A few days ago, I was sitting in my car when I spotted the oddest thing on the front-end of a Daihatsu Charade parked opposite me.
The Charade’s number plate was positioned about 20 to 30cm off centre.
Daihatsu Charade
The only other car I could think of with this feature was a few Alfas. Of course, the Alfas all had the off centre number plate purposefully integrated into its overall design and it looks quite neat.
Number plates, while primarily a means of vehicle identification, are also integral to providing the front and rear of any car with a balanced, harmonious aesthetic.
On this poor Daihatsu, however, the number plate resulted in an already oddly proportioned car looking even more like it was about to tip over.
Imagine, just for a second, if Mercedes-Benz decided to place their bonnet-mounted 3-pointed star a ruler’s length to the left and you’ll get an idea of just how bizarre the Daihatsu appeared.
I felt ridiculous staring at a silly number plate and eventually left it down to someone, somewhere, in some workshop, who had simply re-attached the number plate incorrectly.
You can well imagine my shock when, over the next day or two, I spotted several other Charade’s (new and old) and previous generation Sirion’s nonchalantly sporting the same misplaced number plate!
The Copen micro sports car as well as the older Cuore prove that this oddity is common to almost all the brand's humiliated models.
Daihatsu Copen
Daihatsu CuorePerhaps this is Daihatsu’s cost-effective means of keeping a family resemblance between all their models instead of resorting to, say, the humongous grill now found on all Audi’s?
At least there are a few Japs out there with a greater sense of humour than the ones that designed the dull Corolla.
Unreal, this is something new to me. Great anology with the benz.. imagine anything but perfectly enginered symmetry from German cars.
ReplyDeleteOh and i doubt the number plate was skewed for any cost cutting reason, and if they did it for differentiation id be shocked...