and the split headlights are much more widespread, it's funny to see that even luxury makers like Audi, BMW and Rolls are all following what Citroen of all brands started
@@bavalenzuelathe juke or the aztek had split headlights but in this case it is the citroen that started the "thin running light over the low-placed actual headlight" with the C4 Picasso years ago
Ford has a bunch more "twins", the US Escort is clearly differing from the European Escort (at least both are compact class) also the US and European Granada. And then they have some slightly altered names like the Galaxie (US full-size sedan in the 60s and early 70s) and the Galaxy (European MPV from 1995-2024, the first generation was made in the same Portugese factory as the 1st gen VW Sharan and Seat Alhambra); the Taunus (named after the Taunus Mountain Range northern of Frankfurt, in production from 1939 into the 1980s, a European family car) and the Taurus (latin for "Bull" a US Mid-/Full-Size Car introduced in 1985). Also the Kuga (European name for the Escape) and Cougar (also last gen Mercury Cougar) sports coupé it's funny that they also have the Puma (which is an alternative/latin word for Cougar), a smaller sports coupé based on the Fiesta, now a small SUV.
Man i love youtube. Where else you could randomly, at 7am, out of nowhere stumble upon video dedicated to deep analysis of very specific niche topic of cars headlights shape in 2000s
@@ziginox Wasn't just the J-cars! Pretty much any car made by one of the American Big Three had it bad too! Dodge Intrepid, Plymouth Breeze, Chevrolet Cavalier and Lumima, Oldsmobile Alero, pretty much anything made by Ford at the time
The greatest car is the passat 1.9 tdi, the second greatest is the golf 4 1.9 tdi, the third greatest is the sharan 1.9 tdi. I'd say the au falcon is the fourth greatest car
Thanks to Citroën, which was about the only brand that never caved to this 2000’s design trend. Too bad Peugeot ruined them again, possibly forever this time
Unfortunately this time they are all binding LED headlights that cost over $1,000 to replace. Todays headlights look really good, but headlights are a safety thing. They should be made affordable imoh.
Yeah, but they aren't all designed the same. Drls and overall designs can be differentiated easily, for audi if you know the cars you can tell each one just by the drls from a distance, and you can tell most kias like telluride and k5 from half a mile away
@@thagoose480 I suspect as more aftermarket dealers come in and the technology becomes more ubiquitous, the parts may come down in price once these cars become old enough for a light replacement.
I can name about 50 fords with those headlights around the time. And mercuries, and toyotas, and Vauxhalls, and Opels, and holdens, and the audi tt and the swift, an- yeah, I get the point now.
And I could name a larger number of cars with a completely different headlights style from the same era: Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Lancia, Seat, Volvo, Saab, Rover, Jaguar, Mazda, Skoda, Volkswagen....
Im a kind of person that matters the balance of headlight and grille design. I think the new headlight designs are good, just the pairing it with the ridiculous grilles just makes the car look "eh" to me. Also would prefer halogens over LED i'm not gonna lie
My biggest gripe is that they make every car look very sporty, especially combined with the aggressive, sharp lines on just about every car nowadays. I understand if it's a sports sedan, like a BMW, or a sportier version of a hatchback, like the Yaris GR, but why in the world would a family sedan, like say the new Corolla, have such an angry, aggressive design? Economic family cars should exude familiarity, warmth, a welcoming look, much like most family cars from the past. It doesn't make any sense for a grocery getter car to look like a track monster. They all just look like some riced out beast I would have drawn up when I was 5 years old.
@@notcheems2783I hate electric cars for that exact reason. They don't have a "mouth". They have huge "eyes" but no other "facial features". Normaly I would see the Logo as a nose but that effect doesn't work if the front is a plastic brick. They just look so .... dead. Like a corpse that had their mouth and nose stiched shut.
@@destroyer252I grew up arround multiple peugeot 307s (combi). I love the little smile, the friendly eyes and how "open" the car is with the huge windows. I was always slightly intimidated by how big and bulky the car is, but that little smile always made me laugh. I especially hate the aerodynamic tails of newer cars - and their wide hips. The 307s have sooo much room in them and they don't "fall down" in the back. You can't put anything into the new ones. There is just no space in their trunk and no one can sit in the 2nd row because the roof is to low.
0:44 Suzuki Swift my beloved, all these headlight designs remind me of the smooth, rounded LEGO bricks in sets at the time, I guess it was a style trendy shape everywhere
@@Nathansss7742 I remember a rumour years ago that the E90 3-Series and E60 5-Series started off in life as the Rover 55 and Rover 65 and that's why they felt so completely different to anything else they'd done before design wise. But I don't believe that.
@@AuroraBeyond888 Interestingly the head of Design Chris Bangle was already doing their designs in the mid to late 90s and did cars like the Z3 or 7 E38 and then had a real paradigm shift with the controversial 7 series E65-E68 and said 5 series E60/E61.
I think the origin of this design trend at Ford came in the form of the 1996 Lincoln Sentinel and 1997 Mercury MC-4 Concept Cars, it's certainly the first time I had seen that look which accompanied a sharp front fender return (that was actually the biggest part of the design novelty). Up to this point, everybody had wrap-around headlights that cut off the fender corners. Cadillac "Art & Science" design also mandated these type of headlights on all their models.
my previous car, the 2007 mitsubishi colt also had that oh god oh fu edit: wait its also triangular but its rounded on the bottom edge, bit more like the peugeot approach
Can we also talk about how a lot of European car’s taillights had the same 6 panel arrangement for a period of time? Examples, Volvo 240, Porsche 944, VW Golf/Cabrio
Especially the 3 door was an amazing piece of design. I especially liked it in dark blue with tinted windows. It looked like a coupé but more practical and affordable.
Same here (as pictured in my pfp). I wish they kept with the styling as I really like it, and despite current issues (electrical issues likely due to a previous water leak due to water going through the ac vents causing the fuel pump to sporadically cut out) the car at 314k miles, it was reliable for previous owners despite them obviously neglecting it so even though I have had many issues with it, I would still recommend them to anyone for a reliable first car looking at my cars previous history.
as an amateur designer i can give a very easy explanation for why this "basic shape" was so popular. that curved line is very easy to draw, cuz it's a natural movement for your hand to do, and when you are drawing (as most car designers often start out doing), you tend to follow the natural flow of the pencil. This is why most cars with this headlight shape, has an inoffensive design, because the natural flow of the design is uninterrupted and uniform. It might not necessarily be particularly interesting or attractive, but it's a far cry from downright ugly.
Just the other week I started to think that did the people in the 80's (late 70's, 80's and early 90's) have the same "now everything looks the same!" vibes as we have now? Because there were a LOT of "brick" straight line cars back then. Though I for some reason don't have much difficulty to tell what is what*, because the badging was pretty clear back then and they still usually had some brand specific stuff on them. *I'm talking about old cars.
1. Huge respect for featuring Great Wall Hover 2. Mercedes W164 headlights were a continuation of W163 almond-shaped headlights, they just happened to look similar
next episode: "2015+ when all the headlights are actually in the bumper and they have DRL eyebrows and indicators" an absolutely hideous design trend. Thanks nissan juke.
You are a different level of underrated - your content is amazing! When I clicked on your video, I was expecting your channel to have a few million subscribers. Keep up the videos, you'll grow big :)
Dude you have to be one of the best and most underrated car TH-camrs here. Your topics seem to be exactly the type of things I would post if I did these. Keep it up!
Yellow dirty looking headlights are alright in the city but rural night driving is dangerous. My 2002 Mercedes still drove nice but unless I kept the high beams on traveling at freeway speeds at night was the only way I could see. When I would dim/ dip the lights it was almost like I had turned the lights off. Other than the dashboard lights I would not know that the lights were even on. Test drove a 2019 Nissan Altima and was totally floored with the led lights. Even on low I could see almost as far as I'd want. Go up to high and they just went out to infinity. Fog lights are actually irrelevant with leds. The Altima had fog lights along with the leds and going back and forth, I could barely tell if they made any difference.
@@paul5683 LEDs are too bright. It seems like everyone always has high beams on. If you flash someone then their highs go on and it is like staring at the sun. It is especially bad with how big pickups and SUVs have become.
@@ichigozanghetsu back then, they used a lot of Mercedes PARTS, but Ssangyong never sold anything that was originally a Merc. These days they're entirely their own thing.
@@MethMonkey-yb9mryes and no, they have used Mercedes engines in some vehicles, but there is one that technically is a rebadged Mercedes and it's the chairman
@@onionman500_m8 yes engines are included in the shared parts bin - they used almost exclusively Merc engines back in the 90s. Oh yep my bad, I completely forgot the Chairman was a thing xD. Also they still use Merc gearboxes so they're not entirely separate.
The 1998 AU Ford Falcon had the same design language and it's sales tanked, especially with the, at launch, 'waterfall grille' which was popular in Sth East Asian Ford designs. Ford Australia backpedalled so hard that they managed to resurrect the design with the (almost) excellent 2002 BA Ford Falcon, but I think their Twincam 24 Valve 4.0 litre motor did most of the heavy lifting!
BA was a handsome thing albeit always angry looking. What’s even fore baffling about the AU is that they tried to fix it with quad round headlamps which not only made it look ridiculous, but also 10 years older than it was. That being said, AU Falcon was still a looker compared to Fairlane from the same year…
@@camryt The quad round headlights had been a thing since ED XR6/8, and yes they always looked a bit stupid. The BA and BF have a similar motif on their headlights on the XR models compared to the real ones
It's crazy how unique and how much BMW's stand out in every generation after the 80s. When you see a BMW you'll know from far away. Your video made me realise why BMW are so praised today.
hey just want to say i really enjoy these videos, i've always casually liked cars and i think it's really cool to look at how everything works behind the scenes. in my opinion this isn't the boring side of car culture at all. a lot of it is kind of fascinating to me.
I liked how Peugeot picked up the trend from Ford and then went all ham with it ever bigger and more swept back, with 206 and then 207, while giving it a unique touch.
Mitsubishi 3000GT also had them on 2nd gen/1st facelift aftet it lost the pop up headlights. Last version techiclh too, but the corner/turn indicator light made it into more Supra esque shape.
For me, another big change in the design of the 2000s was the bumper line, i.e. the difference between the bumper, the grille, lights and the bonnet/hood. Now we can see a continuous shape between the plastic and the metal. When parking I still miss the old school practical and protective bumper.
10:42 On the outro there, instead of 57th every video, you should change the number with either +1, 2 or 3 maybe even minus sometimes. But that would make the outros a bit more interesting
Id love to see a video on why brands abandon their iconic headlight/rear light signature. There were times where I could say from far away "thats an Audi, Mercedes, Volvo" but that is hardly possible with newest models. The main reason is probably cost and them moving to LED even though that should cause more design freedom and not unity across different brands?
Because as the years go by, things grow stale, like it or not. They all wanted a new look, but unfortunately all ended up looking nearly identical. The new cars of the 2020's though are finally starting to have their own identities again. Not a unified look across the brand, but most models have their very own look.
Something similar I noticed is how car brands were all incorporating trapezoids and rhombuses in their front/rear fascia from ~2014-2022 and now they’re shifting towards triangles and squares
People nowadays complain that all new cars look the same because of the split headlights but it has always been like that and the mid 2000's era is a perfect example of that. Trends come and go, every decade has its own styling and there's nothing wrong with that...
Great video. I will never unsee this now 😂 At least I can sleep at night knowing my Mercedes CLK was an outlier in its strange merged circles headlight design :)
‼️You’re woefully overthinking this. Jeez. The headlight is where four panels normally join. Hood, fender, bumper and grille. A generally straight line is desired on rolled panel ends, thus the fender and hood lines remain straight. The bumper is normally curved but has a shelf on top of its protrusion, thus it’s best to maintain a straight line through the shelf of the bumper. The grille is whatever the designer wants it to be because it’s plastic and just for looks. Thus, the grille is normally straight along the seam to the bumper and hood but where the grille meets the headlight….that is where you may be allotted ONE curve for your pleasure. Design is not complicated, it’s more complicated to find cars that defy design constraints. Look at the 2003 Town Car. Why is it absolutely unique compared to the general cars of that era including the Cadillac competitor? The fender has small points. Rather than the headlight disguising the edge of the fender, the headlight is set into the fender and a complex shape is made along with the sharp delicate point at the top front edge. Unique. Notice the hood. Unlike it’s most similar stablemates (Grand Marquis and Crown Victoria) the hood doesn’t terminate into a plastic cowl at the front but rather cascades downward and encloses the grille. Find another sedan that has the grille inside the hood rather than a cowl/bumper. Now look closer at the hood. Notice the crease down the centerline. See how the cascading hoop that encloses the grille is made of many many precise compound curves that would normally make sheet formers shudder. Now look at the deck lid. It isn’t just a piece that bridges the quarter panels but adds even more precise, complex and refined details that all competitors at the time lacked. It almost looks like the back muscles and shoulder blades of a gymnast in motion and again is a triumph of compound curves. Go ahead and do some research on this sheet forming stuff. You’ll learn to appreciate compound curves as the marble sculpting-like art form that it is.
Its interesting how many vehicles used this headlight design language. The first time I noticed it as a trend was in 2001 in an ad for the 2002 Mercury Mountaineer, and I instantly recognized it as the look of the next decade to come for car headlight design.
What's wild is realizing that - while I grew up with this headlight style and am used to it - there's gonna be watchers in here that were never even alive when this was in, and are watching this more as a historical documentary from before their time.
corsicar can you talk about that trend of doing the front fenders divided in two sections, one line goes to the windows bottom line and the other goes up to the A pillar. it's on the Fiat Punto 199, and literally any car of 2006-2009
The irony of this is that so many people and brands wanted to get rid of sealed beam headlights because they looked the same and were hard to work around, and even without them brands couldn't help but cookie cutter eachother.
You should talk about today's tail lights where it's just a horizonal straight line. Like a rushed project that you started last minute and due by midnight 😂
You could also make a video on how taillight design changed. In the 90s it was to squares on each side of the trunks and. I the 2000s it became more rectangle and half of the light made it's way onto the trunk. And now we have bars connected all the way through.
You can also see VW Group influence in the design of the Ford Prodigy concept. To me it looks alot like the A6 of the time with it's triangle window by the c-pillar and smooth lines
I mean, even Ford forgot about it in their Fiesta farewell video, but why they did is for me incomprehensible, great little car which handles well and causes no problems.
i like how every time this guy manually removes the background from a front-ish picture of a car he cuts off almost the whole tire so it looks like a bicycle wheel hahaha
Now the industry is once again converging on the same trend with the split headlight design
and the split headlights are much more widespread, it's funny to see that even luxury makers like Audi, BMW and Rolls are all following what Citroen of all brands started
@@corsicar_ damn I wasn't aware Citroen started that trend. Would love to see your breakdown on that!
@@corsicar_ I always saw the Juke as the start lf that trend, or we can say Pontiac Aztek too. That and lightbars are the face of cars in 2020.
@@bavalenzuelathe juke or the aztek had split headlights but in this case it is the citroen that started the "thin running light over the low-placed actual headlight" with the C4 Picasso years ago
@@corsicar_let's not forget about the trend of humongous front grills, that is heavily influenced and a product of the Asian market
I love the sneaky inclusion of both the Ford Fusion and the Ford Fusion
He kinda... fused it in there.
Ford has a bunch more "twins", the US Escort is clearly differing from the European Escort (at least both are compact class) also the US and European Granada.
And then they have some slightly altered names like the Galaxie (US full-size sedan in the 60s and early 70s) and the Galaxy (European MPV from 1995-2024, the first generation was made in the same Portugese factory as the 1st gen VW Sharan and Seat Alhambra); the Taunus (named after the Taunus Mountain Range northern of Frankfurt, in production from 1939 into the 1980s, a European family car) and the Taurus (latin for "Bull" a US Mid-/Full-Size Car introduced in 1985).
Also the Kuga (European name for the Escape) and Cougar (also last gen Mercury Cougar) sports coupé it's funny that they also have the Puma (which is an alternative/latin word for Cougar), a smaller sports coupé based on the Fiesta, now a small SUV.
@@kuchenblechmafiagmbh1381 also the new electric Explorer for the European market
@@ToreDL87 😏
Man i love youtube. Where else you could randomly, at 7am, out of nowhere stumble upon video dedicated to deep analysis of very specific niche topic of cars headlights shape in 2000s
At your mom's house
@@TheMcstevesterwtf
@@TheMcstevester True
@@TheMcstevester bro what
@@TheMcstevesternobody likes you
90s jellybean headlights: *nervous sweating*
Impreza, Legacy, Maxima, Camry, Corolla, J30... the list goes on and on!
Nissan Micra K11 prefacelift is a great example of the jellybean design
Meanwhile, GMT400 headlights: *BRICC*
@@ziginox Wasn't just the J-cars! Pretty much any car made by one of the American Big Three had it bad too! Dodge Intrepid, Plymouth Breeze, Chevrolet Cavalier and Lumima, Oldsmobile Alero, pretty much anything made by Ford at the time
right i think he missed that, that shape was the precursor of the 00's shape only in sealed beam form
These headlights also appeared on the greatest car ever made:
the AU Falcon
AU Falcon! AU Falcon! AU Falcon! AU Falcon!
The greatest car is the passat 1.9 tdi, the second greatest is the golf 4 1.9 tdi, the third greatest is the sharan 1.9 tdi. I'd say the au falcon is the fourth greatest car
@@iuopunderstandyourjokes9914au falcon 1.9 tdi when
@4dmd absolute dream machine
you can't spell AUstralia without AU
It’s happening again. All the cars nowadays have thin lights or straight line lights
Thanks to Citroën, which was about the only brand that never caved to this 2000’s design trend. Too bad Peugeot ruined them again, possibly forever this time
Unfortunately this time they are all binding LED headlights that cost over $1,000 to replace.
Todays headlights look really good, but headlights are a safety thing. They should be made affordable imoh.
Yeah, but they aren't all designed the same.
Drls and overall designs can be differentiated easily, for audi if you know the cars you can tell each one just by the drls from a distance, and you can tell most kias like telluride and k5 from half a mile away
@@עידוכסלו Lol, look at the headlights of Citroen C2
@@thagoose480 I suspect as more aftermarket dealers come in and the technology becomes more ubiquitous, the parts may come down in price once these cars become old enough for a light replacement.
I can name about 50 fords with those headlights around the time. And mercuries, and toyotas, and Vauxhalls, and Opels, and holdens, and the audi tt and the swift, an- yeah, I get the point now.
ok then, name them
@@Caspercab 25 mk6 fiesta and 25 mk6 focus
@@realredirect Vectra as well
The only Mercury that didn't have them was the good ol grand marqs
And I could name a larger number of cars with a completely different headlights style from the same era: Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Lancia, Seat, Volvo, Saab, Rover, Jaguar, Mazda, Skoda, Volkswagen....
I can't decide if I like or dislike the newest headlight designs. They make the cars Look so annoyed. +the new LEDs are literally stun granades.
Im a kind of person that matters the balance of headlight and grille design. I think the new headlight designs are good, just the pairing it with the ridiculous grilles just makes the car look "eh" to me. Also would prefer halogens over LED i'm not gonna lie
My biggest gripe is that they make every car look very sporty, especially combined with the aggressive, sharp lines on just about every car nowadays. I understand if it's a sports sedan, like a BMW, or a sportier version of a hatchback, like the Yaris GR, but why in the world would a family sedan, like say the new Corolla, have such an angry, aggressive design? Economic family cars should exude familiarity, warmth, a welcoming look, much like most family cars from the past. It doesn't make any sense for a grocery getter car to look like a track monster. They all just look like some riced out beast I would have drawn up when I was 5 years old.
@@notcheems2783I hate electric cars for that exact reason. They don't have a "mouth". They have huge "eyes" but no other "facial features". Normaly I would see the Logo as a nose but that effect doesn't work if the front is a plastic brick. They just look so .... dead. Like a corpse that had their mouth and nose stiched shut.
@@destroyer252I grew up arround multiple peugeot 307s (combi). I love the little smile, the friendly eyes and how "open" the car is with the huge windows. I was always slightly intimidated by how big and bulky the car is, but that little smile always made me laugh.
I especially hate the aerodynamic tails of newer cars - and their wide hips. The 307s have sooo much room in them and they don't "fall down" in the back. You can't put anything into the new ones. There is just no space in their trunk and no one can sit in the 2nd row because the roof is to low.
Audi is the biggest offender with their dumbfk tech. The only valid new generation headlights I like are from Lexus tbh
0:44 Suzuki Swift my beloved, all these headlight designs remind me of the smooth, rounded LEGO bricks in sets at the time, I guess it was a style trendy shape everywhere
I'd never think you would be here
The only thing that caught my attention with this headlight shape is the Swift. It just looks very naturally on it.
Now we have the led crossbar tailights and split headlights on every damn car lol
Don’t forget the god awful illuminated logo.
@@TWOxTONE_773 Lord Have Mercy that's disgusting 😂
The rover prototype just looks like a Vauxhall signum which was years away when they were designing the rover
Rover was ahead of the game entirely with the TCV too, by about 15 years.
RIP MG Rover and most of the British car industry as a whole.
Rumour has it BMW stole the design and made the 1 series. Can definitely say it’s inspired by it at least
@@Nathansss7742 I remember a rumour years ago that the E90 3-Series and E60 5-Series started off in life as the Rover 55 and Rover 65 and that's why they felt so completely different to anything else they'd done before design wise. But I don't believe that.
@@AuroraBeyond888 Interestingly the head of Design Chris Bangle was already doing their designs in the mid to late 90s and did cars like the Z3 or 7 E38 and then had a real paradigm shift with the controversial 7 series E65-E68 and said 5 series E60/E61.
Ford Fusion joke is the best. I will never understand using the same name for those two.
I think the origin of this design trend at Ford came in the form of the 1996 Lincoln Sentinel and 1997 Mercury MC-4 Concept Cars, it's certainly the first time I had seen that look which accompanied a sharp front fender return (that was actually the biggest part of the design novelty). Up to this point, everybody had wrap-around headlights that cut off the fender corners. Cadillac "Art & Science" design also mandated these type of headlights on all their models.
Hey, it’s THE DetroitBORG! Didn’t know you were still active.
Wait a second....
My 02 Clio literally has the "Basic Shape" headlights with the leading round edge...oh my God.
my previous car, the 2007 mitsubishi colt also had that oh god oh fu
edit: wait its also triangular but its rounded on the bottom edge, bit more like the peugeot approach
so does my wife's 2005 Opel Corsa C ... damn
I took my driving test in a Ford Fusion with those headlights, but you'll have to guess which one I'm referring to.
My 99 micra as well
Can we also talk about how a lot of European car’s taillights had the same 6 panel arrangement for a period of time? Examples, Volvo 240, Porsche 944, VW Golf/Cabrio
chevrolet celebrity
And examples finis h there, not a trend.
One of the best taillight designs!
190E EVO, and the Testarossa
@@jhsevsalso early 3rd gen Camaros
I'm glad you mentioned the Prelude near the end. I was about to go mad
As the owner of a mk1 Focus I have to say it's so good even those years laters
Especially the 3 door was an amazing piece of design. I especially liked it in dark blue with tinted windows. It looked like a coupé but more practical and affordable.
Same here (as pictured in my pfp). I wish they kept with the styling as I really like it, and despite current issues (electrical issues likely due to a previous water leak due to water going through the ac vents causing the fuel pump to sporadically cut out) the car at 314k miles, it was reliable for previous owners despite them obviously neglecting it so even though I have had many issues with it, I would still recommend them to anyone for a reliable first car looking at my cars previous history.
as an amateur designer i can give a very easy explanation for why this "basic shape" was so popular. that curved line is very easy to draw, cuz it's a natural movement for your hand to do, and when you are drawing (as most car designers often start out doing), you tend to follow the natural flow of the pencil. This is why most cars with this headlight shape, has an inoffensive design, because the natural flow of the design is uninterrupted and uniform. It might not necessarily be particularly interesting or attractive, but it's a far cry from downright ugly.
4:42 I love this era of Volkswagen above anything else. It's just so good both from a design and technological aspect.
I so badly wish I had gotten to live through that era 🥲
@@sebafer2719You can still buy the cars
Phaeton was the masterpiece and Piech the master oft this all.
@@Who_can_save_you_from_hell Volkwagen at that time was when a car guy runs a car company, now it's accountants.
@@sebafer2719 I can't think of a single bad model. All had amazing engines, features and design.
I’m glad you mentioned the prelude. That car was in my mind the whole video
I love VW's blocky bauhaus design. Clean, sleek, practical and ergonomically just right.
3:15 that ain't no Chevrolet, that is the Waterson mobile
80s car designers where all like "im going to put a square/rectangle headlight on my cube/rectangle car!"
90's car designers were like "I'm going to put round/oval headlights on my round/bubbly car!"
Just the other week I started to think that did the people in the 80's (late 70's, 80's and early 90's) have the same "now everything looks the same!" vibes as we have now? Because there were a LOT of "brick" straight line cars back then. Though I for some reason don't have much difficulty to tell what is what*, because the badging was pretty clear back then and they still usually had some brand specific stuff on them.
*I'm talking about old cars.
The Fusion double take was funny and unexpected
1. Huge respect for featuring Great Wall Hover
2. Mercedes W164 headlights were a continuation of W163 almond-shaped headlights, they just happened to look similar
I really enjoy your kind of humour and choice of themes. Hope you can do longer videos (20 to 25 minutes max) in the near future.
I had observed that Honda’s entire lineup in the mid 2000s had headlights like this. Honda was more 4 points rather than 3 though
next episode: "2015+ when all the headlights are actually in the bumper and they have DRL eyebrows and indicators" an absolutely hideous design trend. Thanks nissan juke.
Thanks Pontiac Aztek.
@@jlang8213 oshi you're right. we didnt get that in europe so I completely forgot, but yeah.
It was actually Citroen that started the trend of DRLs/signals above the headlights
Jeep Cherokee of 10 years ago.
Cries in 2022+ Hyundai Tucson
i love the nicheness of the subjects you cover
You are a different level of underrated - your content is amazing! When I clicked on your video, I was expecting your channel to have a few million subscribers. Keep up the videos, you'll grow big :)
Man this guy makes videos like how I make PPTs.
When people don't even remember sealed beam headlamps....
I think it was so ubiquitous because the shape felt so obvious. The shape follows the lines of the hood and flows so naturally on pen and paper.
Dude you have to be one of the best and most underrated car TH-camrs here. Your topics seem to be exactly the type of things I would post if I did these. Keep it up!
even the kia picanto had them lights
Keep it coming, this is good stuff and 172% better than other car channels
Sweetie wake up corsicar has blessed us petrolheads once more
Haven't seen any headlights from this era nowadays that aren't yellowed out.
Because they're all cheap plastic.
Yellow dirty looking headlights are alright in the city but rural night driving is dangerous. My 2002 Mercedes still drove nice but unless I kept the high beams on traveling at freeway speeds at night was the only way I could see. When I would dim/ dip the lights it was almost like I had turned the lights off. Other than the dashboard lights I would not know that the lights were even on. Test drove a 2019 Nissan Altima and was totally floored with the led lights. Even on low I could see almost as far as I'd want. Go up to high and they just went out to infinity. Fog lights are actually irrelevant with leds. The Altima had fog lights along with the leds and going back and forth, I could barely tell if they made any difference.
@@paul5683 LEDs are too bright. It seems like everyone always has high beams on. If you flash someone then their highs go on and it is like staring at the sun. It is especially bad with how big pickups and SUVs have become.
You'll be surprised to know how similar the headlights of Ssangyong's Kyron and Mercedes-Benz S-Class are.
A lot of sangyongs are just remodeled mercedes.
@@ichigozanghetsu back then, they used a lot of Mercedes PARTS, but Ssangyong never sold anything that was originally a Merc. These days they're entirely their own thing.
@@MethMonkey-yb9mr
Ssangyong chairman is a w124 underneath.
@@MethMonkey-yb9mryes and no, they have used Mercedes engines in some vehicles, but there is one that technically is a rebadged Mercedes and it's the chairman
@@onionman500_m8 yes engines are included in the shared parts bin - they used almost exclusively Merc engines back in the 90s. Oh yep my bad, I completely forgot the Chairman was a thing xD. Also they still use Merc gearboxes so they're not entirely separate.
As an owner of a B5.5 Passat, I’m glad to know that my car is featured in this video
The vectras is interesting because i personally find the vectra b design way sleeker and sportier prettier than that of the vectra c
The 1998 AU Ford Falcon had the same design language and it's sales tanked, especially with the, at launch, 'waterfall grille' which was popular in Sth East Asian Ford designs. Ford Australia backpedalled so hard that they managed to resurrect the design with the (almost) excellent 2002 BA Ford Falcon, but I think their Twincam 24 Valve 4.0 litre motor did most of the heavy lifting!
And even before the AU there was yet another New Edge car, the 1996 Ka
BA was a handsome thing albeit always angry looking. What’s even fore baffling about the AU is that they tried to fix it with quad round headlamps which not only made it look ridiculous, but also 10 years older than it was. That being said, AU Falcon was still a looker compared to Fairlane from the same year…
@@camryt The quad round headlights had been a thing since ED XR6/8, and yes they always looked a bit stupid. The BA and BF have a similar motif on their headlights on the XR models compared to the real ones
@@camryt I do like the front ends on the XR models. Much more aggressive than the normal ones.
Omg I googled the falcon of that time and jesus christ did that look bad
You've basically summed up 2000's design! I didn't even notice at least not to such a degree. Nice work!
Fusion mentioned hello
Fusion mentioned fr 🗣️🗣️💯💯
Can't believe he mentioned the Fusion AND the Fusion!
It's crazy how unique and how much BMW's stand out in every generation after the 80s. When you see a BMW you'll know from far away. Your video made me realise why BMW are so praised today.
This is the shit I think about in my head but nobody ever verbalizes lol.
hey just want to say i really enjoy these videos, i've always casually liked cars and i think it's really cool to look at how everything works behind the scenes.
in my opinion this isn't the boring side of car culture at all. a lot of it is kind of fascinating to me.
3:10 Amazing world of Gumball car
The Ford focus made a huge impact on design in the late 90's, but the early 2000's everything looked like a focus
I liked how Peugeot picked up the trend from Ford and then went all ham with it ever bigger and more swept back, with 206 and then 207, while giving it a unique touch.
The 307 and 407 basically took them and just stretched them out.
I hate how much youve made me realise this and now im going to be looking out for this shape for an entire week before i forget again
Mitsubishi 3000GT also had them on 2nd gen/1st facelift aftet it lost the pop up headlights. Last version techiclh too, but the corner/turn indicator light made it into more Supra esque shape.
Still love the Golf 3 front with those 3 lights in a row below the big, slightly bubbly one.
For me, another big change in the design of the 2000s was the bumper line, i.e. the difference between the bumper, the grille, lights and the bonnet/hood. Now we can see a continuous shape between the plastic and the metal. When parking I still miss the old school practical and protective bumper.
Loved the info, but subscribed cz of how it was presented, absolutely loved the humors! So refreshing
don't forget that the Au Falcon also shares the *"New Edge"* design too.
today is the same. actually it was always like this. just look at 80s, 90s or modern cars.
10:42 On the outro there, instead of 57th every video, you should change the number with either +1, 2 or 3 maybe even minus sometimes. But that would make the outros a bit more interesting
Id love to see a video on why brands abandon their iconic headlight/rear light signature. There were times where I could say from far away "thats an Audi, Mercedes, Volvo" but that is hardly possible with newest models.
The main reason is probably cost and them moving to LED even though that should cause more design freedom and not unity across different brands?
Because as the years go by, things grow stale, like it or not. They all wanted a new look, but unfortunately all ended up looking nearly identical. The new cars of the 2020's though are finally starting to have their own identities again. Not a unified look across the brand, but most models have their very own look.
Something similar I noticed is how car brands were all incorporating trapezoids and rhombuses in their front/rear fascia from ~2014-2022 and now they’re shifting towards triangles and squares
One of my favourite head light designs are the f30/f80/f82 such a great design and they still look modern today. Timeless design
People nowadays complain that all new cars look the same because of the split headlights but it has always been like that and the mid 2000's era is a perfect example of that. Trends come and go, every decade has its own styling and there's nothing wrong with that...
Damn, my 2012 Lexus IS250 has the same damn design 😮
That generation IS actually did it ridiculously well. Unlike Mercedes and the American brands.
0:13 the middle one is mercury milan
In the past there were literally decades of used same manufacturer of headlights when all cars used to have same rectangular lights.
as a lincoln mark fan im so happy to see my favorite series of car mentioned.
I love this channel. Always great content to see.
Great video. I will never unsee this now 😂
At least I can sleep at night knowing my Mercedes CLK was an outlier in its strange merged circles headlight design :)
When you think about it, this headline is extremely accurate.
I can't believe during all of the 2000s I've never noticed all headlights looked very similar....
‼️You’re woefully overthinking this. Jeez.
The headlight is where four panels normally join. Hood, fender, bumper and grille.
A generally straight line is desired on rolled panel ends, thus the fender and hood lines remain straight. The bumper is normally curved but has a shelf on top of its protrusion, thus it’s best to maintain a straight line through the shelf of the bumper. The grille is whatever the designer wants it to be because it’s plastic and just for looks. Thus, the grille is normally straight along the seam to the bumper and hood but where the grille meets the headlight….that is where you may be allotted ONE curve for your pleasure.
Design is not complicated, it’s more complicated to find cars that defy design constraints.
Look at the 2003 Town Car. Why is it absolutely unique compared to the general cars of that era including the Cadillac competitor?
The fender has small points. Rather than the headlight disguising the edge of the fender, the headlight is set into the fender and a complex shape is made along with the sharp delicate point at the top front edge. Unique.
Notice the hood. Unlike it’s most similar stablemates (Grand Marquis and Crown Victoria) the hood doesn’t terminate into a plastic cowl at the front but rather cascades downward and encloses the grille. Find another sedan that has the grille inside the hood rather than a cowl/bumper.
Now look closer at the hood. Notice the crease down the centerline. See how the cascading hoop that encloses the grille is made of many many precise compound curves that would normally make sheet formers shudder.
Now look at the deck lid. It isn’t just a piece that bridges the quarter panels but adds even more precise, complex and refined details that all competitors at the time lacked. It almost looks like the back muscles and shoulder blades of a gymnast in motion and again is a triumph of compound curves.
Go ahead and do some research on this sheet forming stuff. You’ll learn to appreciate compound curves as the marble sculpting-like art form that it is.
I don't like literally any of those designs, except original sharp Focus.
VW's design was SO BORING for real. Glad it didn't stick for too long.
15 years from now a version of this video will review the history of the connected rail lights
Its interesting how many vehicles used this headlight design language. The first time I noticed it as a trend was in 2001 in an ad for the 2002 Mercury Mountaineer, and I instantly recognized it as the look of the next decade to come for car headlight design.
You could literally apply this title to every decade lol. Not just for headlights, but cars themselves.
Plot twist: given any time period, lights on cars will always look the same
1930's cars all having the literal same round chrome bowl headlights.
Loved how the sax stalled when the pinto was revealed.
What's wild is realizing that - while I grew up with this headlight style and am used to it - there's gonna be watchers in here that were never even alive when this was in, and are watching this more as a historical documentary from before their time.
Congrats on getting old buddy.
this channel scratches my tism just right
I loved this style as a kid and i miss these on modern cars. They are a bit bulky and good to see, not like the thin LED strips we have today.
The plastic fades badly on these though.
@BigWheel. You are absolutly right, that is a big problem with cars out of this bulky era.
My dad had a Kia Rio for at least 10 years. It was a great car but they faded too
The Mitsubishi Galant of that era was something for itself, with that angry, wide front. I love that look.
That 2nd Gen Mondeo always had a great look.
corsicar can you talk about that trend of doing the front fenders divided in two sections, one line goes to the windows bottom line and the other goes up to the A pillar. it's on the Fiat Punto 199, and literally any car of 2006-2009
The irony of this is that so many people and brands wanted to get rid of sealed beam headlights because they looked the same and were hard to work around, and even without them brands couldn't help but cookie cutter eachother.
This guy keeps coming with BANGERS
You should talk about today's tail lights where it's just a horizonal straight line. Like a rushed project that you started last minute and due by midnight 😂
You could also make a video on how taillight design changed.
In the 90s it was to squares on each side of the trunks and.
I the 2000s it became more rectangle and half of the light made it's way onto the trunk.
And now we have bars connected all the way through.
The 84 mustang Svo had funny looking sealed beam headlights and aero blinkers but they changed it to all aero in 85.5
And they properly changed it for 87
@@nickrustyson8124there was no 87 Svo 84-86 only
I do have a soft spot for these sleek functional designs. Gives the car presence, no matter if it's a hatchback or sedan.
Razor thin “DRL’s” with headlights in the bumper will age like flower wallpaper for 2020’s
You can clearly see Ford's inspiration to Volkswagen design in the Five Hundred which from the side looks identical to the contemporary Audi A6
You can also see VW Group influence in the design of the Ford Prodigy concept. To me it looks alot like the A6 of the time with it's triangle window by the c-pillar and smooth lines
7:50 WHERE'S MY CROWN THAT'S MY BLING ALWAYS TROUBLE WHEN I RING
Whoaa whoaa whoa this is how the story goes
WHERE'S MY CROWN THATS A MY VIC ALWAYS WOBBLES WHEN IT DRIFTS
@@tyrelljordanpillay WHOAA WHOAA WHOA THIS IS HOW THE RUSTING STARTS!!!
America jumpscare 2:52
Thanks for the warning
3:01 the timing of the music!😂😂
Forgot the fiesta Mk6 which was based on the MK2 focus.
Same big headlight design
I mean, even Ford forgot about it in their Fiesta farewell video, but why they did is for me incomprehensible, great little car which handles well and causes no problems.
Fiesta mk6 is also Chirs Bird's design with those headlights. It was sold in Europe and Australia
2000s, when I still enjoyed driving at night.
i like how every time this guy manually removes the background from a front-ish picture of a car he cuts off almost the whole tire so it looks like a bicycle wheel hahaha
Take a shot of whatever you have home whenever he mentions the Ford Fusion
as a 2008 opel astra owner, i'm almost offended it never appeared in the video