Twice before the editors have seen fit to set me loose on the topic of current car design (here, and here). My judgments in those years, while mixed, were--how to say--not entirely un-positive. I wasn't out to trash the wheeled objects we would soon be driving and looking at on the freeways of the world. In fact, if you go back especially to the first report, you can only conclude that I was hoping to find wisdom (!) and vision (!!) in these complex warpings of prettily painted sheet metal.

By the time of the second report, my naivity was developing pretty severe callouses.

This time out? Well, let me just say this. The old political science saw has it that a country gets the government its deserves, e.g., Bush, Blair, Chirac, Schroeder, Putin, etc. Lots of words in this publication and elsewhere are expended on whatever that means.

Looking at the current crop of cutting-edge vehicle design, I can only conclude that there is a cultural resonance at work here: A country also gets the car design that it deserves.

Loath as I am to pass up any opportunity to display my verbal clevernesses in a long analysis of What It All Means, I find that the present crop automotive products has just about rendered me speechless.

The pictures speak for themselves.

First Page of Visual Atrocities >>

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