Ford Edge

Round headlights are returning on the Ford Bronco, Fiat 500e, Renault 4 E-Tech and Mini after decades of narrow, angular lamps. It reads as nostalgia but it's really a technology story: LEDs freed designers from the big reflector a halogen bulb needed, so shape became free.

No car in the history of American automotive obsession has been wanted this badly by this many people who never had a legal way to get one. The Nissan Skyline GT-R spent twenty-five years as forbidden fruit, visible in every corner of car culture, unattainable on public roads, and somehow more desirable for being both of those things simultaneously. The story of why that happened, and what finally changed, is one of the stranger chapters in the relationship between American car enthusiasm and government regulation.

Color changes the perceived size of a car more than most buyers realize, and getting it wrong costs you. An SUV that should look imposing can look squat and heavy in the wrong color. A compact car that should look athletic can look like a toy. The mechanics behind why this happens are specific enough that you can use them deliberately rather than just hoping you guessed right at the configurator...

Put a Porsche 911 against a Dodge Charger in a faceoff and the results split in a way that is almost perfectly predictable based on one variable: whether the voter knows anything about cars. Regular people pick the Charger. Car people pick the 911. Neither group is wrong. They are just answering different questions...