Weight distribution & centre of gravity aside...this is what all have been chasing ever since it first appear in Monaco.

 

I agree with most; that first Masi is horrendous and the AM is nothing spectacular at all. Giving your "rule of thirds" (same rule applies to photography) credit, then it fails miserably with those two examples.

 

Yeah what do those two design houses (Zagota and Pininfarina) know about beautiful cars or even Fibonacci- he was a Russian from the 80's right.

 

JagRag.
I agree with you on the beauty of the Miura which is why it's so shocking how bad Lambos have looked ever since. (Think Countach, Aventador, Gallardo). The only design element of the Miura that I find bothersome is the triangular body panel just behind the door. The break in the lines of that sensual body are interrupted by that panel and "ruin" its perfection. It's why I like the uninterrupted sideview of cars like my Pantera or even the Mangusta somewhat better. That panel has always bothered me.

 

I think one of more gorgeous cars is 300SL.

 

So how does a '70 Camaro, a '66 Mustang fastback, '63 split window vette or a '70 Hemi superbird compare to the others? Personally I don't think those imports look amazing or fabulous. Some look OK but most have some form or functional look that just doesn't work with the design. The 2-1 ratio is entertaining but looks forced on the car images.

The gull wing is very cool. I sat in one a couple years ago and it screams cool '50's European car. The lines are gorgeous if you squint out all the wonky details. The '57 T-bird looks better IMHO. A lot of the bigger late '50's car have better 'styling'.

 

Deleted image, sorry.

 

Going by the evidence, not very much at all. Chip Foose is famous also, and his pretty much suck just as much.

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - explains why some agree and some not.

 

Ok, I love my XK, but a 1970 Hemi Superbird is my dream car. I just don't have the 300K (or more) to buy a nice one (or a 100K for a rust bucket for that matter). If I had 2K while in high school, I'd have one today.

 

I wish I had those "horrendous" examples in my garage. They both look stunning.

 

The way to set personal preferences/prejudices aside is to simply pick the car you like- just about anything that makes it into a museum of art qualifies. (there has to be some validation) Our cars the XK also works, the Etype most definitely works.

The Golden Ratio is a very complex thing to grasp, the Fibonacci curve even harder, it's other name is Fibonacci Bamzoolement. Lets not believe that we can get our arms around something that would put us in the league with Da Vinci.

Does the Golden Ratio work?? According to the masters, in just about everything in nature we find attractive. But here too we can disagree and debate.

My study of our car is that it does not have the right geometry when it comes to the wheels. I could be very wrong. Thus the test above.

To my eye the Aston with the custom wheel looks even more proportionate than the regular Aston. What say you? Its not the wheel size or the tire size, but the opening inside the wheel. On my Kalminos wheels for instance the opening/hole id is 17". Those wheels on that Aston give it the illusion of a 24" wheel.

BTW the red kit car above also has wheels that extend past the door handles.

 

Not sure I agree it's difficult to grasp or fibonacci is overly complex. Fibonacci is commonly used in technical analysis.

The Golden Ratio is found in many things in nature, and there are many natural things that are ugly, so it's also present in as many things as we find unattractive. We just don't focus on it. That's akin to saying prayer helps the body heal, yet the graveyard is filled with people who prayed for their illness to go away.

 

Not sure how much this adds to anything, but this same car passed me about an hour ago on the way home from the vet. Lily needed her nails cut and it looked like there was a dog in the front of this car as well:



Looks impressive on the road, more so than when standing still. The local dealer has a red one for sale. The one I saw was dark blue or black with regular MA plates.

 

I thought hard about what you are proposing. Cant get myself to think of anything that fits that mold. Unless its something that goes against our expectations. For instance someone with arachnophobia may find a spider's web unattractive.

Or in the case of the Aston in Moses's pic, if it had a grille from another car that we dont expect on an Aston. Or If the Aston had a longer back than front-i.e. the proportions were the same only reversed, like on a audi

 

Moses,
Looks like they are phasing out that grille on the AM.
As they should, it was a necessity in the original, but counterproductive in modern designs. Which further points to the importance we place on associations.

 

At first I thought it was a Rapide, but it looked too narrow until I realized the rarity of what approached as it passed....

 

Wow you are a lucky bastid, you live in a part of the world where they have some serious taste in cars.
At first I thought you had made a mistake in selecting the wrong picture.
Hey did you know our Maserati was designed by Zagato.

 

Which one? I know we both owned Biturbo's, but they were Italdesign penned...

 

The convertible Biturbo was designed and assembled by Zagato in Milan. It was Zagato's first work for Maserati since the A6G/2000 of thirty years earlier.