Or has anyone else who has been playing this game look at cars so differently now? I can’t help but notice the geometry and shapes of fixtures on every car I see on the road now. Then I say to myself “I wonder if I can make something like that.”
You got it spot on there, I think exactly the same! 
Yes, but I also have a tendency to look at a stylistic element of a car, and think to myself “Hmm, I wish we could do that in Automation…”
Absolutely I do, the position of vents, grills, the shape and piston of lighting etc, all the time.
I look at cars differently now too, but more from a financial perspective. I also imagine, being an armchair CEO, that I can do so much better than real-life companies.
I can tell you, after working on Automation for ages, I now kinda mentally remove fixtures from cars and imagine how they’d be stamped in.
And then sometimes seeing real cars where it looks like the headlight stamping has gone a bit wrong in Automation… http://media.caranddriver.com/images/media/259731/2010-2012-chevrolet-spark-headlight-photo-263984-s-1280x782.jpg
frantically clicking with the mouse in order to morph the headlight into shape
I catch myself laughing at design flaws on cars, thinking how they sat in the Automation car designer, chose some boring grill and just threw it on the front of the car: That looks fine!
Automation has changed me… 
HEY! I RESEMBLE THAT REMARK! 
(no, seriously, I don’t have 2 hours per car to fiddle and make everything look uber awesome)
Absolutely.
But mainly I imagine my cars absolutely smoking them at the lights and around the corner
I think Automation has made me more forgiving of clumsy design and cheap cars. It is a crowded marketplace and trying to get a foot in the door requires a lot more work than it perhaps used to in the 80’s/90’s. As for design I see it being “damned if you do and damned if you don’t”. If the car doesn’t resemble the current (or any) trend very well then it’s crap but if the design even superficially resembles a european car then it’s a mimic or “poor man’s BMW/Mercedes Benz/VW”. I’m not saying copying doesn’t happen but when the designers of these cars often come from europe or america then it is to be expected that some auto heritage from their home nations might seep through!
I think the biggest area of eye opening for me is the engine builder. It isn’t easy making an engine both powerful and cheap. I now understand on a deeper level why manufacturers drop their iconic, individualised, motors and introduce their modular engine families so widely… New engines cost lots of money and trying to please everyone may result in disappointment felt by enthusiasts and journalists but the net gain in economies of scale are worth it. I still don’t like this strategy but I’d rather the company survive than disappear due to an excess of nostalgia!