Let's talk about '00s bulgy circular fender flares

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Illustration for article titled Lets talk about 00s bulgy circular fender flares

Gather round younglings, and let’s set the wayback machine to a time at the turn of the century, when many, many carmakers decided that their cars needed to have large round fender flares.

The VW New Beetle launched in 1998 and was the first modern car with these fender flares, and in its case, they were obviously part of the Beetle aesthetic.

A year later, the Audi TT arrived, and really created the template for how these geometrically round fender flares would look on a car that isn’t a New Beetle.

In 2003 to 2007...everybody else went bonkers for these fender flares and jumped on the bandwagon. Were they inspired by the New Beetle or TT? We may never know.

And then, they died. Basically every car that adopted the flares removed them. The only cars that rolled with the flares for more than one generation are the Audi TT & Q7, Chrysler 300, Ford Escape, F-Series & Transit Connect, Honda Pilot, Kia Soul, Mazda 5, Nissan Z and Subaru Forester. Of those, the TT is about to be discontinued, the 5 is gone, and the Escape & Pilot have moved on to other designs without the flares.

Here’s a chronological timeline of cars of the aughts with bulgy circular fender flares. I’m only bothering with the US market because I don’t feel like tracking down pics of a bunch of Renaults and Citroens and Vauxhalls (oh my).

UPDATE: After I made this post, on my way home from work, I walked past row of cars in the garage at my office made entirely of vehicles on this list. Whoa.