Would a Neanderthal drool over your pristine ’79 El Camino?
In other words, do cars hold an intrinsic aesthetic appeal, or are they simply good-looking compared to other cars?
Imagine you’re a denizen of, say, the mid-1800s. You’ve obviously never seen a car before, and via the wonders of time travel, the Aston Martin DB9 pictured above appears in front of you. After overcoming your initial shock and awe, you pause for a moment to contemplate its aesthetic merit. Knowing nothing about its modus operandi, would you consider it an attractive shape? Or does an otherwise pleasing form like the DB9’s require a sort of “automotive context” in order to be deemed beautiful?
See, I believe humans are hard-wired with certain aesthetic predispositions. Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder—but within a limited range. After all, almost everyone considers a vibrant sunset, a sleek and stately race horse, the starry night sky or a balletic hummingbird beautiful. And within the confines of our respective genders (with some exceptions), men are drawn to an attractive female shape, and vice versa. Those predispositions transcend personality; even someone with absolutely no visual taste in any other arena can recognize basic beauty when they see it.
Technology can be beautiful. Consider the Golden Gate Bridge, the Taj Mahal or Concorde: Someone calling any one of those unattractive would be far and away the exception rather than the rule, no matter their preferences in other areas or cultural biases.
But cars? A common thread between the examples of beautiful technology listed above is that their method of working informs their shape. When considering a car, though, there’s no innate indication as to what makes it go; from where it derives its motivation. Put another way, when looking at one, it’s distressingly easy to suppress learned knowledge of what propels it and simply see it as a metal box with four wheels. A visitor from an earlier time, without having lived in modern society and having no prejudices or prior knowledge of cars, would behold one exactly that way—something impossible for the other examples of beautiful technology listed above. To our transplant from the 1800s, the form of the Golden Gate Bridge dovetails perfectly with its function, the Taj Mahal communicates majesty in and of itself, and Concorde positively radiates “fast, winged flight.” They don’t require a context; they stand alone.
So as much as it pains me to postulate it, I believe automotive aesthetic appeal falls into the relative category. The shapes we admire so much, like the DB9’s, aren’t timeless, as much as they stand out from their peers in the present and immediate future.
