Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the great German-American architect and designer, was famously known for his ‘less is more’ style. His minimalist philosophy works for me. But sometimes less is not better.
Take a five-seat car redesigned to seat four (usually with irrational leap in price). The latest example is the Volkswagen Passat CC.
The CC is a normal everyday Passat, the M&S of family saloons (solid, reliable, nicely designed, as middle class as an evening supper party) restyled to make it look a bit more rakishly Harvey Nicks. The cabin has also been reconfigured so that instead of five seats we find only four. In place of a middle back seat, the Passat CC has an armrest with cupholders and a hole of air underneath. Instead of carrying a person, you can carry a Pepsi. Can someone please explain to me why this is better – or more premium, or more stylish, or sportier – than a seat?
The CC is not the only saloon-style car – never mind all the semantic nonsense about it being ‘a four-door coupé’ – that offers only 80 percent of the correct saloon people carrying capacity. The Mercedes CLS is the same. Other five-seat saloons can now be had with a four-seat option, not least the regal Bentley Continental Flying Spur. Naturally, there is a price hike to give up your seat.
I have nothing against four-seaters. There are many very good two-door four-seat coupés that clearly could never accommodate five. Some small cars similarly have room only for four, among them the Mini and the Toyota Aygo. But when there is clearly ample space for five, why fit only four seats?
No matter what the clever car marketing people try to tell us, less sometimes simply is less.
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