The automobile has lost it's character... perception or reality?

[hot_pastrami]

This may be a dumb topic, but I just wonder how many other people feel the same way I do. It seems that most modern cars, with a few (usually expensive) exceptions, are completely dull, unimaginitive things. They're all slight variations on same plain, cookie-cutter designs with different badging.

This effect seemed to spawn in the late seventies, and though their look has obviously changed over time, most cars from any particular year since then seem to look alike. And not in a good way, but in a dull, lifeless, uninteresting way. It's as if in streamlining the automobile, they removed all of the interesting and beautiful parts in the name of aerodynamics.

Yes, many people might say "It's a car, who cares what it looks like?" Apparently not you... and that's fine. But I personally feel that the landscape loses something in having ugly cars parked upon it.

Think of photos you've seen from the forties, fifties, and sixties with cars in them... a café, a drive-in theater, a family vacation photo... the cars often contribute to the photograph, archoring it in its period and placing the subjects of the photo (if any) in a nice, "everyday life" context. But speaking personally, when I take photographs of people nowadays, I go to great efforts to prevent any cars from appearing in the background, they detract from the photo... they seem unappealing to the eye more often than not. Car commercials utterly fail to make me want to buy cars.

Is it just me? If not, do you think it's really because cars are more boring, or an artifact of the appeal of "retro?"

For the record, I've had a few cars which I found to be non-boring-looking, old and new:

1970 Dodge Challenger... "Vitamin C" orange, 383 cubic inches, manual everything, pistol-grip 4-speed shifter.... a beautiful car. Funner than hell. Too bad I couldn't afford to hold onto it for more than about a year.

1972 Dodge Charger... BIG car (the hood stretched to the horizon when you were sitting at the wheel), but it had character.

1996 Camaro Z28... I liked the Camaros after 1994, it seemed they were some of the first good-looking affordable cars to appear in a long while, and they performed well.

2000 Camaro SS... I loved my '96, but the black paint, functional hood scoop, and 6-speed manual of this SS were enough to get me to trade in. I may have to sell it soon, since marraige + house + sports car = very little spare money. Still undecided.

Ok, I'm done.