In the never-ending search for all the car news fit to blog, nearly every day I’ll come across a handful of creative renders of vehicles that don’t exist. I’m sure you’ve happened across a few yourself; I’m talking about drawings like “hey, here’s a Grand Wagoneer front end on a Lincoln Continental to simulate what a Jeep luxury sedan would look like” or “this Mazda RX-7 successor is the rotary-powered supercar we want,” etc., etc.
Does anybody care?
The thing is, I’m seeing more and more of them, so I have to imagine they’re quite popular with readers. And that’s always surprised me, because personally I get very little out of these fictional designs. I enjoy geeking out about car design as much as anyone else, and of course I’ve been party to my share of armchair auto-exec conversations about how cool it would be if this or that nameplate returned. I promise you, I have an imagination.
But much of the culture of renders today doesn’t do it for me. Growing up, if I saw a render of a rumored model on the cover of a car magazine, I’d get excited, because the presumption was that the design was based, at least in part, on insider information (the accuracy of that information was another story). I still get excited about those kinds of exercises, because they attempt to visualize the future. Or if, say, a skilled designer penned a very considered pitch for a concept, like this midengine Mini sports car — I’ve got no beef with those renders.
Rather, it’s the Photoshop jobs and the face swaps (there are oh so many face swaps) that strike me as pointless. Sure, the front end of a Nissan GT-R on a Navara pickup is not something I expected to see today; it’s also not something I’ve ever thought about or will ever think about again, except in this very moment to moan about. And even the Jeep sedan (which does look better than it sounds, I promise you) is nothing more than wish-casting.
That’s enough ranting from me though. Am I off my rocker or are y’all as tired of the incessant what-iffery as I am?