Cars for arts sake

Carpundit notes that Chris Cagle didn't enjoy the exhibit of Ralph Lauren's cars that the Museum of Fine Arts.

Chris said:

Most importantly, there was no real consideration of what car design is, what it means to put it in a fine arts museum, what part of "design" refers to engineering or what the relation between sheer luxury and good design is. Leather interiors are nifty to look at, but are they ipso facto superior in form to mass market vehicles?

I don't think Ralph's cars (he's a car-guy so I'm assuming first-name familiarity) are superior to mass-market cars but it also depends on what you mean by mass market. Is a Citroen DS mass market? The DS is a pretty specialised piece of kit but it certainly wasn't mass produced. Line up a 1955 DS with a Rover P6 or Triumph 2000 and I can point out the influences (hint, surface detailing, particularly on the Rover and the rear roof-line of both British cars) but it's pretty hard to get anyone except design-geeks excited over a Rover.

Similarly, an Austin A40 "Farina" is automotive high art and is surely mass market. And you could use one to trace the lineage of Pininfarina's 60s designs (the Peugeot 403 and 404 being other Pininfarina cars).

Using Chris's example of the 60s Fiats and 50s Thunderbirds, there's a lot to be said about how the Fiat 500 changed people's ideas about what a car could be and how the original Thunderbird was an example of the American dream car for the masses. But you could say the same things about Alec Issigonis' mini and the original Mustang (which I find more convincing than a T-bird).

Ralph's cars do illustrate, however, various aspects of design as creative endeavour - but maybe you need to be a car-geek and design-geek to see how. The Bugatti Type 57SC (and Merc SSK "Count Trossi") is surely a triumph of form over function in contrast to the 550 Spyder that is simply metal draped over basic mechanicals in a shape that could only come from typical Porsche layout. The Gullwing, which is so ubiquitous as to be passe is also, surprisingly, a function over form car. The famous doors were a result of the tubular space-frame that made conventional doors impossible (or at least totally impractical).

The funny thing about car design is that it's really meant to be appreciated in, as Glen calls it, actual spaces of automobility - the street in other words. Seeing a 64 Mustang, a DS, a mini or even something as prosaic as an MGB or Volkswagen in the context of the street is, I think, more illuminating that seeing any car in a museum. I've only ever seen a Gullwing in person, and that was on grass at a club-level car show. Seeing one moving among other cars on a real street is truly how cars should be appreciated.

For example, a DS is a pretty shocking car to behold in and of itself. But, placed in context with its contemporaries it becomes more shocking still. Even next to "modern" designs, a DS is polarising and emotive.

So, I agree with Chris and Carpundit. There is more to cars than what the Ralph Lauren exhibit showed and, possibly, it wasn't the finest example of "cars" that could have been chosen - but it's hard to convince regular people to go to a museum and see cars they could see on the street (I've seen all of my examples on the streets of Canberra).

Finally, perhaps the Autobodies exhibit at MoMA was a better example of cars that changed attitudes (cars as social record, redux?).