Beauty is in the eyes of . . .

["Shaun D. Mullen" <smullen@philly.infi.net>]

Andrew Duane USG/PE wrote:
> I'm a traditionalist when it comes to car styling. I just *LOVE* the
> look of my '89 100Q. A traditional, unmistakable sedan, gentle on the
> eyes and without any surprises whatsoever.
> The slighlty newer 100/A6 and 90 series' (like my wife's '90 90Q20V)
> are a little wierd, but passable. The new A4 is just too much like a
> cheap knockoff of last year's Honda Accord. The shapes are strange to
> look at, and the overall style is too distracting, yet lacking in
> any real interest for me.  The new A6 is the same, only worse. It
> looks like a Taurus....
> Give me back some square corners, and a car I can recognize.

That would be a Volvo, right?

Seriously . . . Like it or not, the new A6 design should come as no
surprise to most of us on the list. The biggest surprise to me is that
it doesn't look even more like a derivation of the Avus showcar, TTD
series roadster and A4 than it does.  I love my conservative-to-a-fault
'92 100CSQW.  Talk about conservatively classic (clasically
conservative?).  But the new A6 is a stunner to these peepers, altho the
big butt end will take some getting used to.  The true test for this
wagonholic will be how the Avant design is executed.

Funny you should mention the Accord.  Honda has retreated to plain
vanilla on exterior styling across it product line, much to its
aesthetic detriment, IMHO.  Audi, thankfully, is pretty much doing the
opposite.

As that venerable Haight-Ashbury car designer, Jerome Garcia, sang: "You
can't move forward and you can't stand still.  If the thunder don't get
you, the lightning will."

-- Cheers, Shaun