The rise, fall, and rise again of retro car design
2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser
"The PT Cruiser gets hammered by a lot of people... You know, we sold 1.3 million of those.”
ARS TECHNICA | Jan. 15, 2021
Odds are you probably never liked the Chrysler PT Cruiser, a retro-style five-door hatchback sold from 2001 through 2010. In fact, you might even hate it. Most people do. Just ask Tom Gale, Chrysler Corporation’s former vice-president of design.
"The PT Cruiser gets hammered by a lot of people,” Gale said. “But it really hit a spot. You know, we sold 1.3 million of those things.”
Today, it’s easy to forget how outrageously popular this compact car was when it was launched. Credit the PT Cruiser’s success to its retro look, which was a relatively new automotive design trend that was growing in popularity at the time. The PT Cruiser would ultimately be but one of many retro-style vehicles created by automakers. Others include the 1989 Nissan S-Cargo, 1991 Nissan Figaro, 1992 Dodge Viper, 1993 BMW Z8, 1994 Dodge Ram, 1994 Ford Mustang, 1997 Jaguar XK-8, 1998 Plymouth Prowler, 1999 Jaguar S-Type, 1999 Volkswagen New Beetle, 2001 Mini Cooper, 2002 Ford Thunderbird, 2002 Jaguar X-Type, 2004 Chevrolet SSR, 2004 Chrysler Crossfire, 2004 Ford GT, 2004 Jaguar XJ-8, 2006 Chevrolet HHR, 2008 Dodge Challenger, 2009 Chevrolet Camaro, 2011 Fiat 500, 2017 Fiat 124 Spider, and, most recently, the forthcoming 2022 Ford Bronco.
What’s retro design, you ask? Simply put, retro design takes a famous car design and reintroduces it using as many of the original car’s styling cues, but updated with contemporary surfacing and contemporary technology. The idea proved crucial to Chrysler Corporation, where Gale and his colleagues used it to their great advantage as a way to offer a look and feel that was a little bit different from the competition in a particular market segment.
From the start, Gale understood retro design in a way few others did, and automotive designers are only now beginning to understand what Gale knew then: retro design brings with it not just a recognizable look, but also an essential understanding of what a new model should be.
1991 Nissan Figaro
How the past became the present
An early example of retro design dates to 1988, when Bob Lutz, Chrysler’s president of operations, proposed building a sports car not unlike the original Shelby Cobra. The result was the Dodge Viper Concept, which debuted at the 1989 Detroit auto show and reached production three years later. “Some people call it retro, but I really don't see it that way, even though we made no bones about the fact that it was inspired by the Shelby Cobra,” Gale told Ars. “We tried to do something that was a different take on it, but yet it was something that would be instantly recognized.”
While production figures were never large, the Viper helped change consumer perception of Dodge and Chrysler Corporation. As such, Gale would go on to exploit retro design in a series of concept cars, some meant for production, others not.
“Some of them were pretty literal to what we were thinking or where we were pointing and then others were really pretty far-fetched,” he said. “And part of it was just testing the waters to see how much was too much and how much was too little.”
What many competitors didn’t realize was that Gale used retro-styling for inspiration, not imitation. “We were obviously looking at our own heritage as a company and then sometimes we borrowed heritage that might not have been ours,” Gale continued. “But if you did a concept car, pretty soon it becomes ours. You're out there showing it and now you own it. And so that was an important consideration and an important strategy with what we did with those 50 or 60-odd concepts.”
Borrowing other companies’ heritage was notably successful on the 1994 Dodge Ram, which channeled the language of Kenworth and Peterbilt. “It was a pretty big leap, but we had nothing to lose,” Gale admits. “Market share for the Ram at the time was six percent or something like that. And after doing the Ram, it wasn't long before we were in the 20s.”
1995 Chrysler Atlantic concept car
Or consider the 1995 Chrysler Atlantic concept car, a design study that recalled 1936’s Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic. While Chrysler never built a production version, many of the Atlantic’s smaller cues were used on the Chrysler Chronos and Citadel, allowing the surfacing to become more familiar. This led to Gale lifting these classic elements, such as grille textures or fender flourishes and integrating them into aggressively modern production cars, giving them a timeless quality. The result can be seen on the C-pillar on the Chrysler LHS, or the grille on the Chrysler Concorde. It’s something that designers who followed in Chrysler’s retro wake would miss.
Even Gale’s most decidedly retro design, the Plymouth Prowler, had an ulterior motive. “As a company, we didn't have resources for a lot of research,” Gale said. “We had no idea about forming and standing and extruding and welding and bonding aluminum itself. So Prowler really was all about that as a testbed.”
As a hot rod enthusiast himself, Gale knew most of the hot rod community was not going to accept the car. “Their whole reason for life is to change something that someone else came out with. To me, it was always more about gaining the research through the suppliers that we have working with us on that.”
When retro goes wrong
As Chrysler enjoyed success by looking backward, other automakers began to adopt the concept of retro design themselves. Unfortunately, many would take it too literally.
For Jaguar, retro design came about because the design had stagnated and calcified under British Motor Corporation’s and Rover Group’s longtime ownership. That changed once Ford Motor Company bought the company in 1999. Soon, Jaguar sought to reconnect with its past by revisiting old aesthetic triumphs under design director Geoff Lawson. “It was definitely part of the design brief, to make the Jaguars look like the Jaguars from the past, literally make them look like them,” said Adam Hatton, Jaguar’s current exterior design director.
But when Lawson unexpectedly passed away in 1999, Ian Callum was appointed to take his place. Internally, executives wanted the retro look Lawson had established to continue—Callum just was not one of them. “It almost became a standing expectation that a Jaguar should look like an old Jaguar,” Ian Callum told me in a 2018 interview. “Nobody proposed something that actually held the values of the brand, but were different.”
That contrast was causing problems, according to Hatton. “One thing that we've always had to deal with is that Jaguar is the sort of old man's car, and we definitely don't want to be that.” And ultimately, this made Callum’s change in design direction so important.
“Ian was obviously the modernist who made Jaguar modern again; amazing, contemporary, and appropriate,” Hatton told Ars. “We analyzed all of the old Jaguars next to their competition at the time, and Jaguars always looked the most modern. They were the sleekest cars with the best proportion, and then we used that with the new cars.”
For Hatton, that’s the key to Jaguar design going forward, and it’s a slight change of strategy echoed by other designers. “It's not about making cars literally look the same, but it's about capturing that spirit,” Hatton said. “A lot of it can be in the volume and proportions of the car. So, I always say, ‘Jaguars always have their sleekness.’ Like the F-Pace and the i-Pace, they all have a Jaguar sleekness. We really analyze the cars from the past because we got to use it in an intelligent way, but not be held back by it. And also, we get to think about what's relevant to customers now. So it's about using those values from Sir William Lyons, but not literally making them look like the old cars.”
2023 Land Rover Defender 75th Anniversary Edition
How car designers use retro design today
You’ll hear a similar approach to retro design from Gerry McGovern, the chief design officer for Land Rover who oversaw the design of the new 2021 Land Rover Defender. "I wasn't constantly thinking about the old one and told the team not to do that either,” he told me during an interview at the vehicle’s introduction during the 2019 Los Angeles International Auto Show. “I think if we became preoccupied with that, it would become debilitating."
Land Rover Creative Director Massimo Frascella agrees. “In the beginning of the project, I encouraged the whole team not to look at the Defender for a reason, because Defender is so established,” he said. “It's something that, particularly for us, is part of Land Rover. You don't have to look at the car; it's there. Just forget Defender. Think about what the Defender is all about and let's design the new Defender, because inevitably, some of those elements won’t come back.”
In the end, the new Defender pays a respectful nod to the original without being held back by it. Looking at its silhouette, the pronounced wheel arches, minimal overhangs, the high sill, and the use of simple geometric forms lend the SUV its unique character.
“It would be completely dishonest as a group of professional designers to create something for today that looks like something that was designed 60 years ago,” McGovern says. “To me, that’s not design, that's retrospectivism in the extreme, and it’s dishonest."
Jaguar and Land Rover are far from the only companies eschewing the original retro design concept these days, Ford Motor Company has a number of products whose lineage dates back decades, but they’re not saddled with retro design in 2020 either. Although these new vehicles use elements of it, according to Joel Piaskowski, global design director for the Ford Motor Co., Ford calls these vehicles icons. The idea is typified by the Ford Mustang, which was last fully redesigned in 2015.
“As we were doing market research on it, the more mature generation Mustang owners wanted that retro quality,” Piaskowski said. “But as we listened to the younger customers, the up and coming buyers, they were all about progression and looking for something new that represented their generation.”
So the 2015 Mustang preserved its V8 performance, the sound, the grunt, the stance, and some of the design cues. At the same time, Ford changed the car’s proportion, while adding new, more European, aesthetics aimed at new, younger customers who may not have considered a Mustang. Through it all, Piaskowski didn’t feel hemmed in by its iconic design. “I think that working on something with such a rich heritage actually gives you more opportunity to reinterpret those elements and recreate it in a new, modern way.”
The same thing happened with the Ford GT40, the racecar that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Forty years after its victories in France, it reappeared as a street-legal supercar, the 2004 Ford GT. This vehicle looked very much like an updated version of its predecessor. When the next Ford GT arrived in 2017, it contained elements that captured the spirit of GT 40 and GT but carried everything out in a much more progressive way. “And I think that's the real extreme of going from retro to iconic and progressing the brand,” Piaskowski said.
What Ford, Jaguar, and Land Rover have all discovered is what Gale knew decades ago. It's what lauded car designers like J. Mays—a multi-decade pro who worked at Audi, Volkswagen, and Ford and was behind the New Beetle and the 2005 Mustang—knew, too. Good retro design was never about merely copying a look; it was trying to understand a vehicle’s essential elements beyond its looks. What elements give a vehicle a certain unique character? This is why the 2004 Ford GT and 2015 Ford Mustang proved successful, but the 2002 Ford Thunderbird was not. Nowadays, as designers have learned that retro design is more about capturing the essence of a vehicle’s heritage, the designs have become a lot less literal. They know that merely copying its look is a recipe for failure.
“Retro design and heritage design, regardless of how you call it, still exists,” said Land Rover’s Frascella. “Whether it's the right thing to do is debatable. I feel like heritage design or retro design keeps people too connected with the past. Depending on why you are designing and what you are all about, it can be difficult, or it can be the right thing to do.
“It's important to acknowledge where you're coming from in your heritage,” he continued. “But ultimately, you need to be relevant today, and tomorrow. So in order to do that, you know, you can't look back too much. You cannot repackage or offer again what's been offered before, just in a slightly modern way. That doesn't work.”
With the gift of hindsight, that’s a lesson even the godfather of retro design, Chrysler’s Gale, can understand today. In fact, he’d argue the desire for something new may be what made retro design so successful in the first place: “We were always enjoying success as a company when we were maybe just a little bit different than some of the other guys.”