Imagine yourself staring at a brick wall. As you sit there, gazing at mortar, and at cement, and at the labour of another human being, you begin to see things. Your eyes begin to play tricks on you. Shapes previously unseen, emerge from the masonry… hang on, aren’t bricks supposed to be rectangular? Your eyes have begun to fatigue. The mind tricks are the eyes’ way of pleading for something else to engage with
Apply this phenomenon to cars, and all sorts of bizarre manifestations emerge. As the eyes wane, the brain tries to pitch in and make sense of just what the hell is going on.
“Car Brain”, that centre of reptilian grey matter that likes the noisy, expensive, dangerous, polluting, masses of metal does not work the same as normal brain; Car Brain likes to experiment, it likes to make mischief, to deceive and mislead.
Take the side profile of the Citroen DS3 for example, which morphs from a stylish French hatchback into a baby endurance racing car.
Car Brain wilfully exploits the eyes’ cry for help. It removes the roof, and suddenly that sweeping central pillar changes into an overhead air intake. The body is flattened, as if placed in a hydraulic press, and comes out lithe and muscular. The elegant front wheel arches are corrupted by pressure-reducing cut-out louvres, and a jutting, sneering, ominous, light-absorbing front aerodynamic splitter emerges from the DS3’s previously cute cheek-pinch front end.
Curiously, the want for this sensation to subside never emerges, and the mental image is retained deep within, ready to be regurgitated whenever an unsuspecting Citroen DS3 is nearby.
Thanks Car Brain. I guess.
Kerbside 