Design treads the territory of art and science. The reason it is very subjective is since it is as much intuition as intellect. The addition of certain elements through enthusiasm and realizing when subtraction is the best course to take, through common sense, is the difference between success and failure. Design excellence can be defined in terms of timelessness. Will the car you buy look outdated in a few years? Not if it was copied or following conventional fashion picked up from elsewhere, nor if it is crafted to not waver from certain ideals.
The Americans and the Europeans have a car history to have these ideals in place, followed by Japan. The Chinese seem to enjoy the “spot at least one difference” game; paths previously tread by the Japs themselves. The Automotive Design business caters to a global market founded by national markets of the past and from experiences in their journey to the present trends. Today however, for any modern market research formula to predict what would be the preference of the public of China or India regarding the private car (which is still not too common a sight) given the demographic vastness and diversity of these countries would be difficult. No doubt that Chinese manufacturers are operating in a state of chaos but they seem all set to design cars, and have Auto shows of international significance. Admittedly their designs may not seek candidature for a design museum but the price tag attached to them will intimidate not just us across the border, but even the western world. Thus for the emerging Chinese Auto Industry it makes little difference at this stage whether a car resembles some traditional artifact of its past or if the headlight detail was inspired by some historical motif or if the bonnet adorned The Great Wall as its badge! What matters is that irrespective of the segment it does not seem underprivileged and archaic, on the contrary the passengers appear to be well off and more contemporary than they really are!
During the first half of last century airplanes began to take on the familiar shape of a tube with wings and automobiles of a box on a box. But by the mid century the Italians where in a league of their own in comparison to their foreign colleagues who steadily caught up, even if not completely. Today’s car design influences are universal and mutual with the lack of an identity that distinguishes itself with exception of a few like the French ness of Renault. Which signifies that the car (a synonym to everything modern!) could be the best medium for an existing local culture to express itself as it did in the past through various mediums of the time. Thus rather than churning out cars from salvaged moulds from long abandoned designs of the ‘Industrial world’, there are reasons to believe that design schools of their own are being developed by the emerging manufacturing nations. Their car designers could be expected to use the safe tried and tested paths of designing beautiful and elegant cars, which would still reflect their local culture and perhaps even suit other markets cost wise or otherwise. This would imply that designers and engineers of countries that developed and perfected motorcars in the first place would be under the threat to find alternate ways of making more desirable cars.
Whatever maybe the case we are assured of exciting cars in the coming decades, either through the appearance of the cars from their country of origin or from the innovative materials and unconventional way in which they were built, or both!