Ugly

Safer, blander, and now $65 billion poorer – Time for CarlyFans?

Further to last week’s rant about the car industry’s various self-inflicted wounds, this morning’s FT headline hit like a poorly aimed curb weight: the global auto sector has taken a $65 billion hit in the past year alone as the great EV euphoria finally deflates. So much for the green revolution showering us in wealth, eh Ed (Millibrain)?

I’ve banged on before about driver aids that nanny you to distraction, but I’ve barely touched the other “gift” of modern safety legislation: what it’s done to car looks. Here’s the rap sheet of aesthetic crimes, all courtesy of crash standards and deformability mandates:

• Tiny, high-set windows that start at eye level - giving the “squinty bunker” look. You peer out like you’re in a pillbox.

• Ridiculously high bonnets to cram in crush space - turning elegant front ends into massive, blunt snouts that scream “I’m trying not to kill you… but I look like I already did.”

• Thick, heavy A- and B-pillars that block half your view - because rollover protection trumps actually seeing where you’re going.

• No sharp edges allowed - everything rounded to beach-ball radius so no one gets a boo-boo on impact. Goodbye crisp creases, hello jellybean blandness.

• Massive plastic cladding and blacked-out lower sills everywhere - deformability padding that makes cars look like they’ve been bubble-wrapped for shipping.

The result? A parade of identical blobs: tall, puffy, soft-edged, and utterly soulless. Park one next to a 1960s or 1980s equivalent and the difference is night and day. Bertie gets stopped in car parks for compliments - “She’s a stunner, mate!” - while the latest German barge gets ignored because it looks like every other… barge (beaver?).

The Beavers Back

And who do we have to thank for this rolling festival of mediocrity? The same joyless brigade who think cars should apologise for existing: the health-and-safety zealots, the Brussels pen-pushers (even post-Brexit, their ghost still haunts the rulebook), and our own home-grown eco-puritans who want to ban anything with a tailpipe and a personality.

Beauty may be subjective, but if cars could subscribe to OnlyFans, Bertie would be raking it in with his curves, chrome, and that handsome stance. The modern lot? They’d be begging for tips just to show a glimpse of underbody without the plastic cladding.

Maybe it’s time I launched CarlyFans - the subscription site where cars flaunt what the regulators tried to hide. Tier 1: daily pics of shiny paint and elegant lines. Tier 2: exclusive engine-bay ASMR and slow-mo walk-arounds. VIP: private garage sessions with classics that still have sharp edges and visibility worth a damn.

These kale-munchers love telling us what’s good for us: eat less meat, cycle everywhere, drive a faceless blob on wheels that looks like it was designed by committee in a darkened room. Well, look what happened when they forced the agenda - the car world’s turned into a giant beige care home on wheels.