CNN Money has an article entitled What is an American Car, Anyway?. It makes interesting reading, raising such points as the use of chrome that I would not have thought still applied.

But the central theme is correct - there is something about American cars that make them immediately recognizable, especially to the foreign eye. I have often pondered upon this as I watch the streams of cars on the streets and freeways of America. Even the European and Japanese cars are given tweaks that help them to fit into the American look.

In the end, I have to say that it’s the hood (or bonnet, as the Brits call it) more than anything else. Americans have been used to big engines for so long that any car without acres of hood just doesn’t look right. They may turn the engine sideways these days, just as the foreigners do, but the hood must still hint at power beneath.

And that has implications for the overall shape of the car, of course. While European cars especially have become stubby little things with the passenger section the dominant feature of the car, absorbing the hood and trunk, Americans have retained the traditional three-box format and their beloved hoods.

Obviously, this is a generalization and there are exceptions on both sides of the Atlantic. But it’s as true as the point about chrome mentioned by CNN.

Years ago I read somewhere that a particular car had been a dismal failure in Japan because it did not smile. Apparently, the Japanese car-buying public were taking their cue from the grille - if it curved upwards, it must be a happy car, if down, there was obviously something wrong to make it so sad.

It strikes me that modern car designers must have read the same article. Take a look at most of the models on sale these days and they have one thing in common - the cheesy grin. Don’t believe me? Take a look at these then:

The thing is, how many of these cars will be on sale in Japan? Okay, I presume the Japanese marques are, but the American? The big fuss about protectionist ploys on imports to Japan isn’t a complete fantasy, after all. So how did the powers that be decide that we all judge a car by whether it’s smiling or not?

Seems like a designer’s excuse to push through some very ugly grille designs, if you ask me…

One of my latest great finds on the net is the free photo site, Bigfoto dot com. All the photos are supplied by amateurs who just like to see their work being used and all they ask is that credit be given to the site. And yet the quality of the pictures is excellent.

While digging through, I found some photos that illustrate this in the context of cars and I couldn’t resist showing some of them to you. The beauty is in the details!