Inspiration of the Cetacea

On first observing the Cefiro at the home of the seller, I was struck by one of those exceptional moments of clarity; the clear inspiration of the unremarkable shape of the Cefiro had immediately been starkly obvious. For upon viewing the car, I immediately drew connections - a particular trait of Japanese car aesthetics from the 1970's to the 1990's was the fact that inspiration was drawn, not created - between the Cefiro and a member of the Cetaceous (Whale) family. Not any ordinary, unmajestic, fat, barnacle-covered sea mammal mind you. Rather, a vehicle commonly referred to as "The Whale" (Or in Saudi, as "Saboona", which translates into Soap Bar).

Know what I'm talking about yet? No? Am I REALLY this much of a geek to draw out this torturous link for a design inspiration? Yes. Yes I am ^_^. Now, feast your eyes on the following Cefiro image:



And you just try and tell me that the sheer number, if not execution, of design similarities, isn't curious, with this lovely specimen:



Stop laughing. Whilst the Impala SS pictures is a heaving blob of metal, and the Cefiro is...a slightly lesser heaving, blob of metal, one design feature became instantly apparent to me as having been blatently plagiarised; the third side window is basically identical! And, that's it. No, ok, the remaining links are even more contrite, such as the shape of the repeater lenses, bumpers, window glasshouse, but. Yeah. Srsly Nissan, the Impala?! And yes, this generation of Impala came to market between 1991 to 1996, the A31 Cefiro being available from 1990ish to 1994. Hmm. I realise I may have just eviscerated the crux of the point I was making. Ignore that.

Is there any point to this post? Let me rebuttle with this: Is there any point to ANY of my posts? HAH! Paradoxeseses! Now I've made myself sad by implying my blog has no meaning :(

Note: I love the Impala SS and any attempt to deride it will be met with my Jihad on you, good day.