribly familiar with as an American but I think that facelifted Cortina looks fantastic and is far better than its predecessor.
Ford’s smoothing out of the hood (bonnet) on the 2018 S550 Mustang was a subtle but excellent change. So much easier to see over.
Ford added turn indicators on the GT model’s hood vents in 2017, but thanks to the center spine, most drivers couldn’t see the passenger side indicator. Always seemed like a waste of a cool retro feature.
The hood vent turn signal indicator was definitely not introduced on S550 for 2017 as the 2016 GT I had previously also had them.
Oops! Wrong year.
Memory bad.
With boggo economy hatchbacks, the french had a couple of good ones in the 90s or so.
Peugeot 306 nailed the refresh from an already decent base. Second gen Renault Clio became smart looking post update, the original looked like a postbox
I may be in the minority and maybe it’s because the facelifted Camaro came out just as I was hitting my full stride as a young high school aged car enthusiast but I’ve never liked the early 4th gen with the square headlights-the catfish Camaro with the new LS1 v8 and bigger wheels was a pretty hot car for the money when it came out. Though your point about the anonymity is totally fair and I don’t think I’d be caught dead in one now even though they remain a straight line performance bargain.
I’d add another Chrylser life extender face lift that imo was more extensive and even more successful than the Challenger: the 2nd generation Charger is sleeker, more aggressive, and to my eyes closer to the original concept car than its initial iteration which I always found a bit cartoony and clunky looking.
I’ve always liked the early 4th gen camaro, but hated the firebird, then my choice flipped when they redid them both, the catfish I can’t stand but really like the new firebird, especially in trans am guise
T/A 30th Anniversary edition is the best one – those blue wheels and the white/blue was just perfect
Prefer the original first generation T/A. Nothing usually beats the first offering.
But the 30th anniversary ones were a fun diversion at the time. YMMV?
I meant in regards to the 4th Gen T/As given that’s what the comment I replied to was talking about.
understood. no problemo.
just expressing an 8nsolicited pov. my bad.
Twas such a pretty car indeed
Pity they’re getting harder to find, least round me
Always enjoy Adrian’s articles, especially with the industry insight he provides. I considered entering industrial design when I was younger, but instead chose to design buildings instead. Probably for the best, since I still love car design and I think if it were my job I might not!
Some facelifts are really interesting. One that I recently noticed was totally odd is the Porsche 958.1 to 958.2 facelift, specifically because despite the fact that it looks very similar between designs, Porsche completely change the hood (bonnet) and front fenders from an inset design to a clamshell, and they also redid the taillights into a slimmer design which required redoing the liftgate metal. I only noticed this because I was trying to determine if it were possible to swap the newer LED lights from the 958.2 into the 958.1 (answer is no).
Another facelift that comes to mind is Audi’s B8 A4/A5 to the B8.5 Facelifted models. When the facelift came out I hated the change to the headlights because the original versions had that distinctive individual LED light pattern in them. But I eventually came to like the facelift more and even bought a B8.5 A4 and now see the original models as outdated. But I will say the original B8 A5 is still my favorite coupe design from Audi (aside from of course the OG Quattro).
I agree about the B8 to B8.5 refresh but I also think that B5.5 was perfection and its been downhill from there. 20+ years later and the B5.5 still looks good due to the old Audi understated design language.
Pre-facelift F-type right before they brought out the wish.com Audi headlights is peak F-Type. Especially the SVR.
The 4th Gen Camaro went from looking like the product of the early 90’s, to looking like a product of the early 2000’s. It’s sister, the Firebird, was just fucking nuts in comparison.
Great deep dive as usual, Adrian. I’d love to see a similar one on the value engineering trade-offs made over a production run. I think most people assume it’s blind “cost cutting,” but I’d bet it’s more “matching the market.”
David recently alluded to it when comparing his generationally-bookended i3s. I’ve got Outbacks in a similar relationship and it’s interesting to see the details that were actually better in the old one (thicker floor mats, dampened spring returns), but then cut, with new some new functions introduced.
This is not uncommon to take cost out of a car as it gets older.
“greyer and more depressing than a wet Monday in Gary, Indiana”
I’ve had the unfortunate experience of actually being in Gary, Indiana on a wet Monday. It’s depressing. Like, makes the dystopian world of Robocop’s dystopian Detroit look like a sunny day at Disneyland kind of depressing.
On a cheerier note, I’ve always appreciated the final facelift of the Cortina/Taunus. It strikes me as a very nice distillation of tasteful European styling. Simple and clean without going overboard really anywhere; just a pretty little car.
Gary sucks so bad even the Terminator won’t go there. Always try to avoid when in the area.
Candidate for worst facelift ever: 1958 Chevy Truck. The ’55-57 is fantastic! Then the ’58-59 is a turd. I mean, the ’58 and ’59 are still classic looking, but they lost all sense of cool.
A 1958 anything from GM wins my vote for ugly model year facelift.
Harley Earl had lost his touch by then is why. Car design had moved on and left him behind. All the ’59s we redone in his absence before he retired.
The ’60 Chevy truck still isn’t loved by the masses. Most people hate the ’60-’62 more than they hate the ’58 and ’59. Heck, even the ’63-’66 isn’t well loved even though the new hood did amazing things improving it over the ’60-’62.
I say this as a ’65 owner.
But if you ask me, ’63 is the sweet spot. You get the kneeknocker windshield which looks great, but you get the far more common front suspension design that underpinned GM trucks for decades, with the trailing arm rear that’s simple as hell and lasted for two generations.
They weren’t too bad considering what ford and chrysler whipped out for 58-59.
I’ll agree some of gm’s stuff was a bit much to outright awful like the 58 buick limited, or the dare be said 59 cadillacs.
I always thought the 1958 Thunderbird looked liked an open mouthed catfish.
Yeah, the 58-60 bird was uhh, interesting to look at for sure, and the rear end didn’t do any favors either.
That being said, the last packard coupes based on the studebaker hawks were uhhh, definitely a fish smoking 2 cigars, lol
You’re right, Dodge/Jeep/Ram/Chrysler has a knack for generally improving already good (or decent) designs with facelifts. That being said, the Pacific facelift was incredibly disappointing. The updated one isn’t bad, but its not nearly as cohesive as the pre-facelifted version.
The other standout exception is the WK2 Grand Cherokee. It started off great, then the ’14 update added awesome headlights but the grille insert looked funny, especially where it went under the headlights. And then they totally redeemed themselves with the ’17 update.
When I was studying engineering my professor said that facelifts happen because body panel stamping press tools get worn out so if they are changing the tooling they might as well update the looks.
I think this is a bit of a myth. I’ve not come across any evidence to support this.
That jag looked so much better after the redesign I’m wondering if your hazelnut coffee mate is counterfeit.
You can go off people you know.
The off center license plate of the Discovery is fantastic, I’ll die on this hill.
I’ll never understand why this particular generation got so criticized for it. An off center plate has been a design hallmark of the Discovery for every single generation. Why is it suddenly a mistake?
I think it’s a nice homage and works well with the overall (very handsome and well-aging) design.
iIt’s dishonest. Previous generations had it becuse of the split tailgate, which Discovery 5 doesn’t have.
Yup exactly. And previous Discos had the spare wheel on the outside which necessitated the off centre plate. On the Disco 5 that feature is just unnecessary.
Tale was that it was McGovern that personally drove that artifact to attempt to tie it back to the offset wheel-on-hatch and split rear of old LR models.
I think it’s more akin to a tumour.
Yes it was absolutely done at Gerry’s insistence, which is surprising because he’s not one for heritage. And that’s also why it wasn’t changed at the facelift.
Wasn’t it done more for the spare tire carrier on the Disco 1 and 2? The 3 and 4 had it, but didn’t have a rear spare tire carrier. I still think the staggered design on my LR4 looks sharp.
The 5 just looks stupid.
Yes, and then on the 3 & 4 it gave you a lower opening to reach into if you just opened the glass.
Yeah I hate it. It’s not off center enough if that’s was the nod. It just looks like a mistake. And as Adrian notes, it was there because of the split tailgate. It’s like non-functioning shutters on windows adorning 1990s McMansions. It’s all inauthentic pastiche.
I’ve never been a fan of the original F-Type; the facelift is much better. These cars with the long headlights flowing up the hood…it doesn’t work for me.
Now it’s time to explore the truly bizarre South American versions of old US-built platforms, like the Brazilian (?) Ford Falcon that survived into the 1980s.
Brazil recycled most of its line-up from Europe (American cars were generally perceived as too big)
The Falcon was Argentinian, and yeah, it”s jarring to see elements from the 1980s such as composite headlights on that fundamentally ’60s first-gen body.
Argentina also kept the Ford Taunus longer than Europe. And when they were done with it the assembly line moved to Turkey (minus the coupé version).
In many ways, the Challenger exemplifies the biggest weaknesses of Chrysler/FCA/Stellantis/whatever they end up calling it in few years- no long term thinking. Every move is putting out one fire after another and then one of their hamfisted ideas works, but they lack the resolve to use that momentum to do something actually good.
Case in point, the amount of carbon credits Chrysler had to purchase to keep shoving ever-larger V8s into the challenger/charger basically floated Tesla for that unprofitable stretch just long enough for Tesla to wreck the haggard muscle car on the drag strip and in sales. Piss poor design if one understands that design is about strategic thinking and decision making, not vapid surface titillation
On the other hand, they knocked it out of the park the first time.
That’s more on product planning than design. If it wasn’t for the regulation they’d probably still be selling that Challenger today.
Eagerly awaiting the current gen Honda Accord’s facelift. Will Honda improve its sleep inducing front end, make it look even more depressing, or slap it with the same ugly stick that ruined the Civic?