Today I finally got to see Jaguar’s controversial concept car, the Type 00, in the metal-flesh, and it was, if nothing else, interesting. I think the car’s odd, Autobrutalist aesthetic works better when seen in person than in pictures, though I’m still not exactly sure what I think of it. The bold blue color was doing a lot of heavy lifting, too.
Just a four-or-so hour drive north of here, in Crewe, another concept was shown to some select journalists by Bentley (but not me; I guess Bentley does background checks, and, for the record, that guy from the liquor store is a liar) and that concept, the EXP 15, seems perhaps oddly similar to the Jaguar Type 00.
Do these two cars suggest that a new automotive design trend, which we may as well keep calling Autobrutalism, is starting? Is two enough to be a trend, or do we have time to nip this shit in the bud? Also, do we count the Cybertruck in this category?
I do think we should count the Cybertruck here, if only because then it’s three cars, and three I can definitely say is a trend.
Just in case you forgot about/blocked from your memory the Jaguar Type 00 concept, you can see it here as automotive designer Adrian Clarke and I scrutinize the car:
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The Jag has a striking quality in person, and certainly commands attention, though as I said, I’m still not sure how I feel about it. It’s not what I would call beautiful, or elegant or sleek or any of the other adjectives I’ve thought for classic Jaguars. That may be fine, if it’s bringing something else to the table, but at the moment I’m not sure if it’s bringing something novel and delicious or a cake made with pumice and chunks of lead, all covered in saffron.
The new Bentley concept is interesting for a few reasons, not the least of it is how it was teased just last week with this video:
…right before Goodwood, where you’d think they’d be actually showing it. But they didn’t; instead they invited a few journalists to see it at their headquarters, released some pictures, and that’s it. Why isn’t it at their huge booth at Goodwood? One Bentley rep told us it’s on a boat to America, which it really does not seem to be. What’s going on here?
The Bentley EXP 15 concept shares a lot of common general traits with the Jag, the slab-like, mostly unadorned sides, the bulky, blunt proportions and considerable sense of mass, the strange packaging, the expensive materials, use of repeating simple patterns for detailing that replaces areas that would formerly have had elements like a more traditional grille, gigantic wheels and tires, and so on.
The whole thing seems to exude a sense of wealth, but in a sort of aloof and mistrustful way. It’s a vault, and that feeling is further emphasized by the very luxurious interior:
The packaging is novel, a three-door (one suicide door on the passenger side), three seat, along with a sort of tailgate there with seats on it, which I’m not sure you count as seats. I do like the odd little lantern between the rear seats, and, of course, the massive amount of room Bentley has devoted to your dachshund needs:
I think that dog bed pops up from the floor? That must be a very important dog.
This ornate interior is encapsulated and hidden from the outside world by that imposing exterior, and I think this is approaching one of the crucial tenants of Autobrutalism: a protective, mistrustful quality.
Luxury cars have always sought to telegraph and broadcast the ideas of wealth and privilege, but in doing so they used to also at least try to give something back to the world by being lovely things to look at.
Take the Jaguar Mark X from 1961-1970; this car absolutely projected ideas of money and power and taste and an idea that the people inside were, well, better than you, but at least they were incredible to watch gliding down the streets.
You’d see these drive past, and you’d be momentarily in awe of the graceful look, the impossibly wide proportions, and even as the chauffeur callously drove it over your foot, you’d feel a bit enriched by the whole experience, because it’s just such an ethereal, lovely machine.
Then security guards would drag you away before the people inside had to look at you, you filthy peasant.
But the Autobrutalist cars seem loathe to actually give anything back to the world, aesthetically. I think they were inspired by genuine artworks like Joey Ruiter’s Consumer Car:
…or Rem Koolhaus’ (not the architect, but related) Lo Res Car, shown here by our pal Doug:
…so I think the initial concepts and visual vocabulary came from some quite interesting sources, but I feel like the message of them has been distilled down to some pretty unpleasant qualities. All of these recent Autobrutalist designs feel like machines whose primary goals are to be imposing and quietly menacing, suggesting power and wealth but in a sort of paranoid way, fearful of the world around them.
The whole Cybertruck notion of being “apocalypse proof” feeds into this idea completely. If we consider the Cybertruck as the first production Autobrutalist car/truck, then I think we have to take this whole paranoid, panic-room-on-wheels idea as core to the Autobrutalist ethos.
And, of course, from there, we have to ask ourselves, do we want this? Do we want luxury cars to become these slab-sided cocoons of decadence that shield the fancy people inside from everything around them? Do we want cars that just take and hoarde and don’t give anything back to the visual world other than a strange sense of dread?
I’m not sure I want that. But I also don’t think anyone who will buy cars like these cares.
Dont forget about the Hyundai Vision 74 concept.
I am actually excited for brutalist design to re-emerge. 70-80’s malaise designs with modern tech sounds pretty cool to me.
Why did this make me think of the vampire flick Daybreakers, with the cars being literal rolling vaults cutoff from the outside world?
I feel like the newer SUV’s are developing brutalist front ends. The Lexus with its tall, body-colored grill is one example. Cadillac has been doing it for several years or more.
I don’t think it’s Brutalism, more of a Dick Tracy, 1930s locomotive Streamline Moderne. I could see Jessica Rabbit pulling up in this car, brandishing a tommy gun.
This is pretty much what it is. The rich have become so rich and wealth inequality is so insane right now that the rich seem to have a quiet guilt complex about it. Instead of being philanthropic and giving back to society, however, most of them just seem terrified of the rest of us, and want to ride around in these imposing safety boxes.
I also think there’s a lot of relation between that and fast SUV’s becoming more common, people are scared to be seen in sports cars because they know how it makes them look, and they fall into the misguided conclusion that an X5-M makes them look less like a Rockefeller than the M8 they actually wanted.
I’m not sure that we need to stop it. Like most automotive design trends, it will die when the next “thing” comes along. This usually when a company aims to differentiate itself from all of these cinderblocks on wheels, and sells because of it.
That said, would it kill automakers to make something gorgeous again? Something where form and function combine to make beauty? Is that really too much to ask?
It’ll be easy to stop. Nobody buy them and ????
That’s kind of my point. Either way, it peters out, and on to the next thing.
That said, pretty much any sales are a step up for Jaaaaag right now.
I kind of feel like the recent big, blocky BMW 7ers might fit in this category of design, too.
Either way, thanks, I hate it.
I’m trying to process why, exactly, I hate these designs, and well, they’re just aesthetically unpleasing — tank-like, even. Heavy, unaerodynamic, and certainly less efficient than they could be. I like brutalism, but these car designs feel like less an embrace of materials’ unique qualities (read: the thing that makes brutalism interesting) and more like a display of outward hostility or disdain for the world around you. All of these relatively-short-greenhouse bricks just exude an outward display of paranoia about the external world, like someone distilled Afraid of Big Cities Guy’s entire essence into a vehicular form. Calling them autobrutalist seems unfair to brutalism.
The Cybertruck comes the closest in its embrace of naked stainless steel, but I just don’t want to put that evil on an often unfairly maligned architectural movement this early in the morning. Goodness knows, brutalism had its own flops and unsavory influences to contend with already, with plenty of other authoritarians who embraced it. I’m just going to note the factory wrap options here as well that serve as a counterpoint to that look-at-this-material focus and go look at Porsche 911s as a unicorn chaser. When you offer the automotive equivalent to painting the concrete as a factory option, it feels like a admission that the imposing form was the point moreso than an open view into the materials that shape it.
That Bentley is the least offensive example of the chonk trend because it’s at least nice on the inside, and the 7er strikes me in a similar way, so at least those interior teams still got the memo. The other two? Bless their hearts.
Blocky doesn’t have to be this way, though. Rolls-Royce, for what it’s worth, has had blocky cars for ages, but they at least give their cars enough retro nods and fun features (backlit chrome grilles! honest-to-goodness hood ornaments!) to be somewhat playful and inviting. I actually want to be in the big ultra-brougham. Admittedly, there are some bad Rolls specs out there, but for the most part, they use that blocky shape well as a clear callback to luxobarges of the past. Even their boxy shorter-greenhouse shapes frequently offset that with pinstriping, two-tone paint options and other ways to break it up.
These other slab-sided, slab-fronted, welcome-to-the-lame-apocalypse designs somehow feel like the polar opposite despite having similar shapes. The design language reads less like a car’s, and more like a piece of consumer tech — think printers or air fryers. Less dignified, more robotic. You can only strip down the form of a car and obfuscate the styling elements so much before you wonder if you’re actually looking at a car-shaped computer mouse.
I don’t want to engage with these blocky robot cars. They feel hostile to the outside world, and therefore, more hostile to me, the pedestrian who doesn’t want to be run over by several tons of Cyberschmuck. I want to kick these robot cars in the robo-groin for befouling my field of vision.
Jaguar is on life support! Repulsed a lot of people with that weird unisex / androgynous ad. Not making any (many?) cars this year. Taking a year off to changeover to EVs? Whenever! EVs are trending downward? Yet some how still have a approximate 250 day supply of vehicles on their lots. I know a gal who worked for JLR. Quit because she felt like they were sub standard vehicles. She says it was getting hard to sell Oil Changes for $600! This is in the Bay Area. Who thinks it’s ok to pay $600 for an oil and filter change!
And now your showing the Fugly Design to come?
This is not going to end well.
Not sticking up for the actual car itself because I hate it, but if you’re literally repulsed because you don’t immediately know what genitals a person has, that’s a you problem.
I could give a fig about what sex people claim they are. Not my problem. I was just stating that that Jag ad was confusing. Was it even about a car? I know what sex I am and what sex my lady is. That’s enough for me! The XKE was considered a “female form”. Curvaceous! Yes indeed. Y’all have fun now!
Ok
As of six months ago EVs are not trending downwards. Their growth is slowing:
“Are Global EV Sales Really Slowing Down?
“At the BloombergNEF Summit last week in London, my colleague Aleksandra O’Donovan gave a presentation taking stock of whether there really is an EV slowdown, and what it means for the global auto market.
The verdict: growth rates are slowing, but EV sales are heading for another record year. The full video of the talk can be found here.
BNEF estimates that sales of EVs — including both battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles — are headed to 16.7 million units this year, up from 13.9 million in 2023 and in line with our forecast at the start of the year.”
https://about.bnef.com/insights/finance/are-global-ev-sales-really-slowing-down/
Growth in US will slow further with changes to subsidies/tax credits, but sales in China are rapid. Our US industrial policy is apparently to make sure we are last movers in that market.
“China made a bet decades ago because it couldn’t compete with the US on cars. That bet is paying off big
“By any measure, China’s EV growth has been extraordinary. More than half of new cars sold are electric, putting the world’s largest automarket on a path to all but erase gas-powered cars over the coming decades. Last year, China’s EV sales soared to 11 million, a nearly 40% increase on 2023, according to data from UK research firm Rho Motion. It’s an “irreversible transformation,” Shuo said.
“The government started introducing EV-friendly policies in earnest around 2009, Mazzocco told CNN, offering manufacturers cheap credit and funding for research.
It was “a pretty big bet,” she said, and the road wasn’t smooth. A few years in, “it was considered kind of a failure.”
“But ultimately the bet paid off, thanks to a combination of consistent support from China’s city and central governments, advances in battery technology and a slew of highly competitive companies, she said, including Tesla’s main rival, China-based BYD.”
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/23/climate/china-evs-growth-oil-market
I think these are a good reflection of these loser billionaires we have now. Cars that lack any real imagination or creativity which is a real reflection of their owners. That are ugly brutalist ideas of what a car should look like made for people who think they are almighty and powerful. Yet, also the weakest most paranoid losers we have today. Look at how rich and powerful I am with this car that’s a bunker to protect me from you plebes because I refuse to pay a pittance of my wealth in taxes.
Are these cars taking on a post WWII communist styling? The cinder block of automobile design?
I am curious how these designs will trickle down to cars like Nissan and Toyota, and GM..It is just like fashion, it all starts at the top and most expensive but within a decade everything will look like that.
Let them have their shit. If they want to drive around in squares-shaped poop cylinders, they can have it. We need to start laughing at rich people more. Every time I see a Cybertruck, I think, “this fool again.” This person who loves to throw away money might nick their elbow getting groceries.
I don’t think this trend needs to be fought. I don’t think it will last, for similar reasons we don’t have brutalist architecture everywhere – that shit’s not cozy. It’s the human touches in things that make them feel worth touching. I never want to touch a cyber truck. Autobrutaslism says “don’t touch me, or the contents of this poopbox.” It’ll never dominate because people want to be touched, even tech bros.
/steps off soapbox he just discovered
I prefer a more brutalist aesthetic to the melted jelly bean shit they are doing today (looking at you Mercedes).
That being said the 00 looks better than the Rolls, but I’m not going to be in the market for anything over $100,000 so the designers shouldn’t really care about catering to me.
Not a melted jellybean, but one that has been stepped-on, and then peeled off the floor.
Edit: I am a Panamera apologist, so consider my opinion accordingly.
I’ve got a soft spot for the Panamera as well, especially the one that is slightly more wagony
They look too big for British roads. Even modern Bentley Continentals struggle with anything less than an A road…
Having said that the old three box Rolls/Bentleys were not exactly elegant, like very large Ladas when looked at with the rose coloured specs off.
As for the slit windows it became a thing with the Land Rover Evoke, designed for people who spend their time looking at screens instead of out the window.
The uber-wealthy owners feel the need to be inside their rolling fortresses and protected from the gaze of the poors, I suppose.
There’s a lot of ugly to unpack here, but both cars are truly awful. Autobrutalism is a great term for this. These are fucking sadistic designs, intended for sadistic consumers. Frankly, the current big roller (Phantom?) is pretty much a cartoon from the Perils of Penelope Pitstop….
It’s a proportions thing. Mixing the slab sides and an intimidator grille with a fastback roofline and gunslit windows just doesn’t coalesce well. The slab-sided Lincolns of the ’60s had squared-off rooflines while the classic Jags revelled in their curves.
The way to shut this design trend down is to just not buy any. I’ve already said I can’t believe how fugly the Bentley is.
And wow… that Jaguar Mark X was a beautiful car for its day.
The new one looks completely impractical. And well the Cybertruck… ’nuff said.
But it’s all okay. These are all in a price range in which I choose not to participate. It’s not that I can’t, but I just don’t see the value.
Okay, I will personally not buy any.
Did it work?
Only time will tell.
These look exactly like the kinds of cars you see in futuristic dystopian movies, games, and novels, exclusively being owned by the wealthy oppressive ruling class.
They do look cool, in the same aggressive way that a ’68 Charger looks cool, but a ’68 Charger wasn’t designed to exude wealth and decadence – it was a working man’s car – and that’s the crucial difference.
The danger of wealth is the temptation to seek comfort in separation from the rest of the world so that the plight of regular people no longer bothers you. If their cries never reach your ears, do they really make a sound? These brutalist luxury cars are designed to feed into that craving for self-centered numbness, the lie that you don’t have to concern yourself with the world if you’re rich enough that it can’t touch you. In that way, beauty isn’t the only thing these cars refuse to give back to the world. They do make a statement, and that statement is “screw you, you’re getting nothing from me.”
Wow… That IS dystopian. The self-centered numb nuts narcissists in these things would be the first I’d go after with a stage 4 diagnosis of some kind of rage.
Fortunately, the world is safe. I’m just at the point of OMG, these things are ugly and if there are people at “take my money” with these, then take their money.
They will not be taking my money.
I would add the latest Range Rover into this style motif. I like the way it looks but I think it fits the mould.
Another (prettier) version of this esthetic could be found in Andor: Mon Mothma’s gorgeous blue limo is doing what the Bently and Jag are doing, but much more graciously. Maybe a little of the fine detailing that went into that will find it’s way to these when they get to production- it would help humanize them quite a lot, imho
https://images.app.goo.gl/RDrwqJCX4swyHmpp7
To me, the Mon Mothma car is rooted in the 1970’s neoclassical “personal luxury car” aesthetic. (The Star Wars universe has a very particular 1970s futurism to it, since the modern productions hew close to the designs of the original 1977 film.) And those 70s designs did have a clear sense of isolating their occupants from an increasingly chaotic and uncertain world around them with their plush interiors, peekaboo opera windows, low, sweeping rooflines, and soft suspensions.
But the styling was more exuberant than intimidating. Most tended toward disco-era flash with plenty of chrome-and-brougham styling. Lincolns kept their slab-sided and formal lines — and in dark colors had a certain menace about them, but it was more of an understated power display than overt threat. Perhaps most importantly, while the wealthy had their ultra-luxury versions, there were plenty of Cordobas and LTD II’s and Monte Carlos for everybody else. Cars of their ilk were a refuge and statement of control for everyone.
These newer cars have a very different vibe. While they evoke a fair bit of a return to some neoclassical styling forms, they’re truly fortress-like in appearance. They’re a luxury bunker in a dystopian hellscape. And they revel in their exclusivity. The lowly proles can only look upon them and imagine being like their occupants riding in opulence behind the thick, tinted (possibly bullet-resistant) glass. They have no hope of owning such automotive refuge; in fact, they’re at risk of being mowed down by it.
Automobiles have been perceived as both a democratizing force and an attainable form of visibly achieving social status for decades. This new styling trend seems to turn away from that and instead make the car a visible implement of the oppressive side of wealth and status. Well, at least until other automakers start aping the designs on more pedestrian vehicles and thereby dilute the impact; soon enough everyone will be able to have their own faux-APC to make grocery runs and drop the kids off to school with…
Well said
I keep seeing those two cars as being driven by some rich villain in a dystopian future.
Maybe that’s what they are going for.
Yep, it’s quite fitting actually. Every year, big corporations announce they’re either one step closer to finally building something horrible from a famous dystopian novel, or they’ve actually done it now and unleashed it like a plague over the earth.
They did read all those cautionary stories, they understood the warnings, and… The idea of being the wealthy oppressive ruling class in those stories sounded pretty cool to them.
Now, cars fitting that exact aesthetic exist, just in time for that reality to exist and welcome them into it.
Has Fancy Kristen weighed in on this subject yet?
Yes!
https://www.motortrend.com/news/bentley-exp-15-concept-first-look-review
Footnote clarification: Harvey’s link to Motor Trend is indeed a piece by Kristen Lee, but not written in her “Fancy Kristen” persona. So expect the informative automotive journalist she is, not the wealthy gate-keeping snob she occasionally pretends to be for our amusement.
Maybe it’s just me, but in the paper mag days, it was C/D, Automobile and R/T. Motortrend was a sad back lagger.
If Kristen writes for MT, maybe Fancy Kristen can write for The Autopian (if they can afford her, that is).
They will have to add a “hand-clubbed baby seal skin” tier to the membership pricing schedule.
I certainly hope not.
I certainly hope so, for the love of all things Holy.
Well distain for those who like Nazis does seem to be having a significant impact on Cyber Truck (and Teslas in general)…
The concepts give me a slight Syd mead vibe.
I think they’re uncomfortably mashing-up both sides of Syd Mead’s designs — he did both sleek, optimistic space-age designs as well as dystopian visions that influenced the cyberpunk visual style. Some of his artwork inspired designs in Star Wars; these cars are definitely cut from the Imperial/Sith lord mold.
You hit the nail on the head. While we should stop it, we probably can’t. I don’t think this kind of design will move down market because that would taint it, this is supposed to be, like, ultra luxury, right? It’s interesting that Jaguar’s first “new Jag”/upmarket car already has a pretty direct-looking competitor (shape/style, I’m assuming price point). As much as it’s the stereotypical “rich people in a dystopian future” look, I see a little 1920s/1930s shape to them, that wagon kind of look, and I think the Celestiq, another car taking a luxury brand upmarket, is supposed to have a 1930s/1940s inspiration, right? So maybe this is just a throwback/retro thing that’ll die out on its own. As far as the vault/apocalypse/paranoid thing, that’s what they want/pay for. I wouldn’t be surprised if some or most of these buyers don’t get the car for the car, they get it for the brand name/status symbol. But Chrysler should 100% do something like this for The Bishop’s Imperial Cruiser, like how the old 300 was the poor man’s Bentley.
I think if anyone can put a stop to this trend, it’s the Korean brands. They’ve already got a reputation for offering the most style for your buck, and for making things that look more expensive than they are. Even Genesis doesn’t have the same luxury mystique as Jaguar or Bentley. The minute they start offering their own version of this look, the established luxury brands will react to it like a teenager watching their mom trying to use hip slang, and change the definition of cool before it gets cheapened by overuse.