OK. During my time over at TrollKingdom I ran into one of the horrible new Dodge Charger's and decided it really wouldn't be a bad looking car, if it was a couple. So I found a pic of one and one of the archetypical Charger, the General Lee, fired up my six year old copy of CorelDraw, and set about improving on Dodge's offering. The results can be seen here. The one that I've steamed and stewed over for far longer is the Pontiac GTO. As the owner of a 1963 Grand Prix, I watched Pontiac get very close to coming up with a great update of the GP, circa 1998, before botching it and making it only available as a sedan. So imagine my excitement, back in 2004, when it was announced that Pontiac would be reviving the mighty GTO, the first ever muscle car. They'd been carefully sitting on the name, so if they were finally going to make one, they must be going to really do it right. What we got was a complete and utter abortion. In essence what they did was take an Australian Monaro, slightly rework the grille, and stick a GTO badge on it. Oh, and charge an arm and a leg for it. I swear to you. The fucking thing looked about as sexy as a Honda Accord. To their credit, when the car went over like a fart in church, they went into damage control mode and attempted to make it at least look a little like a GTO by adding hood scoops. It helped. A little. Now it looked like a Honda Accord with hood scoops. So after dusting it up with our resident GM boy, Chris, over in his car thread, I decided to finally do my Fox GTO. Continued...
So the first thing I needed to do was pick a historical GTO to work from. I was sorely tempted to go with the old-style '65 GTO, but I really couldn't figure out a way to make it work with a modern aesthetic. So instead I went with the iconic "Da Judge" GTOs of the late '60s, early '70s. I found a pic of a '70 Judge and one of an '06, that had a similar angle to work from and went from there: Here comes the Judge! And here's a crap '06: From there, I used the '06 as my basis. Then I stretched the trunk out a bit and reworked the windows. I added some contour between the wheels, but I really reworked the hood and front: I squared the nose off the way it should be and went with the styling from the '69s. Only difference, instead of the mechanically closing headlights, I'd put them behind smoked glass with the grillework lines continued over them. (I dunno it that's actually practical or not, but that's the reason you don't see any headlights). My other vanity was I kept the hood-mounted tach. On the whole, I think it turned out pretty well and serves as a nice proof-of concept of what could've been done with the GTO if the people who run the American auto industry weren't the same people who run the American entertainment industry. Yeah, it isn't a finished offering, but again, this is eight hours of work with a six year old graphics program, done on my own dime. If someone wanted to actually PAY me to make this car then I'd REALLY put some work into it. [edit]Oh, and the gray stripe along the bottom is just a quick and dirty way to hide the car I'm pasting over.
I'd drive it. But only if it came in red! All in all I like your version. But it does look a little weird without headlights. I don't think the smoked glass idea would be such a hot idea.
Nope. It was right at 33 if I remember correctly. Ended up trading it in for a GMC Envoy after about 10 months.
Hmm... I may need to tweak this one a bit more. It turned out pretty well, but it needs to be a bit longer I think--especially the trunk. There's something funny about the way the front end integrates too. I may just do a full-on workup of this. I really like the way this proof of concept turned out. Oh, and I'm at work, so I'm limited, but just for laughs I pulled the pic into Powerpoint and stuck some "headlights" on it. It looked better than I thought it would. Maybe I'll work them up.
So. I did a quick Fox GTO-Meka Edition. Made it red--which was a whole lot more work than it should've been and gave it the 1970-style grille with exposed headlights. I also stretched out the trunk just a bit for me, and reworked the one corner of the front just a bit--just a quick, easy fix: I like it. I really like it. I'll likely do some more tweaking later. The design is really kind of neat and I sort of want to see how much detail I can do in my free time. I still think I prefer the hidden headlights but it's a close call. Thoughts?
You know, words really can't explain my feelings for the way GM handled this. If you look at US muscle cars even forgetting that this was a couple years ago, by today's prices you've got a base model Mustang at something like under $20k. The Charger starts out at around $22k. And the Monte Carlo is around the same price. Then you've got the Viper, starting at $85K, and the Corvette at around $46k. Smack dab into the middle of this comes Pontiac. And for some insane reason they decide to charge around $33k for an Australian car with minor cosmetic work. So you're a good $10,000 above most of your competion (or around 30% more). I guess they were thinking they were competing with Corvette? I don't know. Was it like, "OK. There's Corvette, which is a great, iconic car that Chevy puts a lot of time and thought into the look and engineering of. We'll just slap a classic badge on a car one of our foreign subsidiaries makes and charge $10,000 less than Chevy--a 25% discount because we clearly don't give a shit about our customers. GENIUS! " They should all be shot.
Still looks too fat and bulky, not sleek and raw enough. Modern cars. They all look like electric shavers.
It's an automobile, not a status symbol or a fashion accessory. It's function is to transport you, even if the way that function is handled differs from vehicle to vehicle. Appearance is irrelevant.
I don't completely disagree. But I have two caveats: 1) Times change. You've got to balance the look of a classic with modern tastes. Mustang and Mini Cooper are probably the best at this, with VW running hot on their heels. That said, 2) Since I did this sketch for my own amusement in my free time on a weekend, I'm using an obsolete version of a graphics program, and there is absolutely nothing in it for me but the satisfaction of a job well done, I'm not going to devote a huge amount of time and effort to a project that won't earn me a dime and will never be built. All that said (and moving more into Blue Room territory) I'm a little frustrated/disappointed/something that I was never in the right place at the right time to be some sort of Designer. Whether it is vehicles, clothes, whatever, I always know what I want and can never find it. Then, about five years later, the rest of the world catches up with me. It would be great to make a nice living making really cool things that you want to see built and I'd love to be a Calvin Klein or a Ralph Lauren or a John DeLorian and think I could've done it, had I ever been in the right place at the right time with the right connections. That said, I've got nothing to bitch about. I haven't put in the effort to have the right to bitch. Not everyone gets born into a position of influence and more than a few people bust their ass to get to a place where they can influence style such.
No matter how much money I had, I would never, ever choose a car based on how pretty it is. I would never design more prettiness into one, and I would never rule one out for being too "ugly".
Well, when I get up to insane piss-it-away-like-a-poet-on-payday rich, I'll get you a golden nitro rocket Lamborghini with a Knight Rider swooshing thing just to ruin your day.
The 2008 Fox Avenger... OK. I dunno if I'll do the whole screed. From 1999-2007, my car has been a 1997 Dodge Avenger. I loved that car and wound up keeping it almost four years longer than I'd planned to. So it seriously pissed me off when Dodge retired the Avenger badge. You got a choice between keeping "Avenger" and keeping "Stratus" and you keep Stratus!? Then they managed to raise my ire further by trotting out a concept "sport pickup", badged "Avenger" a few years back. Oh, then they brought the iconic Dodge Charger coupe back as a fucking sedan. But the kicker was when they brought my beloved car back as the economy Charger-Lite. It, too is a sedan. An extremely ugly sedan. It's looks like a cheap, retarded Charger wanna-be. (And since you couldn't give me the new Charger, that isn't good in any way.) Turns out it handles like a cow and isn't half the car my trusty old '97 was. Shit, it doesn't even have 4 wheel disks. (Whaddya know, I DID do the whole screed.) Anyway, since I've lately been firing up my old copy of Corel draw and doing reworked versions of cars, I thought I'd take a stab at the Avenger. It's still a work in progress, but I'll throw it out here. First off, a real Dodge Avenger: Magnificent. Beautiful. It brings a tear to my eye. She looks a little dated, but still holds up pretty well. Next, the 2008 abortion that is the Dodge "Avenger": Boo! Ugly, boxy, generally crap. Now, since the old Avenger was, more or less, a stretched Mitsu Eclipse, I also looked at this year's model of the Eclipse: Finally, here's my Fox edition 2008 Avenger: I'm not completely done with it. It's hard to get a nice red on my program, and I'm still tinkering with the lines a bit. But all in all, it turned out OK. It's got a bit of the Ugly Avenger, a bit of my Classic Avenger, and even a little of the new Eclipse in it, and I think I'm on the right track with it.
