Welcome to Damn Good Design. In this regular series I’ll be cocking a raised eyebrow and flapping my big fat smart mouth at those cars that get fawning prose in glossy coffee table books and those that don’t. We’ll be looking at the bona-fide classics, as well as the overlooked, the underestimated, the misunderstood, the pedestrian and the downright weird. We’ll skewer a few sacred cows and celebrate some utter dross. Nothing is sacred and no car is safe. If has something interesting to offer the history of car design, we’ll discuss it here.
There are three words that were I to have a soul, would be guaranteed to strike fear into the very core of it: A Bold Reimagining. My creative brain immediately translates this as ‘standby for something beloved to be fucked up for the sake of it, in the misguided name of progression because we’re all out of better ideas’. When Matt and I went to see As You Like It by one William “Bill” Shakespeare, it was described as a “bold reimagining.” It didn’t totally work for Matt (theatre is in his blood, darling. I was just trying to keep up) but as works of art plays are perfect for this sort of treatment because they’re often an allegory for the human condition, so are ripe for reinterpretation to reflect contemporary concerns and issues. Operas and classical music subtly change depending on who the performers are. Modern art changes meaning according to the person viewing it. Johnny Cash’s version of Hurt was so different to the original and so successful Trent Reznor was moved to say “it’s Johnny’s song now.”
With design it’s a bit different. Design is a rational, structured process meant to serve a specific brief or purpose – it’s not meant to be interpreted or have meaning placed upon it. Does it have an artistic element? Of course. Good design should aim to be aesthetically pleasing if it’s relevant, especially if outcome that is selling cars. I’ve long said that if design is a scale with pure, function based industrial design at one end and fashion at the other, car design skews towards the latter, but it doesn’t neglect the requirements of building an actual working, sellable vehicle.
Like great art, great design should be timeless. Whether it’s through ideas, appearance, technology or a combination of these, it should transcend the constraints, context and times that created it to become something lasting. Attempting to remix the past for present consumption without understanding any of this is why so many retro car designs end up being superficial, corny or misguided. Which brings us neatly to the recently released Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale. But before I hands on hips power-piss in the direction of that car, let’s take a look at the original: the 1967 Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale, designed by Franco Scaglione, and widely considered one of the most beautiful cars of all time.
Scaglione’s academic background was aeronautical engineering, but he was much more an artist than engineer. After the war ended he initially found lucrative work sketching for Italian fashion houses, but his real passion was for cars. He cast around looking for work in the carrozzeria surrounding Turin, eventually ending up at Bertone, where he combined his understanding of aerodynamics and eye for a sculpted form in the Alfa Romeo BAT (Berlina Aerodinamica Tecnica) concept cars of 1953 – 55. These were commissioned by Alfa themselves wanting to gain a greater understanding of the effects of drag on road cars.
By the early 1960s, Alfa Romeo was relatively flush with money after the successful introduction of the Tipo 101 Giulietta in 1954, the company’s first real mass-produced car. The Giuletta was successful in European Touring Car racing, but Alfa president Giuseppe Luraghi was thinking bigger. He wanted to get Alfa Romeo noticed globally and decided to take on Porsche and Ferrari in world sports car racing and turned the job over to the in-house racing division, Autodelta.
The first Tipo 33 was not a competition success, but by 1967 Autodelta had evolved it to 33/2 specification, and this racing chassis was to form the basis for the road going version, the Stradale. More recent exotica like the Ferrari F50 or Mercedes AMG One make slightly specious claims about their F1 links. The Tipo 33 Stradale simply was the race car with an extra 100 mm (4”) wheelbase for comfort, and a steel rather than aluminum chassis. Clothed in the slinkiest sheet metal the world had ever seen, the Stradale made the Miura look like the product of a tractor company that it was. The Alfa was half the weight, had half the engine capacity, but was twice as exotic and just as fast – sub six seconds to sixty and over 160 on the Autostrada. Consider the engine: a howling 2.0-liter 32 valve flat plane V8 in the middle of the car with fuel injection, twin spark plugs and four coils, it made between 230 – 240 bhp at nearly 9000 rpm. Why the variation in output? Every Stradale was hand built alongside the race cars over an extended period of time – these were exclusive cars for exclusive customers – and so no two are exactly alike.
Why is the original so good? First of all, it’s relatively tiny. Those dihedral doors weren’t just for show, they were so you could actually get in it. A Stradale stands just 991mm (39”) tall and is only 1710mm (67”) wide. Those delicious Campagnolo wheels are 13” to give you an idea of scale. Viewed in side profile, it’s a masterclass in managing the high point of the bodywork over the wheel arches and maintaining the correct amount of tension in the curvature of the surfaces forming the fenders. The glass to bodyside ratio at the door is 50/50, which means it doesn’t look heavy. There’s the merest hint of forward rake in the stance, allowing the exhaust tips to protrude at the rear, and this helps the body sit lightly on the wheels.
Turning around to the front three quarter view, look how the area over the engine maintains its fullness: this helps balance out the shallowness of the nose, giving the car a touch of front engine proportion even though the motor is in the middle. As I mentioned there’s plenty of glass, but the upward curve of the side windows helps create a taut combined B/C pillar over the rear haunches, which is critical for making a car look properly planted on its wheels.
None of this is a coincidence. Remember Scaglione used to draw fashion which is all about silhouette and volume – making clothes look flattering – so he will have immediately understood how best to cover the fixed points of the racing chassis. The Stradale is so good because it perfectly balances several contradictory characteristics: It’s subtle but aggressive. It’s muscular but also athletic. It’s bleeding edge state of the sixties racing car art and endearingly hand built. It’s lightweight at 700kg (1550lbs – if that doesn’t shut Toecutter up I don’t know what will) but not delicate. These tensions hold it in a perfect center where no one element overpowers another.
18 Stradales were built between 1967 and 1969. A very different looking racing version eventually won the world sportscar championship in 1975, and it remains the iconic car for the brand, as they’ve not really done comparable since. Until now, with the recently unveiled nuova (I guess?) Tipo 33 Stradale. Cue the usual round of internet masturbation and genuflection, to which I have to say, do these people have an actual functioning visual cortex connected to their brains? It’s bloody hideous. It’s fat, it’s overwrought, the detailing is thoughtless and the proportions are terrible.
Let’s start at the side. Remember my earlier remarks about the original when I talked about the high point of the bodywork over the wheel arches? You can see here they’ve been pulled forward on both the front and the rear. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with this, but you have to be very careful. Because the new car has more inflated surfaces this is what starts to make the car look overweight. Not helping is the position of the passenger cabin, which has been pulled forwards and the rear wheels which have been pushed back, increasing the amount of bodywork in the B/C pillar area, increasing the bulk in the middle of the car. Ok, there’s a lot more motor and transmission to package this time around, but moving the A pillar and side glass rear towards the rear would have helped balance it out. The side vent mitigates some of this, but way oh why did they want to make it look like it one continuous part piercing through the rear fender to the back of the car? It’s a cheap visual stunt, the sort of thing stupid people think is clever because they understand it instantly. It doesn’t make any sense because there’s a bloody great rear wheel there, which has got suspension and drivetrain components behind it. It’s dishonest because no way could it work physically.
Looking at the front, I wouldn’t expect the new version to have such a shallow treatment as the original, but this is just a formless meh. There’s no tension in it at all especially over the front wheels. The feature lines heading towards the center of the nose contribute to this flabbiness, because they stretch those upper surfaces across to the middle of the car like a too tight shirt struggling to contain a beer belly. The classic Alfa Romeo shield graphic is given an interesting twist – made up of individual layered elements to create a grille this an excellent detail.
The headlights are much less successful. Lighting graphics are important, and you want to make them distinctive, but the lighting designer didn’t know when to stop. This whole front corner is just lacking in subtlety and the overall graphic reads too big and bottom heavy because it incorporates an intake underneath. Isolatingp the two things would help tighten this area up a lot and stop the front of the car look like it’s flopping towards the ground, something those vertical aero surfaces ahead and behind the front wheels are contributing to. If an area is already looking heavy, don’t add more, take away. Imagine how much better it would look if the black lower bodyside just continued forwards with the profile it has further back.
From the back it looks like it’s been carelessly backed up onto a length of black drainpipe at high speed. I do like the rear light graphics to a point but why the hell is it frowning? You want aggression at the front because that is the cars’ face, not on its butt. The diffuser area and exhausts it so quarter assed it just looks like they ran out of time.
Making all this worse is the interior which is in my opinion, fucking fantastic. The only problem is it’s got somewhat of a seventies vibe to it, with lots of parallel strake patterns giving off a Radiomarelli feel, which by the late sixties was part of the FIAT empire, so maybe that’s where the interior designers got some mood images from? Whatever, it’s warm and inviting, clean and modern. I genuinely love it, even if there’s a slight disconnect thematically with the exterior.
The beauty of the original is its clarity of purpose. It’s unrealistic to expect the new version to be so petit, because of what it has to package, but the point is you work around these limitations to get the shape you want, not let them force you into a shape you don’t want. This new car is available (well not to you or me, they’ve all been sold in advance) as either an ICE or a pure BEV version, in which case what the pissing hams? Talk about hedging your bets. I can’t help but wonder what the split is between the two and how many pure BEV versions they’ve actually sold. Whatever, it will have forced a horrible compromise on the platform. Pick one or the other, or combine both into a hybrid, and get it right. Perfection comes from simplicity.
When I was away in Italy I had one of the best pasta dishes of my life. A simple ragu with spaghetti made fresh in the hotel restaurant from local ingredients. It was amazing. The new 33 Stradale is like getting hit in the face with several overcooked varieties of pasta all at once.
All other images courtesy of Alfa Romeo Media
- We Need To Talk About These Alfa Romeo Taillights That Look Like Jeeps
- The Reborn Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale Is A Refreshingly Pretty 207-MPH Supercar Tribute
- The 2024 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio And Stelvio Quadrifoglio Celebrate An Important Anniversary With Fancy Matrix Headlights And A Cool New Differential
- I Drove Alfa Romeo’s Worst Car Ever And It Wasn’t Really That Bad
Thank you! You have been able to put into words the things that bothered me about this bastardization.
I am not even reading the article I just came here to give in an anecdote. I never have an answer when asked about my favorite car or my dream car there are just so many different cars it is hard for me to choose just one. BUT something about that damn Tipo 33 which makes me lose my god damn mind. It is hands down the most beautifully designed car in the history of automotive design! I die on this hill
Truly great inspired writing. I shant bother to pull out specific examples as they’re present in abundance. I agree with most of your design appraisals, most particularly in your reference to the taillight design, wherein your remark in the graphics, bullshit, is refreshing and a great counterpoint to the scholarly bent of the rest of your appraisal.
Please give us more of your goth-centric writing!
New one is just so lazy and uninteresting. “Let’s look at the old thing, add a bunch of gee-gaws and unnecessary character lines, and generate a bit of press with something that looks like it was drawn by AI.”
I find the current Honda Accord a much better design, and more pleasant to look at.
This whole site is awesome but, I have to say, I never miss reading anything The Bishop or Adrian Clarke post up. Their brilliant content is a big part of what makes this new car site so unique and so fantastic. Thank you for sharing your insights with us.
I do get your points with the old classic one, Adrian. But I think there’s too much going on with lines going in different directions, when I look at the random seeming shut lines on the doors, bonnet and engine lid.
Also the windscreen going further up over your head than we are used to, always makes me think of an old man with a receding hairline. Like on the Citroën C4 Picasso (puke emoji)
I’ll stick with the Porsche 904 GTS 🙂
🙂
This is sort of a general design question, but the Alfa made me think of it. How much thought goes into what the typical viewing angle is when designing a car? Looking at the original Alfa here, in the 3/4 and side views that are straight on I totally get the love for this design. In the second photo (the one from above) I like it a lot less, the nose looks droopy & there’s just something weird going on with too much butt above the rear wheels. The problem is, if this car is 39″ tall, the average adult isn’t very likely to be looking at it straight on in real life. I also feel that there are lots of cars that look somewhat awkward in straight side view photos, but seem fine in real life because you rarely step back 20 feet to just look at a whole side of a car. Are there angles that are higher and lower priority in design because of how people interact with cars in the real world?
Good question. Side views are usually the least flattering, and in reality you never view a car like that in real life. But the side view is an important part of the design process in helping understand the overall shape of the car. We usually sketch front three quarter and rear quarter views for ideation as it helps show the relationship between those areas of the car. You wouldn’t necessarily concentrate on a top down view because again, you never see that view in real life. However when I did the Defender 130 there were a lot of issues with things like the cant rails and roof trim (as a result of using carryover parts from the 110) that meant we spent a lot of time looking at the top of that car from the mezzanine in the studio.
Harley Earl was a stickler for nailing each view orthographically before even starting a model, but he couldn’t draw, so his designs tended to concentrate on individual elaborate details.
Bill Mitchell was a trained illustrator, and was really the first to consider taking in a car’s form as a whole, taking a step back and looking at the whole thing from a variety of angles.
Every article I learn something new about car design, and also piss myself laughing.
I really like the Alfa grill/badge thing. The rest of it is meh.
My favourite Alfa is the SZ. Take the slightly weird mechanical bits from a V6 75, then cover it in a red brick with a jaringly delicate roof. I think it might be terrible design, but it’s also just cost and reliability away from being perfect for me.
That’s a way better take than my “they don’t make em like they used to”.
Is the 240Z on your to do list for this series? I do find it to be an iconic design that just got a “bold reinvention” too.
Wasn’t the 240z itself a “bold reimagining” of the Jag E type?
Personnaly, I don’t see it. I’d be more inclined to see some Ferrari 250 GTO with MG sugar scoop headlights. It’s more a medley of the cars of the era than a rehash of a particular model.
Maybe “bold reimagining” is too strong. “Inspired by” and “spiritual forbear” seems to be the accepted connection:
https://www.hotcars.com/why-we-love-the-datsun-240z/#inspired-bCheap Bastard
https://www.theautopian.com/why-the-new-alfa-romeo-tipo-33-stradale-cant-measure-up-to-the-gorgeous-original/comment-page-1/#comment-228584y-the-jaguar-e-type
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/article/z-to-the-tune-of-e-1965-jaguar-1973-datsun-240z
“I’d be more inclined to see some Ferrari 250 GTO”
*Puts on that slinky red dress*:
http://www.ztrix.com/images/classifieds/240z-Alfa-GTO/20141016_073119.jpg
In my opinion, one of the hallmarks of that era of design was due to function:
Tall sidewalls and a tire profile that was bulbous and proud of the wheel.
The new version is all wheel. Great for preformace, not as nice on the eyes.
Also, the new one looks like they took the opposite approach and shrunk the wheelbase of another car.
On a very distant related note: saw a Plymouth Prowler yesterday on a tow truck. That design is stunning.
I love the Prowler. I’ll probably write it up at some point because there’s a lot that’s interesting about that car.
It’s so gratifying to learn from an expert (“The glass to bodyside ratio at the door is 50/50, which means it doesn’t look heavy) why so many of today’s cars look porky. Is glass priced like gold now? I guess it’s not because they’ll put a hundred and fifty pounds of it into a panoramic moonroof, the only effect of which is it makes my head hot.
Easier to do well in side impact tests when the material crumbles and bends vs shatters
Can you do the new De Tomaso, even if they aren’t going to get to production? In my opinion that was a much better riff on similar source material.
I’ve seen that car in person and sort of agree.
My idea of a good Saturday night is getting hit in the face with several varieties of pasta all at once. That said, I’m a mix of agreement and disagreement here. She is a chunky girl for sure and no way could she ever be as gorgeous as the original. I do like the front shield, but I also like the aggressive booty. It goes against the Italian tradition of not caring what’s behind you, but I would quite like the people behind me to see my ass as aggressive, ngl.
“My idea of a good Saturday night is getting hit in the face with several varieties of pasta all at once
….
I would quite like the people behind me to see my ass as aggressive”
Well there you go!
As no Alfa pedants have yet surfaced to put Adrian in his place I suppose I must volunteer…
The original 1954 Giulietta was the Tipo 750 short-wheelbase chassis. The Tipo 101 long wheelbase version was introduced in 1959, though there are plenty of transitional cars with bits of both versions. Tipo 101 continued with the mildly restyled Giulia through 1965. As Alfa tended to build with whatever they had lying around in those days the dates are a bit squishy but the Tipo 750 definitely preceded Tipo 101 by several years.
https://www.tumblr.com/acmesalesrep/1279828691/the-international-league-of-pedants-via
That is splendid. I’m saving a copy of it, it will be most useful
It’s lightweight at 700kg (1550lbs – if that doesn’t shut Toecutter up I don’t know what will) but not delicate.
I absolutely lost it at this line – you know you have a community when writers are referencing the commentariat as known people rather than a seething mass of internet animosity worthy only of contempt.
I’m a little less unhappy with the front and three quarter views than you are, although the comment about the extra mass in the “hood” is absolutely spot on. Behind the passenger compartment, well, there’s nothing to save it. The fake tunnel, the horrible diffuser treatment, and on and on. Just, ugh.
Like you I think the interior is quite attractive.
Lovely article. Adrian being one of my very favorite writers here, this series is very exciting.
Cant wait to see him dive into the De Tomaso Guara
I actually had to look that one up as I had never heard of it.
It was the first completely bizarre looking car to pop into mind.
Not a bad take. It’s obvious to me that it wass a tall order to begin with, so whatever they would do there would always be some pain points. That said, I give Alfa credit for following through with this. At 7 figures in currency of your choice, at least I have something to put on a poster in my garage (sod), and I’ve grown to like what they did overall. High chance it’s one of those cases where photos don’t do it justice. It must be a stunner in person.
Also, I’m onboard with the forward rake of the fenders. Original 33 Stradale also has that forward rake in the wheel arches, giving them this subtle yet uneasy, but oh so elegant tension at stand still.
There’s always a danger in doing these sorts of reviews from photos, and you’re right. It probably IS more impactful in the metal, but that’s just a visceral reaction. Fundamentally the design is still flawed.
So much analysis thrown into disparaging a valliant attempt that will always bring joy when encountered on the road, while the new 5 series and 7 series are out there, along with the iX, and actually polluting the car landscape with thousands of units, killing good taste neurons by the millions at every sighting 🙂
But everyone except BMW perverts know those are bad.
The 5 series isn’t terrible, just a bit anonymous. The 7 series like everyone else I hated it initially, but I have seen them in the flesh and sat in one, and in the right colour it’s a lot more compelling. I get what they are trying to do, and while it doesn’t totally succeed (the front fascia is problematic) it undeniably has a sort of limo of the future feel, which I suspect is what they were aiming for.
It should be noted that I saw in a picture that they outlined the grille with lights at night, which makes it look like an ass print.
So problematic indeed.
Comments on the 5 are below – I am not a designer and can’t convey my feelings that well, but the front is broken and the profile is emasculated.
As for the 7 – the front fascia is schizophrenic. It has two fronts in one – the car could have had the long headlights only, and a slightly flatter nose, or the other set of headlights only, and a slightly flatter nose, and look plenty good. Instead, it looks like those faces with superimposed two noses and four eyes that they use in cheap psychic advertisements online.
It is compelling because it’s a BMW, but the h@ll if I’ll be buying a car that has to grow on me. A car has to take my breath away when I walk to it, and has to make me turn to look at it at least once as I’m walking away from it. And it doesn’t have to be an expensive car to do that – my Euro-spec CRX did that to me, my ’94 Prelude 4ws did that to me, and even a Hyundai Genesis Coupe did that to me.
Rant off, as speaking of my old Hondas might make me comment on their design today, and I don’t want to cry 🙂
> in the right colour it’s a lot more compelling
And by that you mean black, natch.
I’m sure you have enough cars to write a weekly column about until the death of the universe, but I’m formally requesting an analysis of Geiger’s work, specifically the R107 and W116, please and thank you.
Black hides a lot of sins.
I’m guessing this is a sub-rosa self-reference.
The 5 series is fine? It has issues with the front fascia – isn’t that the common BMW refrain? – and the way that black lower trim is haphazardly applied, but overall it’s a totally acceptable car that could be quite attractive after a facelift.
It is not OK for a 5 series to be fine. It used to be dominant and didn’t need facelifts – it just looked good.
The new 5 series has the top of the grille higher than the top of the headlights. It looks like a Koala nose. In profile, the line slopes top to bottom from the front to the back – a bit like having the front higher than the back. Maybe just an optical illusion, but it takes all of the dynamic stance away and makes it look like it’s sitting on its butt ratter than being ready to jump forward.
And as usual for the last ten-ish years – the rear looks great, like they are making amends for the Bangle butt of yore. So they still know how to design cars – they just chose to crap it out.
The original 33, the E-Type, and others of that variety confuse me on how people call them beautiful, or the design is good. I just can’t see it.
Oh don’t worry I’ll get to the E-Type.
I think the D-Type is far superior.
The XJ13 is the best example of that form factor I think.
That thing is sexy as fuck.
Always thought the tail of the XJ13 was too long. I’m a XKSS man myself. Or a short nose, no fin XKD. OVC-501 was perfect.
https://www.jaguarheritage.com/car/1954-jaguar-d-type/
I, an uneducated commoner, consider the XJ13 to be more beautiful than the 33 Stradale. And I used to daily an 159 SW (the most beautiful station wagon?) and currently drive an 156 GTA as a weekend toy.
Finally! Some love for the XJ13!
Can’t wait—I have never liked the E-Type, at least not ahead of the A-pillar on the roadster (don’t like the coupe much at all) with its flat, too phallic nose and dainty narrow track all for the highly questionable benefit of aero from partially covering the wheel wells (and giving it the turning circle of a mega yacht with disabled bow thrusters). And that’s not even getting to the SIII or 2+2.
I’m not going to reveal all my thoughts as I’ll save them for the piece when I get round to it. I don’t like it personally for a variety of reasons, and it breaks a lot of what are considered ‘car design rules’. But I get why people DO like it. Objectively it’s not a great design. But subjectively as a car, its appeal isn’t just about the way it looks, but what it represents.
IIRC Stirling Moss called the E-Type “the dumb blonde of sports cars”.
If you need it explained, you don’t need it.
Which is fine, as there are plenty of others to drool over it.
I like the original 33. I don’t care for the E-Type
When will the retro obsession end? The original was and is stunning because it was a cutting edge, as modern as it could possibly be, car of its time. Imagine if instead they’d done a retro pastiche of some 1910 Alfa, it would be ridiculed not beloved.
I’d love to see a proper 21st century Alfa race car for the road. I guess the closest we have now is the Aston Valkyrie?
“When will the retro obsession end?”
Once modern designs become visually appealing on an emotional level.
The Valkyrie is a mess. For my money the `Vulcan is a million times better.
I meant that it’s cutting edge, pushing the envelope, which is surely better than retro pastiche
Yes but it’s uglier than a bag of smashed crabs.
Although it’s form following function. Was the 33 styled to look good, or was it form following function to the best of their abilities in period?
To describe ugly things for years I’ve been using Micheal Marshal Smith’s phrase “like three types of shit in a one shit bag”. I may now switch to a bag of smashed crab.
I’ll pick a small thread here, but isn’t design, if rational, a response to constraints (I totally stole that from Ray and Charles Eames). If times change, the constraints change, so design does respond to changing times. I completely agree that this particular example is not an improvement, but a sports car doesn’t have drastically different design constraints over time. But something more tied to its environment might have opportunities offered by a change over time.
As far as modern cars go, it’s almost understated, like the first generation Prius. 😛
So will this be a regular series like Mercury Monday or that one where David asks us trivia questions and sends us swag from his prize closet?
Yes, it should be weekly.
As for the Prius, another potential design-focused series could be on how specific models changed over their generations. Which had a huge change (Prius) versus those that change little (VW bug). A challenge for some models is when is a change a change in generation and what defines “generation”. Sometimes the maker decides and calls it such, other times, not so clear. The ’64 to ’65 F series Ford trucks comes to mind. Lots of big changes under the skin, but little outward visual major changes.
Evolution or revolution is something that is covered in any car design degree worth its salt.
What I would like to see is a video of the transition from one generation to the other. We plebs could see how a particular feature (fender perhaps) changes position. Or one of those sweep-the- line images like before/after geographic images so we could easily see the changes.
It seems as if modern cars are deliberately designed to quickly go out of style to encourage people to buy the next one ASAP. Being overly busy almost always ages terribly. The sexy designs of the past, that were simple, elegant, and timeless, designs like the Alfa Romeo Typo 33 Stradale, Jaguar D-Type, Ferrari 250 GTO, Citroen DS, their like will never be seen again.
IMO, the best aesthetics that modern designs have to offer seem to be the likes of the Alfa Romeo 4C, new Toyota Prius, 1st gen Tesla Model 3, and Mercedes Benz CLA. They’re all probably going to age very well.
I made this comment in my column over at the insurance company, but the very best designs, with sympathetic updates to lighting, glazing and maybe trim could be on sale today.
The 4C looks like a Lotus Evora with an extra six ugly headlights.
You named my 4 favorite cars. Now what modern chassis can be modified to make ~120% bigger look alike kit cars?
Could you make the FRS/BRZ/GR86 look like a tipo?
No complaints about the original.
The knockoff, however, is fucking FAT. It even looks fat. Overly busy too.
I consider a genuine Toecutter original to espouse Cd targets below .2
The Alfa Romeo BAT7 succeeded in that. 0.19.
And looked damn good doing it.
It’s not as good mainly because it’s hard to improve upon perfection. Regardless, I wouldn’t kick either one out of bed for eating crackers. #dragoning #roywortlives