I hear this phrase thrown around a lot and was wondering what does it take to have it. Would it be styling, size, brand, history, ablities? Combonation of these or all? The RR Phantom is a car that ,imo, has the most road presence. Just some chat room fodder.

 

Size, width, styling, any kind of exaggeration out of the norm.

 

It's essentially all those things or rather anything that garners your attention

 

Low and wide. Lambo and ferrari

 

Very few cars have road presence, some Audis, most newer Lexuses, almost no Mercedes or BMWs.

 

They all aren't Luxury vehicles. Some trucks, Hummer's and even say an Excursion have a huge presence (no pun intended) while on the road.

I think the i8 will have some presence, and the old V12 8-Series wasn't bad. Some MBZ Black Series or uber S63/65 AMGs can also turn a head.

Color, Size, Sound etc.. It all counts for something.

Hell I saw a black ATS 3.6 slowly cruising by me on the freeway and I had to do several takes. Same thing happened with a new black 2014 Mazda6. Sleek cars

 

Well its kind of a mixed bag with me. Some cars are large with presence like: Phantom, S550, XJS, 1949 Lincolns, Challenger for example and some are large with no presence at all: DTS, XTS, MKS, Le Sabre, LS460 swb on 18's, Town Car, A8. Now on the styling front you have most exotics, Corvettes, a clean SC430s, yes the 8 series still turn some heads, Escalade ESV, while some have good styling but no presence: Lacrosse, E-class, Taurus, Mustang, A5, 3/4 series coupe, etc etc. Now i think that anything that has nostalgia has presence like Model-T, Edsalls, 62 Lincoln Continental to name a few. Just my opinion tho.

 

There are a ton of 1960's Detroit iron that have real presence on the road. Personally I don't care for the 50's stuff, but they do make a huge statement. Most of it was just to garish for my tastes.

I'm talking stuff like:

1968 Charger
1962, 1965, 1967 Impala
1969 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham
1968 Coupe Deville
1969 Olds 442
1963 Bonneville
1964 GTO
1965 Riveria
1967 Buick Wildcat
1962 Lincoln Continental
1969 Lincoln Mark III
1966 Olds Toronado
1968 Cadillac Eldorado
1968 Plymouth Fury
1964 Imperial

If you can't tell, I'm a huge fan of BIG cars from that era. Long live "lower, wider, longer"

 

Of all the main luxury car marques, I think only some Audi models carry road presence (S5, R8, S7). Maybe the BMW M6. But nothing from Mercedes or Lexus really. The MB star emblem and Lexus's spindle grille may stand out but that's it, none of their cars as a whole to me really carry road presence.

 

I agree with BNR, size and styling are definately what give road presence.

In the case of an RR, just size alone is enough. Those are big CARS, not suvs/trucks so they look awesome and gather a lot of attention. A sequioa is big too, but doesnt gather attention because it is pretty normal for an SUV to be big.

The S classes all look the same, so i think they all have the same amount of presence. The AMGs only have a wee bit of stylistic difference.

For the Lexus family, i think the style and presence award goes to the GS. Even in more "pedestrian" colors like gold and silver, they stand out easily from most everything on the road. It isn't a big car, but it LOOKS huge. And that grille really makes it look like it wants as much attention as possible. I'm not even a huge fan of the GS, and I think Lexus did an amazing job with attaining road presence in that car.

 

Style and stance, first and foremost. The former comes and goes with trends - high belt lines and oversized headlights were all the rage 10 years ago, but once everyone started doing it the initial trend setters stopped standing out.

Stance is naturally dependent on style, but it really is striking how low, wide, and wedge-like a Ferrari or Lamborghini look in person. Very striking. Those kind of stances always imply aggression and therefore age well among sports cars.

 

glad you added 'almost' to no mb/bmw.

 

Look closely at a 1959 Cadillac or a Bugatti Royale. These two define the term.

 

You mean like this?

 

If it makes me turn my head and look I would consider that presence, or if I mentally remark on it's trim level without following it.