Daniel Pund
Diamond Head
Mouths without a face. Got no human grace.
The G 90 ’s home-plate-shaped chain-link grille is an eye grabber.
In the spirit of public service for which this peri-
odical has become famous, we bring to your
attention a matter of terrible importance. We’ve
ignored it for too long already. But frankly, we
haven’t been strong enough to come face to face
with the hideous truth: There is a disease spreading
within our community.
Its devastation reaches nearly every corner of
every city and town in this and increasingly every
other country on earth. Why, just today, I received
fresh evidence of its impact in an email from a
multinational conglomerate. Am I to ignore it yet
again? Should I look away as I, and so many of us,
have done, simply because it makes me retch? And
when I say retch, I mean wave after wave of savage
retroperistalsis that leaves me physically spent and
QRYV_V\b AU\R V[ [RVTUO_V[T \¦PR PbOR N_R unable to snack normally for days. I shall not look away, though. We shall not look away. Not this time. Gaze, if you’re able, at this picture of the next Genesis G90. I promise you that I have not modi- ¼RQaUR]U\a\V[N[f dNf[\aRcR[OfZRN[\SaUR
3NPRO\X:R`R[TR_¼YaR_aUNaZNXRf\b_Z\baU
look massive and makes me and my younger daugh-
ter cackle with delight. Every. Single. Time. Yes, the
company actually intends to sell this vehicle to the
public looking like this, grotesquely (and point-
lessly) huge grille and all. It’s not easy to tell from
the picture below, but precious little of the G90’s
grille acreage is actually open to allow air to pass through to
the radiator. You will recall that the passage of air for cooling is
the purpose of grilles. Or it was. If the new purpose of a grille is
NYZ\`aR[aV_RYfa\QR¼[RNPN_N`UNc V[TP\ZRS_\ZN]N_ aVPbYN_
brand, then what does it say about that brand if its front ends
just look like sections of chain-link fence?
We’re picking on Genesis only because its release is the most
recent in a long line of troublingly absurd grilles. Have you seen
a Chev y Camaro lately? Or a Silverado? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,
they don’t even have faces anymore! Their grilles have devoured
their front ends. They have become mouths without faces, like
automotive lampreys.
And it’s not just Asian and American cars that are showing
evidence of this. Have a gander at the BMW 7-series sedan and
X7 SUV. Their grilles no longer look like kidneys (psst, they
never actually did). They now appear to be giant gleaming buck-
teeth. The company’s designers invariably blame American and
Chinese tastes for this ridiculous tastelessness. Well, they do
unless American journalists are around, in which case they will
simply blame the Chinese market.
Part of the problem is that we—the buyers, designers, and
enthusiasts of automobiles—are human. As a species, we’re
doomed to see human faces every where we look, even where
they don’t exist. Seriously, we all walk around with a section of
our brain devoted to recognizing faces; it’s called the fusiform
g yrus. Automotive designers understand this. It’s why Dodge
Chargers have horizontal, canted headlights. It makes them
look tough and maybe a little angry, just the image the company
wants its neo muscle car to present. And if headlights are the
eyes of a car, then the grille is the mouth.
You can’t help but see it that way. You’re
wired to see it that way. And as insensitive
as it might be, we’re also programmed to
be uncomfortable when those features are
out of whack.
So what’s with all the wrong automotive
faces, then? It is my contention that what
we’re seeing is the result of widespread
prosopometamorphopsia. This disorder
dUVPUReV`a`OfaURdNfPNb`R``bßR_R_`
to perceive faces in a distorted way. Noses
are askew. Teeth look huge. Features are
misplaced, cartoonlike. Its cause, in this
case, is thought (by me) to result from an
art-school overexposure to spray mount,
Bestine solvent, clove-cigarette smoke,
and angst. Or it could be that China-market
thing. I don’t know.20 JANUARY 2020 ~ CARAND DRIVER
ILLUSTRATIONBY^ BRETTAFFRUNTI