Seat heaters, styling

[Mike Arman <armanmik@n-jcenter.com>]

Seat heaters - you'd think Florida is the LAST place anyone would want seat
heaters - yeah, we check 'em at the Georgia border . . . 

It's like this, guys: Women are more temperature sensitive than men. (This
is NOT a sexist, chauvinist, un-raised conciousness comment - it is
represented to me as fact, and from more than one reputable, non-partisan
source, so no flames from the PC brigade.) After you have lived in Florida
for a few months and become accustomed to being warm, when the temperature
drops below 55 or 60 degrees (in the dead of winter) everyone starts
pissing and moaning about the "cold".

I always know when it is cold - "Honey, can we take the Audi?" and "Turn
the seat heater on, dear!" And she HATES the way I drive (for no reason I
can discern) and is utterly indifferent to automobiles in general and Audis
in particular.



Styling - yes, they all steal from each other, but mostly they steal from
the Germans. It isn't that the Germans have a highly developed sense of
styling (other than Bauhaus), but they KNOW they don't, so they often go to
the Italians (Guigario, Ghia, etc. who DO have excellent stylists) and pay
them for concept cars and styling exercises. (I believe the type 44 was
originally styled in Italy, and maybe the "Quartz" concept car, and
probably other Audis as well.) They then take the styling "cues" they want,
and incorporate them in their cars. 

Next stop is the auto shows, and yes, manufacturers DO look at each other's
products, and fairly frequently buy them and take them apart to see what
makes them work, how they are engineered, etc. Most recent instance of this
is the new mini-Lincoln, the LS-200, the "BMW killer" (right) from Ford -
they bought several German sedans (article in WSJ) and took them apart "to
see what made them ride so well", and copied therefrom.

Other instances - "C" pillar on older Nissan Sentra and Cavalier - stolen
precisely from 1600-2002-320 series BMW, which started life as a styling
exercise in Italy (By Ghia, I think, but I may be wrong.) Datsun 510 rear
suspension - not only copied from BMW 2002, but boasted about it in
advertising! Lexus rear styling - slightly more than a passing resemblance
to big Mercedes, which is their target market. Other instances will come to
mind.

The US makers know that the "upmarket" (which is the market they are
interested in) likes "Euro" designs and "Euro" "stuff" in general - so
often there are design and detail cues which started out in Italy as design
exercises and wound up on German cars - which are the "benchmark" (rightly
or wrongly), for "quality automobiles".

Japanese makers and stylists really don't have a feel for the US market, so
they have their cars designed here, often in studios in California, and
sometimes by the simple expedient of asking people "What do you want to
buy?" and then providing it. (New business concept!) They also seem to
borrow detail "cues" fairly freely from German cars, and for the same
reasons as the US makers.

And I still have no idea what kind of drugs influenced the styling of the
Taurus "egg-mobile", which IM(NS)HO is the ugliest vehicle in the known
universe, with the exception of the Taurus "egg-mobile" station wagon.

Best Regards,

Mike Arman