It’s one thing to be influential – quite another to be influenced.
Here’s a Driven to Write favourite, the ritzy, petite Opel Adam, or part thereof. And here’s the 2014 Citroen C4 Aircross. It first appeared at the 2012 Geneva motor show.
You’d have to admit that design is very similar to the Opel Adam around the C-pillar. Opel launched the Adam at the 2012 Paris motor show. Did both have the same inspiration?
I had to root around to identify the Citroen. It’s not standing out at the Citroen website, for some reason.
Driven To Write 
We are not offered the C4 Aircross in the UK. Whether you regard that as unfortunate or not is a matter of debate.
Quite.
I saw one last week. It looked better than a standard C4. Not hard.
I suspect the inspiration for the above two was the 2008 Lancia (Chrysler) Delta with its floating roof detail, albeit turned upside down to be “different”.
Not a bad proposal. I had to look at some photos to check.
You own one, is that correct? What’s it like to live with?
It is a good design-solution for cars with a roof that can be ordered in a different colour.
So, the Adam is the better version of this design theme. The added chrome strip of the Aircross seems to be there because the car needs to look different to the Mitsubisji ASX – and a bit more expensive.
Another bad version of this theme can be seen on the Lexus RX.
The entirety of the RX is unappetising. In particular the C-pillar bit lacks smoothness. Goodness, what a horror.
The first use of the floating roof that I can see in recent memory was Lancia’s now-forgotten, but underrated, 2003 Granturismo Stilnovo concept:
We actually covered this concept back in 2014…
https://driventowrite.com/2014/10/04/theme-concepts-lancias-2003-granturismo-stilnovo/