I like modern Mini Coopers, but whenever I see a one of the originals (like the one I saw in Japan a few weeks ago, below) I wish they would have made the new ones look exactly like the old ones.
I suppose there's a bunch of safety regulations that make it difficult to build exact reproductions of old cars (I wouldn't want my kids driving the no-front-end 1971 VW camper van I drove in high school). But I should have known that there are companies making near-faithful replicas of classic cars. They cost a fortune, but they look great. Core77 has an article about this trend, titled, "Beyond Retro Design: People Want New Things That are Old, or Old Things That are New."
Core77 wishes that this trend could take off in the consumer products space, too.
Snip:
While these cars are obviously out-of-reach by folks of average income, I wouldn't mind seeing this new-old or old-new trend applied to other original designs in the consumer products space. For example, after writing the History of Braun Design series some years ago, I became so smitten with their 1962 Sixtant SM 31 electric razor that I had to have one.
I tracked down and found one on the secondhand market that had been shipped from Italy. It's heavy and substantial, has an internal voltage converter so works on 110V and despite being over 50 years old it still works like it's brand-new. It's one of my favorite possessions. I paid $23 for it and I will keep it forever. The only thing I don't dig is that it still smells like some Italian dude's cologne. If I could have bought a remanufactured version, I totally would have.
