Pajero Owners Club of South Africa

One of my pet hates is the "fugly" bumpers seen on so many 4x4s.
The designer puts a lot of hard work into the design and the bumper is then manufactured with great care, and serves it's purpose ...

..... but it could have looked so much better.

Look at the example below.
(I took it off an overseas forum and I think it is a great bumper, which could have looked even better)

When designing such an accessory, try to pick up primary lines and radii of the vehicle itself.
I drew in a few lines on the photographs to illustrate the point.
Design your new bumper taking these lines into account, by having features on the bumper comply with one of these requirements:

• the new line is an extension of the existing line
• the new line is parallel to an existing line
• curves are of similar radii

In the example the above rules would have been easy to accomplish and would have had a big visual impact.
As it is, it looks like a bumper built for some other SUV and tacked onto the Pajero.

PS
Look at vehicle body design as well.
When the above rules are followed, the vehicle just looks good.
When they are not followed, something looks 'wrong'.
eg do tail lights and body panels follow the same shape, slope and radii, or do they look as if they were designed by two independent design teams?

That bumper is massive, I have been designing my front bull bar for about 2 weeks now. and I find it tough to keep it simple yet match the body lines, even though I drive a square body gen 1. there is a lot of thought that has to go into it. maybe I will scan up my prints and throw them up to see what everyone thinks... LOL.

Good points to keep in mind for the future.

Comments?

4ePajero wrote:Comments?

Sorry, but I do not like it at all. It is too wide, and I wonder how effective it will be anyway.

I guess it was designed to do a job, without much regard for the design and natural lines of the car?

The recovery points will probably be useful when he goes off-road...

Anton

Hi 4ePajero,

If I may be so bold as to comment, I think a/m bumper/bullbars could actually fall into 2 categories,
the 1st one, seems to have been desighned with overall design appeal in mind, this the designer (as you have shown, missed the point, in not taking the vehicles lines and form into consideration)

The second one, should not follow the same rules, as it seems to be a strictly 'utilitarian' design, and thus does not have to conform to the same design approach as the 1st one.

That being said, there should still be certain aspects that need to be taken into account (size, width etc) as although it does not do it a disservice by not conforming to the vehicles design/flow, it is indeed too long on either side.
I would have brought it in a bit to either the outer edges of the wheel arch flare, or the originals bumpers edge.

Although, this is just my opinion.

I agree, there is a place for utilitarian bumpers etc.

In my first post I stated that the difference between a good-looking bumper and a generic-looking "stuck on" bumper is sometimes very small.
By putting a little thought into the design, even a utilitarian bumper can look good.

Just take a frontal and side-on photograph of your vehicle, print it and sketch the basic lines of the proposed bumper on the prints.
Then design the rest from there.

Hello, I found your site, I am from Czech Republic in Europe http://maps.google.cz/maps?f=q&source=s ... =49.816721, 15.46875 & sspn = 4.217886 , 11.634521 & g = Czech + Republic & brcurrent = 5,0,0 & ie = UTF8 & hq = & hnear = Prague 49.4467,15.238037 & ll = & spn = 4.250022,11.634521 & t = h & z = 7
Pajero with buffers is my job. Mr. 4e Pajero could provide photos of the production of its bumper. Otherwise the criticism ridiculous. I have a bumper for protection, not for decoration. Lights in the bumper are for children, or to ride over curbs on supermarket
The life of the lights in the bumper is 1-2 days, sometimes 1-2 hours.
Overlap the arch is done intentionally to protect. Plastic collision with a tree most damage. The lines around the lights are so because of the winch Superwich Husky 8th Winch large, few places
I do not speak English, this is Googletranslate
http://www2.pajeroclub.com.au/forum/sho ... hp?t=12921

Shrek wrote:Mr. 4e Pajero could provide photos of the production of its bumper. Otherwise the criticism ridiculous.
I have a bumper for protection, not for decoration.

Yes.
I never implied that a bumper is / should be decorative only.
My point is that even though it is functional, why not make it look well as well?

The fact that I have never built a bumper does not disqualify me from having an opinion.

There are many things I have not done myself, but have a (strong) opinion about.

PS This forum accommodates opinions (out of respect), but argumentativeness is not part of our "culture"

Hello
If the critic has not submitted photos of his work can criticize, but much better would be taken to refer the Product which is perfectly
I do not like to be the ARB bumpers are too big. Approach angle overhang shrinking
The line of light was not possible to meet, the angle was too steep and the Police in the Republic is not in favor of boxy shapes
See photo
The angle at the end you're probably right, I could solve it according to your model