Oriental car design

[Colin Talcroft <ctalcroft@domain.elided>]

I laughed when I read the post about orientals being
incapable of designing an original car. It remindid me
of a Japanese car enthusiast magazine I saw a couple
of years ago. The cover story was on Japanese auto
design and how manufacturers worldwide were stealing
Japanese designs. There were pages and pages of
examples with the "original" Japanese cars next to the
mostly European "rip-offs." I guess it's all a matter
of perspective. 

It also reminds me of a Japanese special I saw not too
long ago on TV (Japanese satellite broadcasts) about
the creation of the Nissan "Fair Lady" (the "240Z" to
people here). The designer openly acknowledged his
admiration of Pninfarina. Artists/designers are
mutually stimulated all the time. It seems to me that
if a new design is truly a rip-off it will be
consigned by history to the scrap heap as derivative.
If not, it will be appreciated for the advance
(however inspired) that it is. I still see a LOT of
240Zs around here. Yes, the headlight area of a 240Z
looks an awful lot like the headlight area of my
Spider, but I think the 240Z has stood the test of
time as an interesting design.  Unfortunately, I don't
have a copy of the magazine,  so I can't give any
examples, but Alfa was one of the manufacturers
accused of stealing Japanese designs (for the design
of the latest Spider, I think). For clarity, the
Japanese magazine was talking about current models,
not about the 240Z etc.

At the risk of getting too "deep" here, there is a
long tradition in the orient (Japan at least) of
copying as an accepted way of learning from one's
predecessors, and it is worth remembering that Western
art school tradition has long used "copying the
masters" as a tool for learning. That seems to equate
the Japanese with "students," however, which is not my
intention. I simply mean to say that we in the West
have an especially heightened fear of being
derivative. It is perhaps the greatest sin in the arts
to be derivative, or so it seems. I think much of the
rest of the world feels far less nervous about this
than we do. "Derivative" is an almost unavoidably
derogative term in English in this context. The
Easterner views building on the traditions established
by past masters much more positively than we seem to
be capable of. I don't mean to suggest that
non-Westerners really ARE doing nothing but stealing
European and U.S. car designs, as some here have
suggested, I don't think that's true. I just mean to
suggest that a broader perspective would reveal that
there is actually much more latitude in the minds of
most people in the world for viewing the borrowing
that has been reviled in these pages in a more
positive light than we are usually capable of. Again,
I think a new design that is truly a rip-off will be
consigned by history to the scrap heap as derivative.
If not, it will be appreciated for the advance
(however inspired) that it is.

Colin
1978 Spider
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