How will we think about the design of the past in 20 or 30 years' time?
When a picture of the new BMW X2 flickered across the computer screen the other day, I wondered whether people really liked this somewhat bloated-looking vehicle. This relatively compact SUV is a typical child of today with an aggressive front, high waistline, waisted flanks and relatively large wheels.
But how will observers rate this BMW in 20 years' time? Will they like it? Will they consider it collectible?
Of course, it's difficult to look into the future, so let's try a historical perspective and look back 20 years, to the turn of the millennium.
Back then, BMW gave us the Z8 ...
... but also the X5.
Mercedes-Benz had the A-Class ...
... and Fiat sold the Multipla.
And the Americans loved vehicles like the F150.
Not everything on offer back then is likely to be considered a design classic today, but perhaps we should look back another ten years to 1990.
Back then, you could buy the 300 SL-24 from Mercedes-Benz ...
... or a Citroën XM.
Volkswagen had added a road rally version to the Golf ...
... and at Volvo you could order a rather angular estate called the 850.
And a Toyota Corolla just looked like many other Japanese cars of the time.
To cut a long story short, even back then not everything that came onto the market impressed us. But we bought it anyway, because tastes differ. And 20 or 30 years later, we still usually like the things that caught our eye back then, even if we didn't even notice them in the meantime ...
