By James Cochran, Photo Editor
Every decade has a recognizable aesthetic and, when it comes to cars, they’re no exception. Cars are moving snapshots in time of what design choices and trends were popular at the time, from big components like the exhaust all the way to the power window switches. While some designs were more for decorative purposes, some designs were also made to make a safer vehicle. From recognizable classics to more obscure vehicles, here are some of my favorites I’ve taken photos of.
This looks like a typical, late-nineties Toyota Land Cruiser until a deeper look reveals that it is right-hand drive and has a mirror on the fender. These are two identifiers of the 1998-2002 Toyota Land Cruiser Cygnus. The non-Cygnus models were sold in the US as the Lexus LX470. Designed by Takeo Kondo, the Land Cruiser Cygnus is a perfect example of when automotive manufacturers in the mid to late nineties started to switch to more rounded designs, promoting both safety and efficiency.
If you need to time-travel, this is not a bad option. With less than 10,000 units made, the DMC DeLorean was John DeLorean’s answer to the popularity of the “sports car.” The DeLorean was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, known for several designs including the Lotus Espirit. Elements of the Espirit’s design are actually all throughout the vehicle, such as the taillights and the hatch door. The car combined the late 70s and early 80s rectangular design with gullwing doors reminiscent of the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL. While the DeLorean sold poorly thanks to its disappointing build quality and John DeLorean’s cocaine trafficking arrest in 1982, its unique design and feature in the Back to the Future trilogy give it a legacy in both car design and Hollywood history.
In 1969, Volkswagen and Porsche collaborated to make the Porsche 914, designed by Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, with final designs by Heinrich Kile. The classic 60s and 70s era Volkswagen design is strong throughout the vehicle, with a soft top roof design that was inspired by the four-door Volkswagen Thing (yes, that’s what it’s actually called!) and brought to the Volkswagen Golf Mk1 Cabriolet. Another neat aspect of the design is the pop-up headlights, which were a popular design choice that ranged literally decades, up until the early 2000s, when stricter safety regulations prohibited their manufacturing to minimize injury to pedestrians. With just over 100,000 units made from 1969 to 1976, the 914 is a lesser-known yet still amazingly designed model of Porsche.
Continuing with the pop-up headlights is the 1997-2004 Chevrolet Corvette C5, designed by John Cafarro in 1993 during the C4 generation of Corvette. The C5 was the last car in North America to have pop-up headlights, which were fully phased out in 2004. It is also the last Corvette with the iconic circular taillights, which would be changed out in future models with more aggressive, rectangular taillights that reference the old taillight design. The front bumper features a cleverly designed Corvette-branded front license plate cover so it is flush with the rest of the design, and the badge is a nice mixture of the old Corvette logo’s metallic circle with a new design of the two flags that would be used as a concept for future Corvette logos. A large portion of the design elements of the C5 would be used in the future C6 model, made from 2004 to 2013.
Last but not least is the 1999-2002 Nissan Skyline R34 designed by Kozo Watanabe. The Skyline has arguably one of the most famous taillight designs, with two circular lights similar to the Chevrolet Corvette. Nissan did a neat and economical move with the design by turning the model into a sedan, station wagon, and racing variants like the GT-T and the GT-R. Approximately 65,000 units of the R34 were made. The R34 and previous generations of the Skyline weren’t brought to other countries domestically but, starting in 2006, the Skyline models were brought to North America, branded as Infiniti, Nissan’s luxury brand, under the G series model line.
As the automotive industry continues to innovate new designs, some designs have stuck around, while some have driven away. Documenting these pieces of history through photography is really important because, as these vehicles get older, there will be less and less on the road for future generations to see. It also documents what designs could be brought back to life in the future and improved on if they were too ahead of their time or if technology wasn’t advanced enough to give them the maximum potential they could’ve had. With electric vehicles on the rise, perhaps various car brands will go back to their old electric vehicle concepts and bring those designs back to life.
