To retro or not to retro is something that’s on the minds of many head designers and executives at the auto manufactures of late. After spending billions to develop a new model, will seemingly fickle buyers embrace retooled sixties surfaces, or are they more likely to flock to flame surfacing?

Jaguar learned the hard way that neither Europeans nor Americans want their cutting-edge tech wrapped in recycled aluminum, and the wonderful driving XJ and S-types have never come close to sales targets. Yet, another Ford product—the Mustang—has been a smashing success in its overtly swingin’ style. What gives? And how on Earth are companies to interpret these seemingly conflicting results?

Firstly, by realizing that as vehicles become more uniform in how they drive, and as the vast chasm that used to separate the good from the bad in issues like quality, reliability, and durability shrink, ineffable things like ‘character’ come more and more from great design. Clinic-driven styling blandness just doesn’t ‘play in Peoria’ anymore; not when there are so many other good—and good looking—cars and trucks available from competitors.

Next, different segments of society respond differently to what’s offered to them. Some things seem obvious in retrospect: The Mustang’s updating of the massively successful early models made sense to mainstream enthusiasts. There were legions of Americans who had owned—or wished they had—the original pony car. And millions more who were still out there tweaking, tuning, and racing their ‘80’s and ‘90’s V8-powered steeds. Add to it that J Mays was talented enough to make sure the reborn ‘Stang was modern in surfacing and proportion, so as to attract a large pool of buyers. And finally, it didn’t hurt that—like the original—the car is a terrific performance bargain.

In contrast, buyers of luxury rides appear to need to be reminded of the technological credibility of their car; after a slow start, buyers have embraced the BMW 7-series, spawning Bangle look-alikes such as the new S-class and Lexus LS. These vehicles break enough visually from previous iterations to let observers know that the owner has shelled out for the latest and the greatest. This helps explain Jaguar’s massive miss on the exploding luxury market; how many really want to be viewed as having spent large for a new model that is nigh on indistinguishable form the old?

The U.S. mainstream buyer is a bit harder to predict. Some things are clear: beauty (or at least desirability) is critical to success. Risk takers like Nissan have decided—rightly, it appears to me—that having a segment of people be passionate about the way a particular vehicle looks outweighs (and outsells) appliance-like, boring inoffensiveness. They are willing to accept that many others won’t ken to the looks of funky players like the Murano or Infiniti FX35.

A broader example of the style-consciousness of the middle-American consumer is in people haulers. For most any family here, a minivan (or station wagon) is the perfect vehicle: flexible, efficient, and very comfortable for the whole posse. Yet the image associations people—especially women—have of them are so horrendous that is has caused a sales slump severe enough that both GM and Ford are dropping them from their lineups entirely. They are being replaced by inherently less useful ‘crossovers’ that don’t suffer (or carry) the same baggage. Soccer moms are happy, thinking they look cooler, and the manufacturers are grinning as well, as the public has been willing to pay a lot more for that image, just as they did for over a decade with body-on-frame SUVs.

At the low end of this market, some retro-styled models have done well: Chrysler’s PT Cruiser, and Chevy’s recent HHR. Perhaps this is an indication that America is indeed a complacent and decedent society in decline, finding inspiration and comfort mainly in the past. Or at least certain segments of American society feel this way and reflect it in their car buying decisions.

Does this mean that gone, perhaps forever, is the unbridled optimism of the ‘space age’ wherein American cars’ styling inspiration came from the ferocious fighter planes of the country’s mighty military? Middle Eastern buyers appear to inhabit this mindspace now. They live with such profoundly modern growth—in architecture, [and ], where everything is going great guns, that backward-looking automotive design is a risky move.

Whatever the cultural milieu, the bottom line is that style is what sells. Therefore, if a manufacturer is going to go retro, it has to be cool (Mini), or beautiful (Camaro), and apropos to its intended niche. Otherwise, like poor Jaguar, it stands the risk of being left on the rubbish heap of history.

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