I remember a day before the advent of e-commerce when you could walk into your nearest high street electrical store and peruse the vast selection of televisions, video cassette recorders and Hifis. I won’t mention the Betamaxes of the time, but all of the above had something in common that came...and went. They were all finished in a lovely shade of neutral black.

You see, being of the thrifty/tight/I’d rather spend that money on a car persuasion I still have not one, but two square black televisions and a black VCR at home. But why not, they performed a function then and perform exactly the same function now, without even needing to worry what these pixie aspect ratios are all about.

All of a sudden however, silver was the in thing. It was everywhere in its fake aluminium format, be it ‘brushed look’ or good old plain finish. Televisions, stereos, car dashboards, phones, even fridges were dragged into touch kicking and screaming. You wouldn’t choose something that was openly ‘Leatherette’ on the label but ‘brushed titanium look’ was just fine. Who bought into this? Or did we just not have a choice?
And don’t get me started on fake carbon fibre, my computer doesn’t have a large enough mothership to hold all the abuse I could put that way.

The truth is however that cars have followed fads and fashions for such a long time that no one really objects anymore. Design styles change over the years, straight lines become curves, curves become Bangles and Porsche, well they don’t do much, just look on whilst playing Jenga with their gold bullion. That is fair enough and I am not one to stop to evolution.

Recently however there is a definite trend for the styling and evolution of the intricacies of component parts. Peugeot is my favourite current example. Picture the headlights of say, a Peugeot 309. Next in your timeline plonk a nice 306 next to it. Then a 307 (you may have to use the internet to remind yourself at this point unless if you have more issues than me). Finally, a 308.
What is going on with the headlights? They just get bigger and bigger, they are now around the same length corner to corner as the bonnet is long. Look back at your 309 (or even a 205/206/207) comparison and then it seems all the more ridiculous.
Surely the next models’ lamps cannot get any bigger in the same style otherwise people will be filling the front with illegal plants, thriving on the joys of the mobile glasshouse.

Curiously though, it is not just an increase in size that is a symptom. A couple of years ago the now previous generation Fiesta received a facelift. This elegant transformation and update basically took the front and rear light units and popped them on a beach in the Costa del Sol for summer. There, the features of the individual lights grew upwards and outwards in a strange 3D effect making an otherwise smooth light cluster a strange amalgamation of blobs and freakish growths. A sort of headlamp cancer if you will.

You probably should get that checked out

When will it all stop? I do find that more and more people like to harp on about how all new cars look the same and (in the supermini and mid size hatch classes particularly) it is becoming true, even to those who can distinguish between them.

Safety is obviously a key contributor, with continual and stringent new regulations for pedestrian safety not helping with portly front ends. This seemingly has forced manufacturers to spend more time styling the intricacies of the new model design, lights being near the top of the list in the style awards.

First there were Lexus style (and we all know how that ended), then VW putting their logo within the bulb holders, BMW Halos and most recently a continual evolution of led sidelight strips for people who loved Knight Rider. And most probably watched it on a shiny black telly.