Why Do All New Cars Look the Same?

Modern SUVs, EVs and crossovers may be faster, safer and more efficient than ever before, but somewhere along the way many cars lost the character, identity and eccentricity that once made us fall in love with them

There was a time when even children could identify cars instantly. In fact, I was one of those annoying little kids who could recognise a car from half a mile away, at night, purely from the headlights. A Jaguar XJS looked like a Jaguar XJS. A Saab looked like a Saab. A Citroen looked like it had arrived from the future after taking a wrong turn somewhere near the Eiffel Tower.

Cars had personality. Proper personality.

Back then, even ordinary family motors had distinctive silhouettes and identities. The Rover SD1 looked like a gangster in a sharp Italian suit. The Peugeot 205 looked playful and agile. The Lotus Esprit was pure origami wedge fantasy. The Ferrari Testarossa looked like the entire 1980s condensed into one giant red object with side strakes. Even weird failures had charm. In fact, especially the weird failures.

Today? Honestly, modern traffic often resembles a photocopier malfunction in a grey paint factory.

And if lifelong petrolheads are now squinting at traffic wondering whether that blob ahead is a Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes, BYD or some new Chinese brand nobody can pronounce yet, then perhaps something genuinely has changed.

The question is: why?

The Wind Tunnel Murdered Eccentricity

The biggest reason modern cars all look alike is aerodynamics.

Modern car design has effectively become a hostage negotiation with the wind.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, designers could still create outrageous shapes because regulations and efficiency targets were nowhere near as strict as they are today. Designers could sketch dramatic wedges, sharp creases, upright glasshouses, pop-up headlights and giant wings without an engineer immediately fainting into a CFD airflow simulation.

Today every manufacturer is obsessed with reducing drag coefficients because every tiny improvement matters.

Less drag means:

• better fuel economy
• lower emissions
• reduced wind noise
• improved EV range
• happier regulators
• lower fleet-average CO2 penalties

The problem is that physics does not care about brand identity.

Air does not care whether your badge says Ferrari, Volkswagen, Hyundai or Toyota.

Air simply says:
“Smooth that out.”

And unfortunately, the most aerodynamically efficient shape for a car tends to resemble a rounded blob.

That is why so many modern EVs and SUVs now resemble giant jelly beans with LED eyebrows.

To put this into perspective, many cars from the 1970s had drag coefficients around 0.45 or worse. Modern cars are often nearly half that, sitting around 0.25 to 0.30. Engineers estimate that reducing aerodynamic drag by 10% can improve motorway fuel economy by roughly 5%, while also extending EV range significantly.

Suddenly, individuality becomes difficult when everybody is chasing the same airflow targets.

Safety Regulations Changed Car Design Forever

Now before anyone starts yelling in the comments, modern cars ARE objectively safer. Massively safer. Crash a modern family hatchback into a 1970s saloon and the old car will fold like a cheap camping chair.

Safety regulations completely transformed automotive styling.

Pedestrian safety laws alone changed the entire shape of modern front ends. Modern bonnets are taller because there must be space between the bonnet skin and hard engine components underneath. That gap helps absorb impacts.

The result?

• higher noses
• chunkier front ends
• fewer dramatic wedges
• less low-slung styling

And pop-up headlights? Sadly, they are effectively extinct because they are terrible for pedestrian impact regulations. That alone killed an entire era of cool.

Even visibility has suffered. Older cars had slim pillars and airy cabins. Modern cars often feel like you are peering out through reinforced bunker windows because rollover protection standards require much thicker structures.

Safer? Absolutely. More elegant? Not so much.

SUVs Created a Sea of Sameness

The SUV boom accelerated everything.

Look, this is not some anti-SUV rant. SUVs exist because people genuinely like them. Higher seating positions, practicality, easy access, family usability and perceived safety all make sense.

Manufacturers love them too because profit margins on SUVs are often bigger than a London parking fine.

But SUVs naturally share similar proportions:

• tall bodies
• upright cabins
• high bonnets
• chunky arches
• large wheels
• practical rear ends

Once the global market shifted heavily toward crossovers, the entire industry converged into the same shape. Go stand in a supermarket car park today. Remove the badges. You will see:

• grey crossover,
• black crossover,
• white crossover,
• slightly different grey crossover,
• another crossover pretending to be sporty because somebody painted the wheels black.

That is not imagination. That is market convergence.

Platform Sharing Tied Designers’ Hands

Another huge reason modern cars look alike is platform sharing.

Today, manufacturers build multiple vehicles across shared architectures to save money. Underneath the skin, many modern cars share:

• wheelbases
• crash structures
• suspension hard points
• battery layouts
• roof heights

Financially, this makes perfect sense. Creatively, it limits designers enormously.

Modern designers are often incredibly talented people trying to inject personality after being handed a template and told: “Don’t change anything expensive.” It is rather like asking Picasso to decorate a microwave.

EVs have intensified this further. Flat skateboard battery platforms create similar packaging requirements:

• short overhangs
• cab-forward proportions
• flat floors
• smooth noses
• minimal grilles

Ironically, EVs should theoretically create MORE freedom because all the mechanical hardware is hidden underneath. Yet because efficiency still dominates everything, most EVs end up looking suspiciously similar anyway.

Globalisation Removed National Identity

This is a massive factor people rarely discuss. Cars used to reflect their countries.

Italian cars looked emotional and dramatic.
French cars looked eccentric.
German cars looked precise and disciplined.
British cars looked aristocratic and slightly sarcastic.
Swedish cars looked as though designed by practical Vikings wearing roll-neck jumpers.

Now? Cars are designed for global markets simultaneously:

• Europe
• China
• America
• Middle East
• everywhere at once

That creates safe, sanitised, inoffensive styling. Because if you are trying to appeal to everyone globally, you start removing anything polarising. Unfortunately, weirdness and eccentricity were exactly what created memorable cars.

Think about old Citroens. The DS looked like a spaceship. The Saab 900 had its ignition key between the seats because Saab engineers thought differently. The Honda Prelude featured mechanical four-wheel steering and an engine tilted backwards purely to achieve a lower bonnet line.

Modern corporate committees would probably faint at such ideas.

Consumers Helped Cause This Too

Here is the uncomfortable truth. We did this. Everybody says manufacturers should build exciting, characterful cars again. Then they immediately finance another grey crossover with the emotional charisma of an office printer.

Manufacturers follow demand. And modern buyers overwhelmingly choose:

• neutral colours
• practical shapes
• familiar styling
• safe designs

Black, white, grey and silver dominate global car sales. Modern roads increasingly resemble reality viewed through a monochrome Instagram filter. Meanwhile, genuinely unusual cars often struggle commercially.

Remember the Renault Avantime?
The Toyota Sera?
The Suzuki X-90?
The Chrysler PT Cruiser?
The Chevrolet SSR?

Some failed spectacularly. But at least we still remember them. That matters.

Modern Cars Are Brilliant… But Emotionally Forgettable

Here is the irony. Modern cars are technically astonishing. They are:

• faster
• safer
• cleaner
• more reliable
• more efficient
• more advanced

But emotionally? Many feel about as relatable as a fridge freezer. And that is what enthusiasts increasingly mourn. Not because modern engineering is bad. Quite the opposite. Modern engineering became so optimised that it squeezed out some of the eccentricity that once made cars feel alive.

As children, many of us anthropomorphised cars. We bonded with them. We dreamed about them. We could sketch them from memory. That emotional connection mattered.

There Is Hope

Thankfully, not everything is doomed to become a grey aerodynamic potato. Some manufacturers are rediscovering personality.

Mazda still builds the MX-5.
Toyota keeps promising enthusiast cars.
Ford insists the V8 Mustang will survive as long as regulations allow.
Renault revived the 5 and 4 with retro-inspired charm.
MG remembered sports cars existed and created the Cyberster.

Smaller boutique companies are also experimenting with EV platforms to create genuinely distinctive designs again. And perhaps that is the future. Not rejecting progress. Not rejecting safety. Not rejecting technology. But rediscovering character.

Because humans do not fall in love with perfection. They fall in love with personality.

And perhaps the next great era of automotive design will belong not to the most aerodynamic blob…
but to the cars brave enough to look different again.

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