I just had a rather odd thought and was curious if anyone else found it strange.

I read a lot of books and in the 40s - 70s, maybe longer, it seems the average person when asked to describe a car driven by a suspect they normally start with the year and or make, then the color. Even the women in these old stories know the year of the car they are describing. My wife and past girlfriends would be lucky to guess the make correctly most times.

Could you do that today with modern cars? I can't. The best I could do is "newer" or "older" then the make and color.

Edit

When did we stop being able to identify the year of most cars?

Called BS on some old timers once when they were naming car by the year. They said that back in the day one or two details would change every year. Something like the grill would be different, or fins, or the bumper, but that is how they could tell the difference between year models. Plus there were a lot less manufactures so not as many vehicles to learn.

Year is basically impossible now. I cannot see how year would ever be the first descriptor even back then.

I figure most men could get make, color, and then maybe model (i would think pickups and sports cars models could be easy, but sedans and SUV's no way). my wife could get close on some

every car nowadays is the same boring shape and color. white, black, gray, shades of blue if you are lucky.

also way too many models across the same company seem similar but for sizing (see Mazda CX 50, 70,90)

I like to go into the small details when reading about a topic. When possible I will read eye witness accounts or court testimonies and in the old days it was just a given that people started with the year of the car.

Also interesting when one witness says it was a 57, and the next witness says it was a 58, and a defense or prosecuting attorney will use that one year diff as a way to make some point.

Not only a lot less manufacturers, but each manufacturer only had one or two models... in many cases only a sedan, station wagon, and pickup truck (with various trim levels on each).

Going from what my folks (both born in the late 40s) have told me, it was almost unthinkable to see a foreign car on the road in the 50s. VW made a big entry in the 60s with the Beetle, and Japanese cars were considered hot garbage until much later into the 70s.

I'm pretty good with make and most of the time model, but year is too hard unless its a vehicle I own. Even then I could only give a few years range.

I feel like I can ID the make/model of most vehicles. But the year? No way. I might be able to get close to the model year range, but that's about it.

Yes...range of years....

I'm pretty good with most makes/models. Lineups are getting pretty deep though. I agree it's getting harder to keep track of.

I also find it a lot easier for me to remember a name (Explorer, Tahoe, Charger, etc) vs the seemingly random letters (GX 550, MDX, CLA 250, etc.)

The market punishes automakers that create outside of the box designs: Aztek, EQS, Cybertruck.

We complain about the lack of unique designs, but then do not buy them when they are available. The duality of Man.

Piles and piles of govt regs have not helped. Cars used to be steel rails, stamped panels, nuts, bolts, block, and a carb and most people were happy. Makers could change stampings and just tweak the other stuff slightly. When they govt started in with efficiency regs and impact regs, the nimbleness of changes got squeezed out. Now we have 5+ yr platform sharing that limits big year to year changes, and everything looks more and more the same. EVs have more room to experiment with design these days