What's Happening to Japanese Car Design?

by JAX
A little over a decade before I was born, Toyota released the 2000GT, a stunning, two-door grand tourer that resembled a more sensual version of the Jensen Interceptor — one that worked properly, anyway — while Honda’s sleek and simple S800 roadster carried the torch for the brand built on lightness, simplicity, and reliability.  A few years later, Nissan released a one-two punch in the form of the very first GT-R, an aggressive, lightweight version of the Skyline sedan that was as purposeful as it was attractive and the 240Z, which would spawn an icon in its own right.  Mazda’s first RX-7 appeared just before the dawn of the eighties, looking like a tiny Ferrari Daytona and popularizing the brand’s adherence to the Book of Wankel here in the States.

Though there were a number of attractive Japanese designs during the eighties — most notably Honda’s first generation Prelude, Nissan’s 300ZX, Mitsubishi’s Starion, and Toyota’s gorgeous A70 model Supra — it wasn’t until a certain concept car debuted in 1989 at the Chicago Auto Show that the world’s collective jaw dropped at the suddenly realized potential of Japanese design — and every other automaker was subsequently put on notice.  When the Acura NSX was first unveiled, I remember thinking that it was impossibly good looking, almost uncomprehendingly pretty, and in its signature red body/black roof color combination, it somehow appeared to be simultaneously lethal and delicate.  The car effortlessly combined the over-the-top sensibilities of the cocaine-fueled eighties with the organic simplicity that would come to characterize the nineties.  And it had pop-up headlights, which are always cool.  (When the facelifted NSX debuted in 2002 with fixed headlights, it was as though Acura had taken Heidi Klum, relentlessly pummeled her about the head with a tire iron, and declared the resultant lumpy mishmash an improvement.)  The NSX was the ultimate expression of Japanese car design, and it paved the way for a series of hits that absolutely dominated nineties sports cars: the 1989 Nissan 300ZX, the 1991 Mazda RX-7, and the legendary 1992 Toyota Supra.*

While the Mustang and Camaro were languishing during the American auto industry’s darkest days, which reached its nadir with the debut of the Pontiac Aztek, the Japanese sports cars infiltrated the public consciousness, spawning a car culture that was helped along by appearances in popular video game series and neverending movie franchises — one that continues to this day.  It wasn’t until the sports car market began to dry up at the turn of the millennium that Japanese design showed any signs of slowing down.  Though Honda soldiered on, selling the simplistically handsome S2000 and Acura RSX, eventually they caved, and attractive Japanese cars began to disappear from our shores.

Apparently never to return.

Oh sure, there were glimmers of hope here and there.  The Infiniti G35 coupe came along in 2003 boasting a fresh new design that symbolized Infiniti’s bold new goal of being taken seriously by human people.  (It also proved that the chunky and awkward 350Z platform could, in fact, be made beautiful.)  Acura’s new-for-2004 TL was inoffensive but not much more attractive than the Accord on which it was based.**  In contrast, Lexus spent most of the first decade of the new millennium selling the wretched SC430, a car that most closely resembled the piece of soap slowly melting on the drain of your shower — you know, the one you keep meaning to pick up but never do — and Mazda thought that bringing the RX-7 back as a four-seat coupe with terrible gas mileage and a penchant for swilling oil would win the hearts and minds of enthusiasts who had grown up lusting for the third generation car during the nineties.

Nay, the story grows worse.  As the first decade of the new millennium came to a close, no hope appeared on the horizon.  Honda’s entire design department was apparently replaced by cartoon characters, Infiniti and parent company Nissan had a bit of an identity crisis, and Lexus decided that cars which appeared to be perpetually punched in the face would fare well against the established brands from Europe and a newly revitalized Cadillac.  Each subsequent redesign from the Japanese brands reeked of a “more is more” philosophy, which brought us such monstrosities as the 2009 Acura TL, the 2011 Nissan Juke, and the 2013 Lexus IS.  But perhaps no one has gone farther off the reservation of good taste than Lexus parent and perpetual fan of the color beige, Toyota.  The upcoming 2016 Toyota Prius is a laughably bad caricature of a car, a bit of half-baked lunacy cooked up in the minds of some Toyota designers on a saké bender and then released to the public as the equivalent of an Andy Kaufman joke in car form.  This from the company that brought us the 2000GT, a car good enough for James Bond that currently sells for well over a million dollars.
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As automotive enthusiasts, we collectively celebrate when a company is churning out hit after hit, gorgeous car after gorgeous car.  Whether or not we personally like the particular company is irrelevant; we can admire the effort and appreciate the resultant beauty.  Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than at Hyundai and Kia, two brands that until relatively recently were not the first names that came to mind when enthusiasts discussed car design, but under the direction of Peter Schreyer, the man responsible for the original Audi TT, they have amassed a portfolio of handsome and refined models that appear far more expensive than their price tags would suggest.  And maybe, at the end of the day, that’s all Japan needs to get back on track — the singular talents of an automotive design rockstar who knows good and well when it’s time to lift the pencil.  Until that day comes, we’ll all be rooting for a return to form, a return to the time when Japanese design was the envy of the world and made every other car company better for it.  However, in the meantime, I’ll continue drooling over the 1996 300ZX Twin Turbo Commemorative Edition, which was my personal favorite of the Japanese super coupes.


* Despite its technical brilliance, the Mitsubishi 3000GT doesn’t make the list because this article is about design, and the 3000GT was an overstyle mess compared to the previously mentioned cars; the Honda Prelude doesn’t make the list because after its first generation it made a point of being fairly hideous.

** And it’s hard to give the 2004 TL too much credit.  At the time, people still remembered the second generation Legend from the nineties, one of the best looking luxury sedans ever made.