The Power of Love: Why is Automotive Design so Interesting?
Automotive design is more than the creation of a static piece of art, it’s more than the creation of a purely utilitarian device for moving people from place a to place b, it reflects culture, technology, politics, and aspirations.
Let’s begin by looking at the word automotive. Typically used as an adjective, it is both richer and more encompassing than its noun cousin automobile. An automobile speaks only of an object, a car, whereas automotive describes the entire industry and ecosystem that surrounds these vehicles. From advertising through design, and from engineering to sales, the word automotive has more scope, more vision, than the humble automobile can ever muster.
A dictionary definition:
automotive
adjective
au· to· mo· tive
1: Self-propelled
2: of, relating to, or concerned with self-propelled vehicles or machines[1]
Combining the Greek root “autos” meaning self with the Latin root “motivum” meaning “of motion” or “moving” it is a simple word to break down, but I think there is more to it than the bare etymology of the word.
Let’s focus on the word “motive”, in this case as an adjective where it can be defined as “having control of motion, causing motion, having power to move someone or something.”[2] What’s that? Having power to move someone? Those are powerful words and a powerful idea, but that’s why I want to focus on them. People often describe music, film, art, and literature as moving. People are moved to tears as often by pleasure as by pain, by happiness as by sadness, and they know when it is the right time to make a move, move on, move up, or move out. We are obsessed with movement, we aren’t static, we are in constant motion, evolving and changing, moving with the times and always on the move, and so is automotive design. That’s why it has the power to move us and entrance us, automotive design is more than the sum of its parts, it’s a culmination of engineering, discovery, aesthetics, and desire. To steal from Huey Lewis, automotive design is the power of love.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/automotive
[2] https://www.etymonline.com/word/automotive
