>To me, we seem to be trending towards excess - large grills on everything from Rolls-Royces to Chryslers to Audis.
Yep... reminds me of the trends to excess in the 1970s, remember when personal luxury cars were all the rage? Cordobas and Cutlass Supremes led the sales charts. Beautiful 60s designs like the Chevelle and Charger gave way to hideously overwrought replacements in the 70s.
Check out the size of the grilles on these cars, as well as the high belt lines and gun-slit size windows. At least the new cars these days don't have vinyl tops:
I hope we'll see a correction to all this excess like we did with the much cleaner 80s and 90s designs. The Bangled 3-series is overwrought and hideous...Be proud to own one of the last "form follows function" BMWs.