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Obviously most classic cars are way more beautiful than their modern counterparts.
Is this because bodies designed without computers are more appealing per se?
Maybe CAD surfaces math models are just too predictable?
Or is it that pre-computer cars were more curvaceous and less influenced by aerodynamics and production costs?
I think cars designed in the age of computers are designed w/ more safety and aerodynamics in mind. I imagine when they designed the XK120 the thought process was somewhere along the lines of, "Wow! That looks great! I bet it's aerodynamic too! I wonder if it's safe? Eh, I'm sure it's as safe as anything."
[quote=NicFromLA;985963]I think cars designed in the age of computers are designed w/ more safety and aerodynamics in mind. I imagine when they designed the XK120 the thought process was somewhere along the lines of, "Wow! That looks great! I bet it's aerodynamic too! I wonder if it's safe? Eh, I'm sure it's as safe as anything."[/quote]
This. And the OP's latter point.
Car design has gone from "WOW! This looks drop dead gorgeous!" to "WOW! This looks drop dead gorgeous AND it won't suddenly become unstable at high speeds or explode in a pile of steel and fiberglass bits when crashed! The Ford GT40, for instance, had an unhealthy amount of lift at high speeds.
I don't know if CAD models are to blame. They allow us to make better and safer designs with increased precision and reduced costs. Yeah they may not look as good, but then again, neither is dying.
Brace for pedantry.
Cars aren't designed by computers, they're designed with computers, at least at this juncture. Given a modern computer and software, a designer can design the exact same car he or she would have drawn in ye olde tymes. It's just a change of medium;
it's like these animated CG flicks. I remember reading an article when they first started cropping up about how animators were out of jobs, to be replaced by computer geeks who somehow could bang out a few lines of code and boom! Toy Story. For cars, though, the paper or computer is just an intermediate step; the end product is still mostly made out of the same metal as before, though, admittedly die-making/designing and other manufacturing techniques have enabled some new shapes to be made.
Part of this misconception is that there is some computer algorithm that a designer can plug the design parameters (i.e. four-door, 3.5 liter V6 etc...) and out pops a perfectly-optimized blob of a Camry bodyshell. Aerodynamics is still largely voodoo; there are many means to any given end.
In the end, like Nic said, times have changed. Manufacturers are more detail-oriented and are force by legislative and market-driven forces to make their cars safer and more economical and the "purity" of a design is compromised.
TLDR: You can draw a pre-war Delage on a computer.
Further to the "computers are just an intermediate step", aren't many cars still designed in clay? Computers may be used to hone the design and/or check aerodynamics and other objective features, but they're still designed by a designer.
I resent the statement that [I]obviously[/I] most classic cars are more beautiful than modern ones. There are beautiful and hideous cars on both sides of the fence.
I want to see the first computer named: Giugiaro, Pinin Farina, Van Hooydonck, etc..
[quote=f6fhellcat13;985965]TLDR: You can draw a pre-war Delage on a computer.[/quote]
But you won't create it because the computer will tell you it's unsafe and useless against air. So since the computers were introduced to car design (or to be more precise science and maths) cars became increasingly uglier and less distinctive. Before this was introduced anything that look good went and it shows.
Furthermore the peak was reached in the thirties, because those weren't really cars, they were rolling sculptures.
A curious case is also the E-Class v CLS-Class Mercs.