Fancy body on a cheap car.

Add big displacement and you’ve got yourself a Dodge or some of the Fords.

Additional trivia: The worst car I ever owned was a Ford Sierra. I absolutely hated it, but it sometimes got me from A to B. I seriously considered attacking it with an angle grinder and a welder. It already both looked and performed like shit, why not at least make it look cool? I joked about giving it an exterior looking like Mustang.

Because when they do, they start charging more for them. cough Kia/Hyundai

Lots and lots of reasons.

I’m basing this on your comparison of normal cars to currently existing exotics.

Predominantly: The vast majority of people don’t want an exotic car. They want to go from home to work and the store, maybe a drive for a leisure trip. They’re boring. They want to get their stuff and people in and out of the car easily and conveniently.

Exotics do not do convenience well. There’s minimal trunk space, there’s space for only two people, often “snugly.” They require some contortions to get into and out of. Think of how out of shape many people are and see if they fit into a highly contoured, reclined, and snug race seat and can crawl in behind a scissor- or butterfly-style door with a very low roof.

Engineering-wise exotics are expensive, both for the manufacturer and customer. Those compact, low, aerodynamic bodies on exotic cars take a lot of work to pack all the mechanicals in along with having to design a body that is crash-worthy for each new style. On top of that, they’re often mid-engine, which means a lot of specialty parts like transaxles, and wildly different handling characteristics than the average consumer is used to when you shift weight to the back of the vehicle.

Manufacturers stick with the “boring” designs because they’re based on existing engineering that is safe, requires minimal cost to make the new iteration, aerodynamic, fuel efficient, and has proven to be sellable to consumers. Profit is king. They’re not going to take chances on crazy styles that may not sell because again, people are boring.

I know people are going to chime in about mundane cars in production today that have some of the features I mentioned and treat them as an exception that invalidates the opinions I’ve offered, but the point is that if they were economical and profitable designs in an exotic body they would be more widespread. “You could just take “x” engine and transmission and build a “y” around it” argument.

I would suggest maintenance is a potential cost problem, too…some exotics literally require the car be split - the entire rear of the car containing the engine and transaxle removed from the rest of the car for access because of the compact engineering and inaccessibility to some wear parts. However if Toyota made a low-buck supercar looking commuter car I’d hope the maintenance would be cheaper and easier.

So there you have it. Cost of design, engineering, and maintenance. Boring consumers, convenience, and safety. Affordability and profit. That’s why we don’t have exotics everywhere. The market has determined that the few Halo cars we see like the Supra or C8 Corvette, or even the Mustang, is all the market will bear.

Some Chinese EVs copy the style of fancy cars. For example the Xiaomi EV practically ripped off a Porsche.

Original, high quality designs require high development costs. Also a good design should consider the functionality as well, such as aerodynamics specific to the power and handling of the vehicle. Weight distribution etc.

Edit: not an expert at all, just my guess and observations

Look at the 1950 American cars. They’re wild.

One reason for the perception that cars look fancy or not is that you become accustomed to a design when you see it all the time.

Supercars are wildly impractical, and slapping that body on a Corolla chassis would make a Corolla that only seats 2 and has no space for bags, but somehow takes up a lot more space than a Corolla. Also, downforce is bad for fuel efficiency.

Your note at the bottom is interesting. The perceived luxury of a car is not related to the quality of the vehicle. As a car guy with a penchant for German cars, I do have to admit that while they’re wonderful in many ways, a beige Corolla or Civic will stand far more abuse.

Because it’s not that easy and a fancy car looks fancy because it’s a work of art and every detail counts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofmeister_kink?wprov=sfla1

I’m the opposite: I find it increasingly harder to distinguish car makers just from looking at the car (without seeing the logo of course). They all look snazzy.

I just know that when I see a fancy car, and check the make, it’s BMW or something high end, and when I see a pygmy hippo lookin’ motherfucker, it’s made by one of those “buy one, get one free” type manufacturers that appeal to meth head soccer moms.

First of all, car manufacturers invest A LOT of resources into evoking that specific reaction in (potential) customers.

And I don’t like your attitude towards people who have less money than you.

I would like to mention manufacturing. Mass production of body panels. Those sleek looks may come at a cost.

Another thing is kit cars, basically get a chassis and replace body panels. Lawn mower engine…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_car

Somewhat related: The apperance of the Lamborghini Countach was originally a piece of concept art that Lamborghini decided to make into reality. The designers of the actual car were given the mission of “Make a car that looks like this,” and went from there.

I didn’t know I wanted to slap a Lamborghini-style chassis onto a lawnmower, but now I do.

but why don’t manufacturers of basic cars just put a fancy-looking exterior onto them?

“Kit cars” are a thing…

Not sure what’s popular these days, but for a while people were putting Shelby Cobra bodies on Miatas.

It’s way more than a Miata, but way less than an authentic Shelby.

So people who just care about the looks have been doing this for decades now.

But when it happens as a production, people don’t buy it because other people recognize it for what it is, look at the PT Cruiser.

So if a couple people do it, it passes as expensive. If a lot do it, it comes off as tacky and becomes a joke.

You absolutely can slap a Lambo body on anything (provided it fits) and there is a literal cottage industry that exists around doing so. It’s not popular because, let’s be honest, it’s pretty silly, and everyone involved acknowledges its pretty much just for fun and entertainment. The status symbol of “owning a Lamborghini” goes away forever the second you start the engine.

There is a lot of psychology that goes into designing the appearance of cars. Like, an extreme amount. Car companies spend millions designing and refining body shapes and styles, and building brand images, and pushing commercials that seed these ideas into your head about their brand looking a certain way and that look therefore implying quality, they’re connecting all those dots in your head, one marketing campaign at a time, and it works because we’re honestly pretty gullible creatures at least when somebody wants to spend millions upon millions of dollars researching exactly how they can weasel their way into your brain.

And this might surprise you, but the same “looks incredible but the worst piece of shit ever” can certainly apply to luxury vehicles. Aside from notorious reliability and repairability issues, Lamborghinis don’t usually win any races either. They won’t win a drag race, they won’t win an oval track race, they won’t win a rally race. They’re fast, certainly, but they’re not the fastest and for what you pay for a Lamborghini you could build a much, MUCH better purpose-built race car. You could probably build 10 purpose-built race cars. Hell, people build race cars out of junkyard parts that can beat Lamborghinis. They’re not the end-all-be-all of cars, nor are any of the other luxury brands. They have some nice features but they also have a lot of dumb features and yes, a lot of cut corners too. They’re designed to be desirable and profitable, not to be the best.

So to answer your question, it absolutely IS the case for cars, in fact it’s probably even moreso the case than it is with computer parts. Unless you really need to roar down the highway towing a 10,000 pound trailer at 80 mph and still get up to that speed in 5 seconds flat, you really only need like probably 30-50 horsepower max for most of the daily driving that people do, but people’s driving habits and attitudes would have to change and they would hate the feel of gradual acceleration, so they would simply never buy such a car. I think we really underestimate how incredible even the cheapest “crappiest” cars are. We’re talking about machines cheap enough for almost everybody in our society to own, that can drive at high speeds, in perfectly dry, climate-controlled comfort, carrying many passengers and cargo, in almost any weather short of a tornado or flood, with excellent reliability for hundreds of thousands of miles, that provide constant lighting and electricity and entertainment, all while maintaining a high degree of safety for the occupants.

If you’d rather putter around on a riding lawnmower with a Lamborghini body kit on it, you absolutely can do that, but you have to understand that once you start comparing the limited features and abilities it provides you will quickly find what you’ve constructed is the real “piece of shit” in comparison. Just don’t forget your slow-moving vehicle sign!

You forget that the companies making those cheap cars are often the same companies of the fancier cars. Thinking Hyundai and their Genesis line.

Hyundai will never make a Sonata look like a fancy super car because then they won’t have any reason for someone to want to pay more for the fancier models that their Genesis line has for 3x the cost.

The people buying the fancier cars want something exotic that no one else is driving on the roads. They will willingly pay the premium for that luxury to not look like the rest of the cars on the road. Many also don’t care what’s under the hood, i.e. doesn’t matter if a cheaper Chevy can beat their Maserati, they’re buying the car for the exotic looks.

And then you also have some people who don’t want something flashy even if it is cheap. When I lived in a not so great area, I specifically did not want anything that drew attention to me. For example, I didn’t even want to wear knock offs of high end clothing like a knock off of Gucci clothing because it makes people think I have money and am a target for being robbed. So yes, I want the generic 4 door sedan the broke college kids are driving. Maybe the local thief won’t be so likely to smash my windows or try to carjack me.

it’s subjective. Unless there’s obvious rust or off-color replacement parts, they all look the same to me.

I don’t know much about cars either, but that does happen. For example, Cadillac Escalade was/is based on a less-fancy-looking GMC SUV (Suburban?). Chevy Volt is also Cadillac ELR (different body and interior, same drivetrain), Opel Ampera (in Europe), and Buick Velite (in China, because Buick has a better brand recognition there)

Some cheaper car models come with variety of “sport editions” and out-of-factory tint and spoilers, which would be the equivalent to the RGB computer peripherals that you mentioned, and appeal to specific customers.

TBH I don’t know why some expensive car designs are perceived as “fancy” or “impressive”. I think they are mostly boring. And quality-wise, anything above bottom tier would have materials that last decades now.