Why new cars look like the 1980s again

New cars designs are throwing it back to the 1980s lately—sharp lines and boxy silhouettes. But are these retro-futuristic models feeling like empty calories to anyone else?

Because cars are everywhere, the way they look has a strong influence on how we think of a decade’s particular aesthetic. Since the late 1990s, automakers have experimented with retro designs that pull on nostalgia instead of presenting a bold new future. It was huge in the mid-2000s: the New Beetle, the Ford Mustang, the Chevy SSR, the Toyota FJ Cruiser, and many other models were styled to emulate cars from the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s.

There were many reasons for this, not least because those were the decades that meant something to the people with money to buy new cars. The Great Recession kinda washed all that out—but now it’s happening again, and this time, we’re going back to the 1980s.

You’ll notice that electric vehicles are really leaning into it. That’s because when you don’t have a true legacy or enthusiast-pleasing technology to ride, retrofuturism is a shortcut to making a new car mean something to people. We're just not sure that's enough.

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0:00 The '80s are back!
1:11 Where retrofuturism began
2:46 The mid-2000s boom
5:16 EVs go retro
7:51 What happens now?
10:00 The next big wave