Why most modern cars look ugly, boring and SO predictable – but it wasn't always this way (and some new ones still look good)
- Leo Pruneau was Holden's chief designer from early 1970s until the late 1980s
- He designed the HQ Kingswood, Toranas, Geminis and the early Commodores
- American-born stylist blamed over reliance on computers for today's dull cars
- Son of a car dealer said vehicles better when designers hand made clay models
Leo Pruneau, a car designer behind Holdens of the 1970s and 1980s, has blamed computers for producing dull cars
A designer behind some of Australia's most recognisable Holdens has blamed computers for today's dull cars - with SUVs slammed for all looking the same.
Leo Pruneau created the Kingswoods, Toranas and Geminis of the 1970s and the Commodores that dominated the sales charts during the 1980s.
The 89-year-old American-born retired stylist - who has designed General Motors models in the US, the UK and Australia - said computers had made cars look dull.
He missed the 1960s and 1970s, the golden age of car design which produced the E-Type Jaguar, the original Range Rover and the home-grown Holden Monaro.
As technology became more sophisticated, Mr Pruneau lamented how car designers had become lazy and lost their sense of taste.
'They don't do it by hand anymore,' he told Daily Mail Australia from his home in Victoria's Macedon Ranges north of Melbourne.
'They use the bloody computers. Young designers can just sit there on the computer and just feed anything into it and the computer kind of sorts it out and as a result, they all come out about the same.'
SUVs look the same
The son of a car dealer from Missouri, in the American Midwest, was particularly blunt about modern SUVs being indistinguishable.
The son of a car dealer from Missouri, in the American Midwest, was particularly blunt about modern SUVs being indistinguishable. 'I hate the damn things. All of them,' he said. 'They're almost identical'
In 2020, for the first time ever, the majority of cars sold in Australia are SUVs with higher ground clearance - something that didn't sit well with Mr Pruneau.
'I hate the damn things. All of them,' he said.
'They're almost identical. If you had a line drawing of each one, you put one over the other, the lines would be no more than a quarter of an inch apart with the whole car.'
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The Chinese designed and built MG HS SUV, wearing the same badge as British MGA and MGB sports car classics, was a particularly egregious example.
'Just a disaster. Not only do that use the name, they actually use the same logo,' Mr Pruneau said.
'That is absolutely not on. Honest to God, bloody Chinese.
'It's one thing for a Chinese company to buy up the MG, you shouldn't use exactly the original logo.'
The Chinese designed and built MG HS SUV, wearing the same badge as British MGA and MGB sports car classics, was a particularly egregious example
Computers killed good design
When it came to boring looking cars, he blamed the over reliance on computers to come up with shapes - and not the phasing out of chrome bumper bars or contemporary car safety standards.
Instead of drawing a car on paper and then turning it into a clay model, designers relied on a computer program.
'The computer only puts out what goes into it,' Mr Pruneau said.
'The kids just put anything into it these days: any kind of shapes.
'They blend shapes that shouldn't be blended together and if it wasn't for the computer, they wouldn't go together.'
Computer sketches are also fed into a machine which in turn produces a 3D clay model.
'That's where the computer has let the system down,' he said.
Old-school clay models
Mr Pruneau, who studied at California's ArtCenter College during the late 1950s, said that when he started with General Motors in 1961, car designers made clay models by hand.
Mr Pruneau, who studied at California's ArtCenter College during the late 1950s, said that when he started with General Motors in 1961, car designers made clay models by hand. He is particularly proud of the 1971 HQ Holden Monaro based on a handmade clay model design
'When I was still in the game, we did everything by hand - there were no computers around in my day,' he said.
'We made the clay models, we had to draw them first, full-size tape drawings.
'Better feel for the lines, for the surfaces.
'By doing them by hand, it took quite a while so you lived with the thing for a longer period, spread your soul thin over the clay model, took it outside and looked at it once a week, see how you were progressing.'
Good looking cars
A good looking car has five elements of good design.
'It takes five things to make a good looking car: it takes lines, it takes surface, it takes proportion, it takes composition and above all, it takes taste,' he said.
The 1961 E-Type Jaguar was nominated as the best looking car of all time, a view shared by the late Enzo Ferrari, who founded an Italian sports car marque.
The 1961 E-Type Jaguar was nominated as the best looking car of all time, a view shared by the late Enzo Ferrari, who founded an Italian sports car marque
'I've always liked the E-Type Jaguar: it's such a pure design you can't hardly go past it,' Mr Pruneau said.
'The race car was even better.
'The simplicity of the shape and the lines and the surfaces, there was nothing complicated or kooky about any part of the whole car.'
While a critic of most modern cars, Mr Pruneau had praise for the current Jaguar XJ sedan, which Ian Callum was responsible for more than a decade ago.
'Let's take the current Jaguar sedan, that's a very nice looking car,' he said.
While a critic of most modern cars, Mr Pruneau had praise for the current Jaguar XJ sedan, which Ian Callum was responsible for more than a decade ago
'It was done using the computer and all the modern technique but the guy who was controlling it, Ian Callum, he knew what he was doing.'
Mr Pruneau, who designed Vauxhalls in the UK before moving to Australia in 1969, was also a fan of the original 1970 Range Rover four-wheel drive with its simple lines.
'They were pretty nice cars. The Range Rovers, sure they're an SUV technically but they don't look like an SUV, particularly the earlier ones, the original,' Mr Pruneau said.
He wasn't however, particularly keen on the contemporary Range Rover Sport and Evoque with their sloping rooflines - a disparaging term known in old-school styling as a 'yawning upper'.
Mr Pruneau, who designed Vauxhalls in the UK before moving to Australia in 1969, was also a fan of the original 1970 Range Rover four-wheel drive with its simple lines
'The new Range Rovers are a bit over the top,' he said.
'The styling aspects of those cars just bother me a bit - the roof tapers from the top of the windshield right on back, we used to call that a yawning upper.
'It's too severe, I think. If it goes downhill from the windshield on, all the way to the tailgate, it doesn't look right. It needs to have a nice curve to it.'
Of the cars he designed, Mr Pruneau was most proud of the 1980 WB-series Holden Statesman and the HQ Holden Monaro, which in 1971 replaced the original shape HK and HT Monaros.
'The HQ was just a little bit fresher, more Australian than the HK,' he said.
He wasn't however, particularly keen on the contemporary Range Rover Sport and Evoque (pictured) with their sloping rooflines - a disparaging term known in old-school styling as a 'yawning upper'
'Certainly of the coupes, the Monaros, I thought the HQs were the best.'
Despite the best looking sports cars from the 1960s having chrome bumpers, Mr Pruneau doesn't miss them.
'As a designer, we were glad to get rid of the old chrome bumper bars,' he said.
'It was just a pure shape we had to work with. We thought it was a lot more freedom.'
When the rot set in
In his view, design taste began to deteriorate during the 1980s when computers became more mainstream in car design.
When it came to boring looking cars, Leo Pruneau (pictured left in 2008 with former Holden design director Tony Stolfo) blamed the over reliance on computers to come up with shapes - and not the phasing out of chrome bumper bars or contemporary car safety standards
'It was probably around the mid-80s when the rot really began to set in, maybe even earlier than that,' he said.
'Once you got the design in the computer, it would run the machine that made the clay model.'
'The kids, they fall down, most of them don't have a lot of taste.
'They just put anything together. It's just a culture.'
Ironically, the desire to design a car that looked different resulted in vehicles looking almost identical.
'To my mind, the kids, they want something new, to be different whether it's good, bad or indifferent. They just want different, mainly,' Mr Pruneau said.
The man born in 1931 - the year the General Motors bought Australian car body builder Holden - has been an Australian citizen for three decades and looks set to outlast the car brand where he spent two decades of his career, as the Holden name is retired in 2021.
'Big 9-0 next year,' he said.
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