Car-bon copying?

Have you noticed that more cars are looking the same these days? Remove the badges and you could sometimes struggle to know what car belongs to what manufacturer. More manufacturers are taking their design cues from the more prestigious brands and market leaders? Are designers running out of ideas?

One of the most blatant examples of cars looking strikingly similar can be seen with the new 2013 Honda Accord. Every time one passes you on the motorway you sometimes have to do a double take as on first impression it looks so much like the latest version of the BMW 3 Series.

Few would argue that the 3 Series is probably the best saloon car in the world and has been for over a decade. Therefore, you can understand why other manufacturers may be tempted to take inspiration from BMW’s designs and use it as a quality benchmark for their own models.

Take a look at the images above. At first glance you would believe they are images of the same car but in a different colour. You’ll see that the side crease in the sheet metal on both cars rise slightly towards the rear. You’ll also notice that the lines similarly run through the identical looking door handles. It doesn’t stop there even the flow of the roofline towards the rear is similar in both shots. What you may or may not know is that the car on the left is actually Honda’s Accord where the image on the right is that of BMW’s 3 Series.

When Honda were asked about the design of the Honda Accord they said that their new “body stamping technology” is aimed at giving the side crease of the Accord a much tighter radius than the 3 Series. From this statement I’m guessing what they actually mean is that the Accord is more “creased” than the BMW.

The case of adopting car “design traits” isn’t just seen with the Accord. You can also see it in other vehicles such as the 2013 Ford Mondeo.

You can clearly see that Ford engineers have taken design traits from both the Audi A7 and Aston Martin.

In conclusion, it’s true that if you were to look at various cars from a side angle there will be many similarities. You’ll find that the roofline, shape, curvature and crease lines in the metal are similar from car to car. You could even go as far as saying you would also find that the door mirror casing is almost identical. However, we should side against the argument of this being a case of blatant copying. What’s really happening is that engineers are simply trying to find designs that work in terms of accommodating passengers, aerodynamics and also what looks desirable to potential buyers within the market.

Why not decide for yourself by taking a look at some images of the latest BMW 3 Series and Honda Accords we have on the DesperateSeller.co.uk website? Click here to view our 3 Series cars. You can view our Honda Accord cars by clicking here.