Yeah, I know: if you were young when these cars were new or newish, you’ll have no problem. Or of course if you’re an ace car spotter. But when folks complain that today’s cars all look alike, they’re likely to be above a certain age.
Here’s another view:
And of course it only gets harder the further back we go:
1940s:
1930s:
1920s: Come on, let’s start identifying these cars!
Wow, cars back then were all black, white or various shades of gray as well! 🙂
I think you just won the internet for today, Jim… That was priceless.
Best. Comment. Ever.
Down Here you can easily tell the difference between new domestic cars and trucks compared to new foreign Cars mainly because they are still making old cars like Peugeot 405&206 Nissan junior and Mazda B 2000 pickup and Kia Pride.
Your photo research skills are excellent Paul. These pics present a good argument.
The great song ‘Freedom of Choice’ by the new wave band Devo, expressed it so well. Most people feel most comfortable fitting into society, than wanting to express their own individual tastes. Even when they have that freedom of choice.
That’s why I always appreciate cars that break the design mold in a given era. It’s the groundbreaking designs that are the leading edge to future trends, that I most appreciate.
I still find the NSU Ro80 as engaging and unique stylistically, as most 80s and more recent aero designs.
*perk* two Studebakers and a Nash!
And what a Nash – a 55 with the continental kit! Wonder if it has the in-dash factory air given the LA locale.
Too inconvenient to the narrative to show a parking lot newer than the 50s?
I’m a millennial, so I’m not clouded by nostalgia. I completely agree that cars up to the mid-50s or so aren’t much more diverse looking than each other than today(other than having more bodystyles), but between the mid 50s into the 70s or even 80s doesn’t take an ace car spotter to tell apart many models from one another, even if you don’t know the names.
*perk* AMC Ambassador 69 or 70.
There’s an American and a Classic flanking a 69 Sattelite too, I think a 65ish American next to the turquoise 57 Chevy 🙂
I also see several air-cooled VWs (they used to be really common!) and a Volvo 144. Second row from the back has what looks like a breadbox Rambler American. Lots of Fords, Chevys, and Mopars of various types, and what looks like a Datsun roadster in the lower right corner. There’s a very distinctive early Valiant wagon near the center of the photo.
Good selection of cars, really they do NOT all look alike at all!
(Even the 1950s photo has some “diversity” – the Studebaker Starlight Coupe certainly doesn’t look much like the Nash in the second spot to its left!)
Perk : Porsche 911
Aside from the nearly requisite Beetles and the sole Microbus, nearly everything in this lot follows the long, low, wide two- or three-box design principle, and is either dark colored, red, or white. The variance in window shape within that familiar silhouette is not unlike what would be seen today.
The ’80s, being the most rapid time of change in automotive design, would have the greatest variance.
Not quite. In the left center, a 1967 Plymouth Valiant and a few cars to its right, a Volvo, show the way the future would go in another decade or so.
They all have 4 wheels too, just because they follow a very basic formula doesn’t mean they look the same by default. My dog has 4 legs and a tail, but anyone can still tell it apart from a horse or a lizard
At least for me, this “Aerial Test” proves something very special about ’60’s automotive design shown through how many mass-market vehicles are easily discernable vs other eras…Distinction was again lost from 500′ starting with the sheer look in ’77, soon echoed by Ford and Chrysler, and decades forward, the subsequent lots would look generic and again fail…..with automotive design in these time periods so generic, makes me want to forget buying a Tesla or Audi and seek out the Prius, Leaf or Kia.
Perhaps a parking lot of vehicles in the early 1910’s, before Ford’s T really got going & if such a image could be found, would exhibit exhibit variety.
Tosh and nonsense.
Glance at – don’t study- the picture below and tell me:
Chevy, Buick, or Oldsmobile?
For those who know instantly, extra points, but please don’t answer for a little while so others can play.
Chevy, Buick, or Oldsmobile?
Objection! Leading the witness 🙂
I instantly knew, but I straight up said in my tosh nonsensical comment “into the 70s”. The sheer look(and followers) and square headlamps was the beginning of the end of instantly identifiable car design as far as I’m concerned, but even then the rest of the body of this particular car, past the generic nose, is actually pretty distinctive. I will also posit the nose of its twin from another brand is instantly more identifiable
At least the headlamp/parking lamp unit is right-side-up on this one!
That was easy enough, but I won’t tell. It was probably easy for me since I was well into adulthood when this_______________ was a new car.
My first glance at that car I didn’t think Buick, Chevy or Oldsmobile; I thought Chrysler LeBaron from the late ’70s. I still think it’s a Chrysler product . . .
Born in 1960, I found it much easier to tell the cars apart in your picture Matt than the ones that Paul provided.
Also, it appears that cars came in colors then! Unlike in the early fifties and before, as well as today. Sorry… Jim Klein’s joke (above) still has me cracking up.
Ha, there’s my blue beetle in the middle of the photo 🙂
I enlarged the picture and eye spy a 1968 Chevrolet Impala in dark green with a beige top. Has a bright yellow/orange license plate. Can’t miss it when you click on the pic!
Any picture of a group of cars from the 20s is easy – half of them are Fords. 🙂
Sure, but in the 1920’s, (aside from identifiable Fords) there was a surprising convergence of technology. For ten years almost all cars looked the same with virtually identical features. It took depression era market desperation to bring about meaningful development and product differentiation.
I’ve noticed that too – cars from, say, 1918 to 1928 tend to look remarkably alike.
Yep, back then very few cars in the Twenties had truly differentiating styling over the period of the decades. Primary exceptions were Pierce-Arrow (headlights), Packard (hood and radiator shell shape), Model T Ford (they were so out of style by the mid-20’s you couldn’t miss them, not unlike a VW Beetle in the 60’s or 70’s), Model A Ford (possibly due to the amazing amount saved to start the antique car hobby), and Cord (just because it was so radically different, well, you could mistake it for a Ruxton . . . . . er, point made).
Corporate styling didn’t really take off until the 1928 model year, even a Duesenberg before the Model J was a dowdy looking automobile.
Model T Ford (they were so out of style by the mid-20’s you couldn’t miss them,
The T was restyled several times. The hood was raised, the corners were rounded. A 27 T looks entirely up to date, until you look underneath and see the 1909 mechanicals.
But which half? 🙂
I can’t tell American brands apart, at least until the late 70s/early 80s or so – I can identify a period, but basically they’re all gigantic and whale-ish.
Landcrabs and Triumphs and Jags? Oh my! Totally different 🙂 At least, to this millennial Scotsman’s eyes.
It’s all in how your eyeballs have been calibrated! 🙂
I could tell this was LA before I noticed the ‘California Bank’ sign. Heavy emphasis on club coupes and convertibles. In most cities a downtown lot would be four-doors and business coupes.
It’s interesting to see in these pics there’s few cars more than approximately 5 years old, at the time and virtually none older than 10 years old.
I’m sure these are the cars of affluent urban dwellers which skews this observation, but cars didn’t last, back then.
No one finds a 25 year old car in daily use to be unusual today. But back then? I can’t see any relatively old cars in any of these pictures.
Just for fun, here’s a picture from the 1970s during a bus strike. I tried posting a larger picture but CC choked on it.
For those who want to see a blown-up image, here’s a link.
https://imgur.com/gallery/UvtzB
One interesting thing about that picture is the almost complete lack of pickup trucks. There’s only two that I can spot easily, and possibly another two towards the back parked next to each other with toppers (but also might just be vans).
I’m also surprised at just how many VW’s are present, both Beetles and Microbuses.
Ok, I blew up the pic and I can’t help but notice how colorful all the cars were. The whole ‘black/white/grey’ color scheme of the past and present was not in evidence with these ’60s and ’70s cars as pictured in May 1974. I wonder if there was a system for the drivers of those cars to be able to escape the parking lot? Looks like there was no way for 75% of the cars parked there to get out.
Being able to identify cars is totally dependent on what years you were at your most automobile-obsessed. For me, that 1947-48 lot (I’m guessing that, because the one Chevrolet on the right is one of those two years and is the newest car in the lot) is easy, partially because it blows up in two steps and the cars are positioned to give a lot more detail. Love that, in a fairly mundane and GM/Ford dominated parking lot, there’s still a Graham Sharknose, and either a 42 or 45/46 Studebaker
The 1950’s lot would probably be as easy, except that the cars are packed in tighter, and everything is a side view, no fronts or backs. The 1930’s lot, I can pick out a few by the back end, but not a lot. Twenties? Forget it. Despite all my decades of time being around them, my ability to pick out a Twenties cars falls into one of six categories: Model T, Model A, Packard, Pierce-Arrow, Cord and everything else. And most of those would be between 1927 and 29.
Yeah, today’s (or the 90’s) cars aren’t anymore dull than pre-1955 cars. We’re just old enough to have been kids back then, so of course we remember them better, because we obsessed over them back then.
Can I hijack the discussion from cars to planes for a moment? Because aviation fans have a similar complaint, that all planes look the same nowadays. I think they might have a better argument. A couple of decades ago, even the casual observer could tell the difference between a 707, 727, 737, 747, DC-9, DC-10, L-1011, etc., just based on the number of engines, where they were located, whether it had a t-tail or conventional tail. Nowadays most airliners follow the same formula of two engines mounted under the wings and a conventional tail, apart from a few regional jets and the ginormous A380 with four engines. Telling them apart requires much more attention to detail.
I guess really the reasons for but planes and cars all starting to look more alike is the same for both — over the years the designs have all converged towards the most efficient shape.
I work for LAX and have difficulty accurately telling new airliners apart. Even the latest regional jets follow the same formula. While not my favorite, the public loves the soon to be gone 747. I ask why and they say they like the look of the distinctive “hump”. That is only there for the plane’s original cargo mission.
This picture has had me struggling to identify the makes and models. I’m pretty sure more than one is a Morris, but each time I try to nail down the date and model there’s a minor difference that just doesn’t fit (the shape of the roof front, the height and position of door handles, etc.) Trouble is, thanks to the hp tax, they had a plethora of very similar but incrementally larger models and used to update them every two or three years so I probably just don’t have enough references. Photo taken in Dunster,Somerset, probably in the early 1930s.
Looking at the cars of the 40s picture, you can imagine the impact of Lincoln’s Continental spare tire in 1940 and Cadillac’s tailfins in 1948. Both could not be mistaken for anything else.
I see quite a few Independents, especially Nashes and Studebakers, in the 1930s and 1940s shots. Of course, the Fifities and beyond wouldn’t be nearly so kind to them… On another note, I was surprised by the lack of imports present. If you just looked at these photos, it was like they never existed.
Because, to a certain extent, they didn’t. Maybe in Los Angeles, but not in smaller town America.
My childhood in the 50’s and 60’s was spent at a Chevrolet Dealership in Johnstown, PA (50,000 population, another 50,000 in the suburbs). Typical western Pennsylvania coal and steel town, with the usual conservative attitudes prevalent back then.
Dad would bring home ANY odd car he took as a trade in at the dealership when he came home for lunch and I was home. And by odd car, he’d define it as pretty much anything that wasn’t a GM/Ford/Chrysler nameplate currently I production (he knew I loved DeSotos, so I saw quite a few), as well as anything foreign. Nashes and Hudsons.
What foreign cars did I see as a kid? Never saw a VW because people tended not to trade them in on Chevys back then. Renaults: Dauphines, Caravelles, I remember an R-8. Hillman Minxs. He brought home a Humber once.
And that was it. Auto Union? Borgward? Austins? Volvo? Saab ? Never saw any of that except in books until I was at least 18. In conservative, smaller town America, those cars didn’t exist. You bought American, VW, or (In Johnstown) Renault (the Oldsmobile dealer had the franchise. And it stayed that way until almost 1970 when Toyota and Datsun showed up.
In 1983 I was 12. At school a teacher had a Saab 900. One day a kid asked her why she had a Saab, because kids are a**, um, kids. She said because foreign cars are better. You could hear a pin drop. Another teacher, who was un tipo suave, had a Renault Fuego. I had only seen them in car mags and no one else knew what to make of it. But I understood.
The big import boom really took off in about 1955-1956. By 1959, imports had 10% of the market, and it wasn’t just California and some other big cities, but clearly there were likely to be fewer in the more isolated/smaller areas/towns. If you find random street shots from 1958-1961 or so, they are much more common. And after that, VWs become increasingly common.
Neat photos and good points. I would place that top photo in 1956, or late 1955, based on a few cars I can identify as 1956 being the newest cars there (Pontiac, Lincoln, Chevy wagon). I totally get the point, there is a definite homogeneity there. All the cars are about the same size and mostly the same shape, and of course there are no pickups or other trucks. Only a small number of wagons, even. However, where you can get a good view of the taillights or side trim, it is pretty easy to nail down the make and year, since they changed so much year to year. Good luck doing that in the same picture with today’s vehicles.
I sometimes wonder what it would have been like driving back then when most all the vehicles on the road were the same height. Visibility would be fantastic! Nowadays you are always getting your view blocked by some taller vehicle. Even if you are in an SUV or pickup (and blocking a lower vehicle’s view behind you), there is always a taller one ahead to block you!
I’m curious how drivers got their cars back at the end of the day. Some people would have to have an awful lot of cars leave before they could get out! Do downtowns have lots like that anymore?
Pre-1960, cars were simpler and size and style. Every marque made ONE car, various models of that car (Corvette, etc. were exceptions, of course), and the size of the car a lot of times depended on how much you paid and what brand you bought.
Of course there’s homogeneity. It’s called, if a manufacturer develops a hit, within 2-3 years everybody else has copied it to try and get their piece of that action. 64/65 Mustang. 67 BANG! every other manufacturer is putting out a competing model.
Can’t really say what driving was like, because when you didn’t have that huge differential in size on the road, nobody considered the difference. Cars were cars, period. Of course, if you drove a Fiat 850 Spider, you’ve going to be the smallest guy on the road, but that problem was only limited to sports cars back then. Not real transportation.
Yeah, I was a bit stunned at looking at those parking lots piling them in five deep. You had two differences back then: First off, the lots weren’t necessarily self serve. A parking lot would have 4-5 employees moving cars.
But, more importantly, people were a lot more patient back then. No doubt those crammed lots weren’t shoppers, they were 9-5 employees somewhere nearby. Which means he lot would be filling in the morning, emptying in the evening, nobody moved a car in between, and having to wait ten minutes or so for the cars in front of yo to clear out before you could move wasn’t the screaming mortal sin it is today.
Right. I was thinking too that people’s schedules were pretty rigid. No flex time, alternative schedules, late shift, etc. If it was 9-5, everyone in the office left at five on the dot. So, there was a big rush at the end of the day, but you’d only have to wait as long as it took to clear everyone out of the parking lot.
With no emissions controls or ac, I’ll bet those lots smelled pretty bad at 5pm. I’ve also thought a downside to driving in the old days is there would be no escaping breathing a lot of smelly exhaust, especially if you got caught in heavy traffic.
Generalities are just that….one can posit that any era of cars are all so similar as to not be individually recognized. But one can also say that an enthusiast can spot the minutiae that differentiates whatever they are enthused by instantly.
For the most part, early cars were very similar as once the form was established, most OEMs built based on that form. The cars that stand out are the ones that went against the established form, like a Chrysler Airflow of the early 30s. Usually, those trailblazers were flops, so few were sold and fewer still were out and about 10 years later. They stood out, so they were easy to spot.
I will say that modern cars rarely stand out, stylistically. Sedans in particular are all so similarly shaped due to regulations and aerodynamics that unless you are looking at grilles or taillights, it is hard to tell them apart. Rooflines are all similar, there are no fins or chrome side trim, few body lines, so from the side, they do all look similar. SUVs and trucks seem to be where we still see some differentiation. I can tell a Ram from a Chevy from a Ford, but Toyotas look very close to Fords. Even there, OEMs go with whatever the market leader is doing and tend to copy. Remember the Toyota was originally the T150 until Ford sued, and it looked like an F150.
If you love that era, you can ID most models. If you don’t, it’s just another old car. It has been that way since it started. It won’t change anytime soon.
Nary a wagon to be seen in the top two pictures. Two woodies in the 40s. None in the 30s.
And even with the advent of steel bodied wagons in the early Fifties, it was still another 5-7 years before wagons really took off. Our family was one-car thru the 1958 model year, dad always getting whatever would be easy to move as a used car the following year when he got its replacement. Which almost always meant top-of-the-line two door hardtop, base V-8 with Powerglide.
Mom didn’t get her first station wagon until her 1959 Brookwood, which put an end to the Paczolt’s being a one car family forever. In one of our late-life discussions, I asked dad about why it took so long to do that, considering everything we had thru 1965 were company cars. Turns out mom wanted a station wagon earlier, but he wasn’t assured enough about the style’s resale potential until after the Tri-Fives had come and gone. Plus they were finally up to two kids by early ’58. So mom got a ’59, and just to hedge the bets, that first one was BelAir level. Starting in ’60 it would always be Impala level, going up to Caprice in ’66 (the first Chevy dad actually bought).
Once again, YMMV. I’m talking conservative small town market, definitely 3-5 years behind in whatever is trendy.
Actually, there is at least 1 wagon in the first photo (right side, about 3rd or 4th back in the line parked end to end), and at least 3 in the second.
There’s also full size convertibles, and 2 and 4 door hardtops. That right there, along with the 2 and 4 door sedans and a smattering of coupes is more variety then exists today among new car options.
That said, there are no pick-ups, SUV’s, and certainly no crossovers or minivans, so I guess it all evens out in the end.
Post WWII urban dwellers, even in California, did not for the most part camp (stayed in hotels) or work on their own homes (rented or hired help). We got our first wagon about the time dad stared doing some of his own home projects.
Also, station wagons were often the most expensive bodystyle, even more than convertibles. So, you couldn’t afford as fancy a brand or trim level to impress others. Dad went from Pontiac to Chevy in order to get a wagon.
Plenty of folks camped (or did home improvement projects) without a wagon, which was certainly not necessary for either.
I was just pointing out what I’ve often said here, that wagons really proliferated starting about 1955 or so.
While not necessary, a lot easier. I am agreeing with your premise and trying to explain an underlying reason for that proliferation.
I have a friend who is a Historic Preservationist, once in a while he would show me an old photo to identify the car(s) to figure out the year photo was taken. A ’38 Studebaker really threw me for a loop, but not a Detroit Electric – except for the fact that car looked the same for a couple decands.
I think you guys are right on age being the key issue- as a child of the Eighties I could spot which one was which on this famous cover:
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/1983-fortune-will-success-spoil-general-motors/
I count 4 wagons in the first photo and 1 in the second. With the older cars, there is one woodie, but the shapes are such that there is little difference in profile.
There’s no missing that Stude with the wrap around rear window.
Back in the early ’70s my mom took me to the local shopping center, we had a aqua 4dr ’65 Buick Special as we were leaving she almost got into the car parked next to us a aqua 4dr ’65 Olds F-85, which did look very similar- I corrected her with auto ID smarts.
Picking out the choice makes and models is always fun in these photos. For the ’50’s views, its that light-colored ’56 Lincoln Premiere convertible.
In the Boston ’40’s, its the shark-nose Graham at left facing the camera, and the ’41 Packard 120 or 160 convertible sedan with side-mounts, running-board delete option and whitewalls, plus a lot of other higher end cars, convertibles and woody wagons.
The ’30’s view has a GM convertible coupe with rumble seat and lower decklid in the first row.
Finally, in the ’20’s lower right corner, the large touring with the light colored top is a Pierce-Arrow possibly Model 36 displaying the large drum headlights that were optional for those who didn’t like or whose state outlawed the fender-mounted units. Next to it is a Wills Sainte Claire, one of the most technically advanced cars of the period.
That 1920s shot is clearly not of an event for common folks. These were mostly big cars, so my earlier quip about the lot being half Ford is not the case here..
Don’t you just love false nostalgia?
My favorite decade for American cars is the 1960s by far. I can tell them apart pretty well -and- I like the looks of a lot of ’60s cars. I think I could discern a Chevrolet Impala every year from 1964-71. And, honestly, it’s not very difficult. I bet plenty of folks on here could, too.
I could tell a 1960 Falcon from a ’61 due to the concave versus convex grille.
Big sedans in the 1970’s to me looked the most alike of the postwar shapes. I remember being unable to tell some years of a Chrysler from a Mercury or a Buick at distance and that was very frustrating for a car guy.
The newest car in the top photo is the 1956 Lincoln convertible (and maybe some other ’56’s). I am surprised that there are no station wagons. I was a kid then. There were lots of station wagons of all brands around. Fords started doing 4-door wagons in 1952. Plymouth and Dodge in 1955, but Chrysler had them earlier. I remember riding in a ’53 or ’54 Chevy wagon. By the 1955 models there were wagons of all brands everywhere.
My theory: most station wagons were owned by two car families. These cars are the ones that Dad drove to work. The station wagon was at home.
Also: Very awesome Modernist office building back there, with the extremely clean rectangular shape floating above the Corbusier style pedestal. Is it still there, wherever this is?
Good point about the lack of wagons. I was thinking wagons were a little more popular by then, but the dad’s work car theory makes sense.
That building is what let me recognize the shot, and no it is no longer standing, unfortunately.
The first photo is also in a book I have called Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles, and (don’t have it handy with me) it notes that it was built in 1941(?) and billed as the “narrowest little skyscraper in the world.” Los Angeles relaxed height limitations only after 1957, for context. It was located at Wilshire somewhere between Figueroa and Grand, which is all inhabited by much taller office buildings now.
Can anyone pinpoint were this is exactly? It would be interesting to get a Google street view shot and see how much the area has changed.
It would be interesting to see earlier pictures as well, many cities tore down buildings for parking lots as the suburbs sprawled. One of my favorite websites to go to when I’m bored is historicaerials and comb over places I’m familiar with to see the gradual changes over 80 years. Cities like Chicago or downtown Los Angeles go from super dense to somewhat sparse between the 40s and 70s, and then these huge surface parking lots gradually disappear for newer development from then to present.
“Cities like Chicago or downtown Los Angeles go from super dense to somewhat sparse between the 40s and 70s…” Combination of urban renewal, the need for parking, and urban blight. I’m all for freedom and the American way, but in a strange twist, communism saved Havana (both its architecture and a lot of antique cars). This recent aerial view shows downtown Havana as dense as an American city in the ’40s, with nearly all its Spanish Colonial architecture and small streets intact. I have this theory that if Cuba were an American state, today’s Havana might resemble other bombed-out U.S. cities like Detroit, or be totally modern and lacking historic character like Houston or Miami.
I agree. There was definitely a time period in which cars were rather distinct, but more often than not throughout history, they looked quite similar if you weren’t a buff or didn’t have enthusiast-level knowledge.
I think that what really got confusing—especially around the 80s—was automakers themselves using platforms across too many products without changing the shape and details enough, outright badge engineering, or simply taking a successful design and watering it down across an entire lineup. In short, it became harder to tell a given automaker’s products apart from each other. And even if you could, you might not have been able to articulate the differences in merit. When Chrysler made a bunch of old-fashioned K-car products that competed in the same markets…when GM built a Riviera that looked very similar to a Somerset Regal Coupe costing half as much…when Mercedes-Benz and BMW adopted the “same sausage, different lengths” approach…
Today, you can definitely mistake a C-Class for an E-Class. And I can also see how the non-enthusiast might confuse a Genesis G70 with a BMW 3 Series or Alfa Romeo Giulia.
But it’s nothing new.
For any given set of design requirements and priorities and cost constraints, at any given state of the art of materials and production science and technique, there’s a finite number of ways to make, finish, and assemble a door handle, a front fascia (or is it a full-wrap metal fender and a metal bumper bar? Or is it a fender, a header panel, a filler panel, a pair of bumper shocks, and a metal bumper bar?), a taillamp, or whatever. Mix those hardpoints in with fashion fads and design trends, and you have the reason why cars of the ’80s (’70s, ’60s, ’50s, ’40s, ’30s, etc.) are readily identifiable as such, no matter what make or model they might be.
Likewise, it’s why back when the old cars in these pictures were new, the parents and grandparents and great-grandparents of those who presently complain about all cars looking alike—present company included—were themselves voicing that time’s version of “today’s cars all look the same, not like back in the good ol’ days”. That’s just the way it works, excepting the odd radical design that departs from convention.
Excluding those of us not bound by our birthdate forming those opinions, of course. Or the fact that before the energy crisis there wasn’t any real incentive or necessity to incorporate aerodynamic hard points into vehicle design beyond being fashionable(which was often an artist’s interpretation and public assumption of what was perceived as aerodynamic, and not even for the benefit of MPG at that point). Constraints of the past produced designs that are still echoed in modern car design, even if the processes and materials changed, so I’m not sure I accept that old cars or modern cars look the way they do because of that, at least not after lumber was no longer a major part of car construction.
Your listed decades betrays your point as well. Cars from the 80s, 70s, 60s, 50s, 40s, 30s are indeed readily identifiable to their respective eras. 90s, 00s, 10s cars are not. Those are what I grew up with.
You don’t think ’90s cars are generally discernible from ’10s cars, eh?
Okeh! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Other than wheel diameter, general bloat and a reduced color palette, no, not really. They all have flush headlamps, flush glass, heavily raked windshields, body colored plastic bumper covers and FWD proportions.