Hi,
I think it was one of the Steves I was talking about the lines on the Xfire. I can’t quite remember, but as a point of interest in such things (and it’s been niggling me), I nabbed a picture off a gallery here (which has a dead-on side view) and drew some lines over it to see where points end.

This may well bore the pants off a lot of you - but coming from a design orientated background, I see things like this and need to test it out. I also did quite a lot of this kind of analysis at university.

So I crack out Illustrator and start drawing lines.

As suspected, the fins in the vents on the side of the car all point to a common point which is beyond the front of the car (point A). The line caused by the shaping at the bottom of the door also intersects at this point. This point appears to have some significance.

Curiously, the door handle, which is also angled doesn’t appear to point to the same location. It and the general downward direction of the shaping above it converges on a different point, slightly closer to the car (point B).

What is really interesting is that if I draw a circle which starts at point B and reaches the end of the side vents in the front wing, you get a circle which appears to educate the curve of the back of the car.

All these points and curves have a function - to make the car look fast and powerful. Clearly the designer wanted to focus on where the car will be as much as where it is.

I love finding this kind of thing in a design. I’ve been using a photo - but I would suspect that more could be gleaned from clearer drawings (anyone know of any on the net?). I have a rather confusing image with loads of lines on it. I’ll see if I can simplify it a bit and post it.