In national treasure (and Ferrari F12tdf owner) Hugh Grant’s rather grizzly new film Heretic, our villain tells a story, and it’s mostly true, of how Radiohead were sued by The Hollies because parts of Creep were taken from The Air That I Breathe. But then Radiohead got legal with Lana Del Rey because her Get Free sounded too much like Creep.
Are we just, y’know, running out of notes? And if so, is it really so surprising we’re running out of lines? There only so many ways you can draw around four wheels and a car’s oily (or electrical) bits if one also has to include the certain number and location of seats, doors, windows and lights, plus bumpers so soft that hitting a deer writes off the car. So the new Ford Capri looks a bit like a Polestar 2? Well, it has to look like something.
Maybe I should start being kinder to wilfully ugly cars. Say what you like about the absolute munter that is BMW’s XM – plenty of people have – but you will not mistake it for an Omoda 5.
I think electrification isn’t helpful. If you don’t need a grille to cool an engine then you don’t have a signature identifier in the most prominent position on the car. In fact, given that it would upset the aerodynamics so much – and that’s so important for an electric car’s range – you’d better not have one. A person can design plenty of different pretty shapes, but a wind tunnel will say only one of them is the most efficient.
