Chrysler PT Cruiser

The Mazda RX-7 FD was designed in 1989 and went on sale in 1992. It's now over thirty years old. It still looks better than most cars being built today. That's not nostalgia talking. Park one next to a current-generation crossover or a mid-size sedan and the RX-7 wins the visual argument without trying, which raises a question worth answering: what did Mazda's designers do in a California studio in the late 1980s that produced something thirty years of subsequent automotive design hasn't been able to improve on?

The 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 looks better today than it did when it was new. The 2002 Pontiac Aztek looks exactly as bad as it did in 2002, possibly worse now that the cultural context that produced it has faded. Both cars are over twenty years old. Only one of them aged. The question of why some cars improve with time and others calcify into their worst qualities is worth taking seriously because the answer tells you something about what good design actually is...

Every car looks different in black. Every car looks different in white. And almost every car owner has a strong opinion about which one is right. This debate has been running in parking lots, forums, and showrooms for decades and it never gets old because the answer actually depends on the car...