The head of design at Volkswagen Group thinks the industry's obsession with mean-looking cars has gone too far, and he called the trend nonsense.
Andreas Mindt told Autoweek there is no good reason for a car to look like it was designed to intimidate everyone else on the road. "I believe most people don't want to be the coolest or appear aggressive in public," Mindt said. "They want to have a suit and a good outside appearance while being happy and optimistic." Mindt summed up the brand's position more bluntly: "Our core is like this: be the nice guys."
What he is pushing back against
You have seen what Mindt is describing even if you never put a name to it. Grilles have swollen into the dominant feature on the front of a car. Headlights have narrowed into squints. Bumpers have grown creases and vents that do nothing. The result is a road full of vehicles wearing the same scowl, because once one brand goes angrier, looking softer than the competition reads as looking weaker.
Mindt is arguing that the arms race has no actual constituency. Carmakers assume buyers want to look tough, and he thinks most people simply want their car to look good and put them in a decent mood.
Volkswagen has products to point at. The ID. Polo and the ID.3 Neo both lean on softer, rounder shapes and calmer faces. Mindt also made a second argument worth noting: an electric car does not need to look strange to announce that it is electric, which is a quiet shot at every EV styled like a spaceship to prove it has no engine.
Whether the market agrees is another question
Here is the tension. Friendly styling is a real risk, because the aggressive look did not appear out of nowhere. It sells. Buyers have consistently rewarded big grilles and high, hard-faced front ends, which is a large part of why so many new cars look the same. A brand choosing to be the nice guys is betting that the mood has shifted.
Volkswagen is also better placed than most to make that bet. Its most loved shapes, the Beetle and the early Golf, were friendly, simple and completely unthreatening, so this reads less like a new direction and more like the company remembering what it was good at.
The test is whether a softer face still looks desirable next to a rival with an angry one. Put a friendly design against an aggressive one on WhipJury and you get a straight answer about which way people actually vote.
Sources:
Mindt on friendlier styling and the ID. Polo direction: Motor1
His comments on aggressive design and EV styling: The Supercar Blog
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Jeffrey Wiley has spent more time than he'd like to admit thinking about what makes a car look right. He writes about automotive design, car culture, and the opinions people have strong feelings about. He lives in north Georgia.
