« Reply #8 on: 29 August 2009, 04:58 »
I once saw a motoring program many many moons ago where they did a feature on car faces. Apparently the Japanese were the first to be really big on the idea along with certain other areas of styling which we take for granted today. Interestingly they said the designers' most difficult angle (sorry going a bit off topic here) was the join of the A pillar to the top of the bonnet/bottom of the windscreen. And if you look critically at many cars you can see how some deisgners have made a hash of this with an awkward angle which ruins the visual appeal of some cars from the front 3/4 angle.
Anyway back to topic, the SEAT Leon (pre recent facelift) is an excellent example of designers using the front of the car as a face. Look at a base model Leon and it has little turned up smiley bits at either side of the mouth, but on the FR and Cupra it has a mean scowl to hint at the more aggressive nature of the car (and driver?).
The mk5 Golf has this in evidence too, on the lower spec models if you look at them from the front the little bars in the lower grilles are shaped like fangs (yes, this is repeated with the fogs in the new GTI). The GTI has quite an aggressive looking mouth and darkened eyees but as many buyers are women it also wimps out a bit and the lower grilles do make a slight smile (apparently women like happier faces on their cars where as men like some menace). Then move to the R32 and you can see the top line model has more of a snarl about its lower grilles.
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‘25 8.5R, ‘23 8R, ‘20 8CS, ‘19 135iX, ‘19 TCR, ‘17 Ed40, ‘17 GTD, ‘15 7R, ‘13 GTI PP, ‘11 GTI, ‘09 GTI, ‘98 Ibiza Cupra, ‘05 GTI, ‘06 Polo GTI, ‘04 GT TDI, ‘05 Fabia vRS, ‘02 GTI T, ‘03 Ibiza TDI 130, ‘01 Leon 180, ‘89 mk2 16v, ‘99 Ibiza TDI, ‘96 VR6, ‘98 Ibiza TDI, ‘92 VR6, ‘88 mk2 8v, ‘92 Polo G40, ‘91 mk2 8v, ‘89 mk2 8v, 205 GTI 1.9, ‘83 mk1 GTI, ‘80 Scirocco GTI, plus some others I’ve forgotten
