► Scout is here
► When US car design works
► And why
The new Scout Motors brand – owned by Volkswagen and recently launched in the US – means it’s time for me to confront the truth: friends, I love American styling. I’m hesitant to own up to this because it’s a bit like admitting to wearing a Stetson and cowboy boots and attending Wild West cosplay events. Classic American car design – like those baroque Chevrolets and Cadillacs of the 1950s, all the chrome and wings and jet-engine references – is not only over-the-top but also, these days, a bit overdone, oversold, overused, the subject matter of so many books, films and cheesy rock songs it’s all become corny.
But I like what came after that period, the reactionary flip to Modernism in the late ’60s and ’70s. American cars became minimalist masterpieces, slab sided and unadorned like a Mies van der Rohe skyscraper. Look at the 1966 Buick Riviera or a 1967 Dodge Dart – still huge yes, but little chrome, no fussiness and barely any crease lines in the bodywork.
It’s this pared-back restraint that the new Scout brand harks back to with its Traveler SUV and Terra pick-up, reimagining the original International Harvester Scout of the 1960s. Those early Scouts were boxy, functional and almost deliberately ‘unstyled’. Basically a Modernist’s dream.
But for me, it isn’t just about the simplicity, it’s also about the Scouts’ facial expressions – it’s the look in their eye. The great British designer Peter Horbury – the man who reinvented Volvo in the 1990s – later moved to the States in 2004 to reinvigorate Ford’s (then very bland) US design. ‘No more European,’ was his remedy. At the 2006 Detroit show, he talked about how he was trying to make American design American again. ‘If there’s a change,’ he said, ‘it’s that we’ve stopped trying to be global in our design. Bold American design is something that’s ours to use. It’s not European.’
Talking about the new Fusion sedan, he explained, ‘The front of the Fusion was different three years ago. It was European. Now it’s open and friendly. It says, “Hi, I’m Dave. I’m American.”‘
That description of US design would stay with him for the rest of his career (he became Peter ‘Hi, I’m Dave’ Horbury), but I disagree with his analysis. Rather than being open and friendly, I think US car design works best when it looks really menacing – when it evokes the gangster or the gunslinger, those anti-heroes of American mythology. Look at the headlights of the Scout and its not ‘Hi, I’m Dave’, it’s the stare of the masked Lone Ranger. Chris Benjamin, Scout’s chief design officer, referred to the Traveler having a ‘mask’ at the launch, and he described the two new models as ‘bad ass’.
That Clint Eastwood hard stare is in the expression of all the great performance American cars of the ’60s and ’70s, from the original Mustang to the Dodge Challenger, and that’s why I love both the Scout models, with their wide stance, those clean uncluttered lines and, yes, that glowering face. Scout Motors strikes me as one of the most exciting and realistic of the recent electric start-up brands – which is why I’m so gutted it probably won’t be coming to the UK.
But fear not – if you’re looking for a bit of Dirty Harry, ‘make my day’ American styling, there’s always the brilliant Ford Raptor. Yes, I know, the mid-size Ranger pick-up was originally developed for Australia, but the latest generation of the beefed-up Ranger Raptor takes its design cues straight from the full-size, stars-and-stripes F-150 – America’s modern-day Model T.
And on UK roads the Raptor is just awesome, with all the 4×4 confidence of a Range Rover, the muscle of that 3.0-litre V6 and the visual presence of an American outlaw. That big vertical grille and the distinctive headlights that wrap around the huge FORD badge aren’t exactly minimalist, like the Scout, but if the Raptor has a face it’s one of a hitman or perhaps that other trope of great American cinema, the hard-knuckle heavyweight boxer. It’s just looks so tough, and while American aggression may be frowned upon in polite society these days, I admit I loved driving this mean-looking pick-up among all those puny, milky white, European hatchbacks. Out of my way! Shock and awe!
Yes, yes – you’ll probably have fun psychoanalysing me for this. Told you it was a hard thing to own up to.