New Car Designs

[FastbackJon]

It would be interesting to see the sales figures for new cars that maintain the same overall design over a number of years, to see if that figure decreases each year as the market gets saturated with used vehicles of that same style. An example would be the new "Charger" that has maintained the same look for five model years now (2006 through 2010). Another one would be the new Mustang that also retained the same look for five model years (2005 through 2009).

What I'm getting at is that I know it is costly to change designs every year (tooling, engineering, and meeting safety standards) but aren't the car manufacturers also shooting themselves in the foot by not changing the design, as in the example of the new "Charger", by model year 2010, the market has already been saturated by this same vehicle for the last four years and there are many of them out in the used market. So the new car is effectively competing for sales with all of the used ones, so say if a person wants that body style, they have many options to choose from.

[Arthu®]

It would definitely be interesting to see, but it won't be as easy as to just looking at the sales figures. A lot more things have impact on the sales figures than just if people still like the looks of it, such as the economy in general, fuel consumption issues, you name it. My 2 cents on the subject is that styling doesn't matter much to the average driver anymore, probably never has. But cars are becoming more and more a throw away product, you rarely see anybody these days that keep there car for more than 3/4 years. So people are more looking at what gets the best fuel economy, most practical and stuff like that and not unimportant the cheapest in its class.

But I have no idea what the hell I am talking about haha, so until someone finds and actually scientific study on the subject it's just guess work. Here in the Europe (I don't know if the U.S. is the same) it also depends a lot on how the car fits in a certain operational lease plan that a lot of companies still offer to their employees.

Arthur

[Charger440RDN]

 
I have been wondering for years why the car companies don't change designs every year. It seems like after 1979 the designs stayed the same for 5-10 years at least with minimal changes maybe to the interior. Newer cars never get sheet metal changes from year to year it seems like.

For example the 1968 Dodge Charger was basically a perfect design and they could have stuck with that same design for 10 years with success, but the 2nd gen lasted 3 years    But the designers today have no fresh ideas. look how long GM stayed with the Chevy Caprice platform from 1977-1996 and also the Ford Crown Vic cop cars the police drive now are using the panther platform that is 30+ years old.  

[Landonsrt]

In most cases they are changing the alot more often now than they did. Yeah the Charger is not a good example of that. Look at the Mustang from like 79 to 93, not much was different. Or the camaro/firebirds. Same style from 93-2002. Just changed the front ends and lights. Or Silverados, 77-88, 89-98. F150, 84-96. Now they change something every three years on trucks. Mostly front end parts. Ford and GM.
They have to examine the cost effectiveness of changing an entire car. For the fact that many other cars among their brands all use the same underpinnings. If you change one, you usually have to change the entire platform and that costs a ton of money in R&D, testing, etc.

[68charger383]

Your not the only one wondering about this problem.

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1131/chrysler-check-engine-now/

[Brock Samson]

 They used to totally redesign bodys every two years, then three as the Govt. Regs got more prohibitive at the end of the '60s. but every year the details of lights and trim would change I  used to look forward to the newest grills and gingerbread, but that came to an end in the mid '70s... that's a big reason i don't care much for most any car after 1971...
The Costs of Certifying (crash testing) a new design runs into the many millions of dollors.. though I wonder myself why they don't just tweek the facias since that could be attractive to new car shoppers.
The Japanese success in sales means their cars are changed far more frequently then American or Europian Cars these days...
Even car colors are shared across the industry these days and don't get me started on gray interiors....  

[Mike DC]

  
IMHO the bottom line is that cars have just gotten too evolved & complex these days.  



They're so ape-shit about incurring aero resistance that they won't risk doing unstudied changes for fear of MPG ramifications.  

They've got govt-mandated regs for everything from crash testing to impacting pedestrians with the front end.    

The panel manufacturing process affects their results just from hands-on practicality.  They take into account whether a panel will be easy to form and stack up for storage before greenlighting it.

Their styling decisions are all researched like hell because they'd rather produce all mediocre designs than risk having half their designs turn out to be bombs.

[Brock Samson]

 'n speaking of new car designs, I like the Fisker.   alot!





but the days of designs changing every yr are long gone. best you can hope for is a change of texture in a bit of plastic or grill or maybe a headlight shape change which will keep them costing in the many hundreds of dollors per lamp...

[68pplcharger]

I'm old school... Fix my own. I own three vehicles and the youngest one is 9 years old. Two of them get an average of 28 & 32 MPG. The third is an SUV that only gets driven for vacation tow vehicle etc. Car payments are for suckers(if you buy new every 3 to 4 years). I spend about $50 a year on the occasional repair. That's an average figure over the life of the vehicles so far. The Tahoe got front end work this year after 9 years and 175,000 miles. ($50) There are a lot of new vehicles that have great styling, but if you don't need them then why buy them. I'll stick with something that is seldom seen and very cool like the 68 charger for the styling aspect. I wouldn't mind having a new Challenger, but for the same price I can build twice the car. (performance wise)

[Mike DC]

 
IMHO the multi-car option makes a lot of sense.  But you need the storage space to keep them and you need a relatively good driving record for insurance reasons.

If you've got that situation, then new cars are a ripoff for bare transportation purposes.  Why pay $25k for a modern car when you can easily buy 2 older ones in workable condition for a total of less than $10K?  Even if they're not 100% reliable, it's pretty rare that you'd get stuck with both of them down at the same time.   

[Arthu®]

Just bought a 900 euro car, changed the oil, plugs, etc and drove 17000km with it without a problem. Sure older cars can be reliable, but when sometimes especially if you use your car for work it can also be a case of presentation. I would definitely not take this car to an important meeting or anything.

Arthur

[PocketThunder]

Just bought a 900 euro car, changed the oil, plugs, etc and drove 17000km with it without a problem. Sure older cars can be reliable, but when sometimes especially if you use your car for work it can also be a case of presentation. I would definitely not take this car to an important meeting or anything.

Arthur

Thats the truth!  I graduated college with a rusty '86 S-10 that got me 26 mpg and i only paid $400 for it.  I got my new job fresh out of college working in Chicago and when i showed up to the office with this truck i got the looks from people that basically told me i need to show up to meetings with someone else driving, because they didnt want my rusty truck to be the image our clients saw. 

[Brock Samson]

 On that subject, when i used to drive my Dodge Ram Van folks would make assumptions, let's face it - people make judgments baised on the Car you drive just like the clothes you wear. That's why real estate agents all drive high end German sedans or SUVs mostly Mercedes or at least a Lexus.
Usually at most a few years old.

[68pplcharger]

I can definitely see the point not driving a car that looks bad, If image affects your job. My ten year old vehicles look brand new. Keeping up with the Jones doesn't work for me. My Job, Process and facilities Engineer, The age of my car has nothing to do with designing assembly lines or my ability to do so. I'm glad I don't have to depend on what people think of me, because frankly I don't give a damn what anybody thinks of me. That's a subject for another forum. 

[Arthu®]

Sadly in a lot of jobs it is important what people think of you. I don't like the fact that it is that way, but you just tend to get more opportunities if you are a likable guy. I mean a lot of 10 year old cars if well maintained can still look proper. I guess as long as you don't attract attention it's all fine. Especially when you are consulting or selling as you don't want to be driving a car that is more expensive more flamboyant than your client's, he would probably think you are ripping him off haha, but you also shouldn't drive a beater. Now if I would show up in my beater (1989 Lada 2105) they would definitely not take me serious. Hell I wouldn't take myself serious if I would show up in a car like that.

[68pplcharger]

Agreed... I'm glad I don't have that consideration to worry about.

[PocketThunder]

Sadly in a lot of jobs it is important what people think of you. I don't like the fact that it is that way, but you just tend to get more opportunities if you are a likable guy. I mean a lot of 10 year old cars if well maintained can still look proper. I guess as long as you don't attract attention it's all fine. Especially when you are consulting or selling as you don't want to be driving a car that is more expensive more flamboyant than your client's, he would probably think you are ripping him off haha, but you also shouldn't drive a beater. Now if I would show up in my beater (1989 Lada 2105) they would definitely not take me serious. Hell I wouldn't take myself serious if I would show up in a car like that.

What do you mean, this car just screams big business..   

[Arthu®]

If only it were in that shape haha. Mine is 10 different shades of red. But I can't complain the roads here are tough on cars and it had held up 17.000km in 2 1/2 months without any service except adding oil every now and than (which is good as it now just changes its oil by itself).

Arthur

[Charger440RDN]

The people at Chrysler are just too dumb to understand how valuable the Charger name is. They should have redesigned the Charger as a 2 door retro coupe just like the challenger. The current charger design.....

[PocketThunder]

If only it were in that shape haha. Mine is 10 different shades of red. But I can't complain the roads here are tough on cars and it had held up 17.000km in 2 1/2 months without any service except adding oil every now and than (which is good as it now just changes its oil by itself).

Arthur