That particular shape had some nice elements to it; the front still had some issues I think but overall it had a good feel.
What's being "bent out of shape"? That could just be your perception too.
My idea of "great" as a driver's car and styling would require the driver's portion be great first; and the styling follow as a result without undue compromise of the driver's experience. That is indeed form follows function. I refer to fighter jets because they pursue function first and foremost and always have the most exciting shapes as a result. And lo and behold you can pretty much figure they provide the most exciting pilot experience too. I doubt any military group ever sits down to design a combat plane and starts with "Ok, let's make a plane that looks bad-ass!"
A great driver's experience is everything; seating, ergonomics of the cockpit and where the controls are, what gauges are visible and where, view out of the cockpit, mirror positions and coverage, control feel, performance, response of the machine, etc. My philosophy is to solve for that first, then figure out how to wrap a suitable shape around that with as few compromises to the function as is reasonably possible. That produces fighter jets with all their exciting looks and performance. And as Number 3 said, that takes a lot of HARD WORK. I never said or say that it's easy.
If you think about it, if the beginning of a car STARTS with the artist's wild over-the-top sketches, isn't that the same thing as saying "Ok, let's make a car (plane) that looks bad-ass!"? I know that's pretty much how it's done but I feel that is something that could and should change. The evidence of how valid (and useful) that is, is the new Z/28. Mark Stielow's mandate from GM was to "make it fast". That is pure function. And that ruled everything they were doing which resulted in a very fantastic-looking car so you see, you do get both if you do it right, but it is indeed hard work.
I may be the only one but I do not like the looks of the new P1. The front and sides (to me) looks like it's been eaten away by a cancer or something. And since EVERYONE is trying to come up with that exact same type of look, here's the bad news... in a few short years that "leading edge" look is going to look...dated. Oh the humanity!
They did an absolutely fantastic job with the 5th gen which is why I bought one. And while I'm a big fan of road-race tracking, I know that most muscle car owners do drag races so they shouldn't be ignored. But you can do both if you design and do styling that's lean and conservative with the expectation that either crowd can and will add mods to make the car suit their preferences and use. As we've seen from the 5th gen almost no one leaves their car stock so adding mods is a huge part of the ownership experience. I think GM should plan for that and provide a terrific, conservative base car that's designed and built in such a way that mods can be added easily. Make it the customizer's car of choice (street, drags, road course) and they'd sell millions of them.
Here's a few peeks at form-follows-function looks.
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You CAN have both but it doesn't start with wild over-the-top sketches that have absolutely no respect whatsoever for function. You can do a wild sketch in a few minutes; starting with function takes a lot longer and is much harder but in the end I think the results speak for themselves. And that's my opinion! (checks shape; doesn't see anything that looks bent). It's all good!
