Comment by tablespoon
3 years ago
> as trucks have gotten bigger, they've also gotten "meaner"[1].
Or to be more precise: a current trend in automotive fashion is a larger grille, and some blogger framed that tendentiously for clicks.
3 years ago
> as trucks have gotten bigger, they've also gotten "meaner"[1].
Or to be more precise: a current trend in automotive fashion is a larger grille, and some blogger framed that tendentiously for clicks.
And why is it the current trend in automotive (specifically, truck) fashion?
This is a weird indirection to introduce: of course it’s fashionable. The observation is that it’s fashionable because aggression is itself fashionable, at least to the target market.
I used Jalopnik as a source, since they’re a well known car website. I’ll try to find additional sources; I seem to recall an interview with a Ford or Chrysler exec a handful of years ago where they said, point blank, that aggressive front designs are a key selling point to their customer base.
> This is a weird indirection to introduce: of course it’s fashionable. The observation is that it’s fashionable because aggression is itself fashionable, at least to the target market.
People in this thread keep dancing around it but I think nobody has outright said it yet. Maybe it's as simple as: aggressive, belligerent truck styling is uniquely fashionable in America because American culture is getting more and more aggressive and belligerent. Maybe I'm browsing too much r/PublicFreakout, but in the last few years, there's been a visible rise in road rage, people berating service workers, belligerent angry protesting, people trashing businesses over minor transgressions, people losing their shit on airliners, and so on. The public is turning into "that guy in the bar constantly looking for a fight." It shouldn't be surprising that trucks styled such that they look like they're about to bludgeon you are more and more fashionable. Admittedly, this is more of a political statement based on anecdotes than one that comes out of research and data, but hey, this is HN, not Nature.
It definitely feels like society as a whole has gotten more impatient, entitled and angry since the pandemic. Maybe it was all the time spent at home rather than interacting with strangers and taking part in society. I mean we're still not to pre-pandemic levels of socialization I'd say.
EDIT: Whether this has anything to do with current car design trends is a different question though :P
> And why is it the current trend in automotive (specifically, truck) fashion?
It isn't just trucks. Someone posted a picture of a BMW sedan with a really big grille in this very thread. The Toyota Camrys* even has a similar design: https://www.cars.com/articles/how-the-2018-toyota-camrys-tri....
> The observation is that it’s fashionable because aggression is itself fashionable, at least to the target market.
It's just a big grille. I think the "aggression" aspect is more in the eye of the beholder (or the trolling concept).
> I seem to recall an interview with a Ford or Chrysler exec a handful of years ago where they said, point blank, that aggressive front designs are a key selling point to their customer base.
Assuming that's true, are you interpreting the word "aggressive" correctly? It has many senses besides "hostility", e.g.:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aggressive:
> 3 : strong or emphatic in effect or intent
> aggressive colors
> aggressive flavors
Whoever responded about a BMW sedan isn’t me. I’m talking about US pickup trucks, since that’s what the original post is about.
The “aggressive” in the exec’s comment is my paraphrase, because I’m still looking for the original. It might have been “angry” or “violent,” for all I remember. Either way, the implication was clear: the trucks are meant to project hostility, not flamboyance.
5 replies →
> And why is it the current trend in automotive (specifically, truck) fashion?
Because European pedestrian safety requirements all but demand big bulbous front ends, it's uneconomical to design that much of a car or SUV twice and a fugly grill is the solution OEMs have deemed most effective at prettying that up. The trucks are all but forced to copy the same rough shapes because "brand identity" and "design language".
Aggressive styling and goes over the decades. You can make these cars look however you want with a little bit of black plastic and fake chrome with no impact on safety. The actual underlying shapes and dimensions that you are muddying the waters by conflating with aggression are driven by technical requirements.
This doesn’t follow at all: the American pickup truck industry isn’t dominated (or even particularly influenced) by European demand. They’re a tiny and shrinking part of the EU market[1] with plenty of domestic competition (with markedly less aggressive designs).
American pickup truck design is overwhelmingly influenced by American market trends, since that’s where they’re being sold. And the domestic market likes aggressive designs, and does not particularly care about pedestrian safety[2].
[1]: https://www.autonews.com/sales/pickups-europeans-say-thanks-...
[2]: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/the-hidden-danger...
4 replies →
Yes, they are designed to look mean. That's what the fashion of the larger grill is for.
https://www.musclecarsandtrucks.com/2020-gmc-sierra-hd-desig...
> ‘Powerful’ and references to powerful things was a theme that the GMC exterior designer referenced multiple times to describe the exterior direction for the 2020 GMC Sierra HD.
> “I remember wanting it to make it feel very locomotive… my first week in Detroit I was driving through downtown and seeing the fist of Joe Louis, and remember thinking that’s what this truck should look like – a massive fist moving through the air.”
or this bit:
> “The front end was always the focal point. The rest of the truck is supporting what the rest of the truck is communicating… we spent a lot of time making sure that when you stand in front of this thing it looks like it’s going to come get you. It’s got that pissed-off feel, but not in a boyish way, still looking mature. It just had to have that imposing look,” explained the GM designer.