Tutorial #1: The 21st-Century Jungle Part I: Y2K
Again, a huge shout-out to @ramthecowy for helping me with this again.
The 21st century marked a period of drastic change in the automotive industry; if you think of all the concepts of the year 2000 (Lancia Nea, Ford 24-7, Peugeot Bobslid, etc.), you’ll see yourself immersed in a glorious mixture of extremely futuristic design as well as a nice chunk of throwback style, too. We’re going to teach you how to transition your cars from the 90s up into the 2000s, and then from the blandness of the naughts into the edginess of the 10’s and beyond. For the 21st century, there’s a fairly diverse range of designs from 2000 up to now, so I’ll run through a few historical examples before getting into proportions for modern design.
Here’s some overarching themes to help you design a car in the 2000s.
Early 2000s front design
The difference between cars in the late 90s and early 2000s is very clear; after all, all automakers wanted to prove themselves in the new century.
Here’s a small comparison between a 1998 and a 2001 Nissan Skyline.
Even more premium cars, too, saw a drastic change. Take, for example, the controversial but best-selling BMW 7-Series from 1999 to 2002 or the Mercedes S-Class from 1999 to 2001. Both sported very horizontal, flat designs, and evolved into a comparatively daring design.
Pay close attention to the changes in proportions, too; many cars of the early 2000s had focused on having fascias which appeared wider for a larger perceived stance on the viewer. This means using grilles which are shorter vertically and longer horizontally and potentially using vertical instead of horizontally opposed lights (a la Cadillac CTS, Lexus ES). All of this was in an effort to make cars look more imposing for the new century.
Early 2000s rear design
Another theme that’s vital to designing early 2000s designs is using more complex shapes all around the car. Head and tail lights both have gone from simple, rounded rectangles to somewhat more complex, dynamic, and expressive forms. Let’s see how this affects the rear fascia of the cars; Mazda replaced the 626 with the Mazda6 in 2002. Their designs are rather different; observe how Mazda attempts to use more aggressive styling with upward angled tail lights and a trunk “lip” for the Mazda6. Also note the use of more complex “Altezza” lights, a design style spurred by the Toyota Altezza (Lexus IS). This is a really important concept; fashioning a detail or fixture out of a number of smaller ones is a good habit to cultivate because it allows you to use seemingly outdated or inappropriate fixtures in unconventional ways to form something that adds up to being unique. Flowing style is a big theme that many automakers played in the early 2000s with new stamping technologies; don’t be afraid to experiment a little with designs.
Here’s the same ideals applied to the 1998 BMW Z3 and 2002 BMW Z4. First notice the large increase of body creases throughout the body of the Z4; although the Bangle butt is certainly controversial, the dual-tiered design caught on pretty much immediately with the success of the Z4 and 7-series. Again, the tail lights are much more expressive; the angled tops and bottoms combined with more shapes in general help to push the Z4 into the 21st century. Another thing that’s important to see in both the BMW’s and the Mazda’s are the new proportions of the age; the early 2000s began to favor slimmer, more complex tails with more creases and curves, whilst the front fascias of cars became adorned with larger, taller headlights and bigger grilles. In addition, you can see a lot more artistic style and detail on the sides of the Z4 as compared to the Z3 with the addition of the “Z” curve and the BMW emblem embellished on the front fender.
Remember: cheap and expensive cars in the early 2000s were quite easy to distinguish. The less expensive models used a lot less, if any, chrome parts, and typically had less artful designs and were more pragmatic. Luxury and sports vehicles had more Avant-Garde designs; this is very important. Avant-Garde design was an extremely popular motif among luxury vehicles of the early 2000s, so feel free to express the feeling of luxury vehicles in the early 2000s, but keep it restrained.
The next post will be all about vehicle design from the late 2000s onward.