Boscom, yes completely agree. It needs the longer oval shaped third window, and the speed shield, and it becomes superb in looks.
Now I actually like the Gee Bee, pictured above. So ugly, that it could be deemed pretty. A total pig to fly apparently.
Gentlemen: Presenting the Breguet 763….
I just can’t like this.
It’s getting ridiculous now …
All the Bonanza models are among the best looking airplanes out there. While the 36 model isn’t as cool as the F33 or the V-tail it is still a good looking airplane with good lines.
And the Cirrus is very well designed too. Design is not a matter of “taste” but there’s objective criteria.
Like bosco i find (all) Diamond planes pretty ugly. Not so the TB20/21. I think that’s a good looking machine.
Design is not a matter of “taste” but there’s objective criteria.
Honestly?
Like bosco i find (all) Diamond planes pretty ugly.
I must be unobjective, then. 
Being a mod, I’ve kept out of this debate but I think a lot of the “taste” aspect is whether you like the 1950s look. You either like it or you don’t…
Diamond have gone for their look deliberately. They could have gone for the IMHO more obvious Cirrus look. I think the Diamond look is partly shaped by gliders, but you pay heavily for low wing loading, with a rough ride in turbulence.
At work, c. 1997, we had an injection moulded product case range designed by an industrial design company. They mostly worked for world-size pharma etc firms and charged us an absolute fortune (as most of those outfits do, with the final cost being nothing like the original quote) but the end result was… I thought … nice … but, I thought … swallowing hard… not every one of our traditional industrial customers is going to like it. Especially the colour scheme (green and purple). And sure enough one of our customers said he absolutely hates it and will hide it inside another box so none of his customers can see it! A few years later it was selling like there was no tomorrow, and sold enough to pay off my house, my ex’s house, 2 x child maintenance for 15 years (450k), 2 x private schooling (300k), UK+FAA PPL, FAA CPL, FAA IR, UK IR, a whole pile of related crap, 1 x TB20 plus flying it 100-150hrs/year, rebuilding a pension fund from ~zero, and all that is after tax, plus enough income and corporation tax to send probably all the kids in my village to school. Plus funding a number of employees and their complicated lives… And it’s still selling all the years later, and people love it, and the distinct look sets it apart from everything else. So you never know… taste is just a totally debatable thing and you never know which way public tastes will go.
Back in the 1950s the public taste was very different – much less demanding. Also you can’t do 3D curves without expensive press tooling which nobody was going to do even in the GA heyday in the 60s and 70s.
Even in industrial stuff, anything housed in a piece of bent up zinc plated sheet metal would sell just fine. Up to about 1979… I am amazed people buy the 1950s GA designs today (they would not in any other area of life) but then as I say there is no accounting for taste. And with so little recent innovation there isn’t much option.
A few years later it was selling like there was no tomorrow,………….
Peter, that’s what designers get paid for – to anticipate (or indeed, create) the look the public will want in the future. Exhibit A here being Apple.
But (just like in graphics design or typography) you cannot break all design rules and argue with “taste”. A 1974 VW Golf (Rabbit) has a better design than (let’s say) a 1974 Škoda.
Of course you can have a preferencs for (good) 70s design, or 50s! That was not my point.
BTW: I do NOT like all about the design of the Cirrus. For example their graphics between 2005 and 2010 were not on the same level as the general design of the airplane. Lancair (because Lance Neibauer is a graphics designer) was much better with graphics
A 1974 VW Golf (Rabbit) has a better design than (let’s say) a 1974 Škoda.
Not necessarily if you were brought up here
Why not?
Back then you might not have known it – but does that change the objective quality of a design? They just didn’t have the possibilites and the East was not really known for its great industrial design in communist times, and you can still see that today. Look at a Czech or Polish magazine and you can see that they still have a lomng way to go. But there’s exceptions: The Zlin airplanes have a good design.
(I just said Škoda because i was looking out of the windown of my Czech office when i thought about it and saw one of those air cooled light blue Skodas when i wrote it. But some Renaults, Peugeots or even Opels of that era were not really much better :-)
