They’re often an afterthought, taken for granted, a mere tool for getting from A to B, but every car has a small army of designers behind it. Why then, do some cars turn out the way they do? Why are some more beautiful than others? Why do some command attention and a few become icons? What is good car design, really?

It’s a question Matthew Beaven, who holds the coveted job of chief exterior designer for Range Rover, has spent his career answering. And, after hearing him explain the fundamentals of good car design, you’ll never look at a car the same way again.

Good car design—and, not coincidently, the underlying secret to the Range Rover’s visual appeal—starts with proportion, Beaven explains on our video call. Proportion means the wheel-to-body relationship, the size of the overhangs, the ratio of glass to metal, etc.

“When you have reductive design [like the Range Rover does] you rely a lot more on the proportions,” explains Beaven. “Things like light catchers and extra lines on other cars, they’re there to try and help disguise bad proportion.”

Once you learn to see those extra lines, fake air vents and other visual gimmicks on so many other new cars, you can’t unsee them.

“We’re seeing a lot of copies of our cars at the moment, in various places,” Beaven says, nonplussed, “but what they don’t have is the proportions.” Car makers often compromise on proportion for reasons stemming from cost—but never Range Rover.

Only once proportions are right is it time to create lines, surfaces and details. Beaven demonstrates with a sketch that there are just three lines defining the Range Rover: a gently falling roofline, a rising waistline, and an upswept baseline.

With so few lines, the success of the design rests on beautifully sculpted surfaces, which are refined by hand using clay models. “That’s the hardest thing really,” says Beaven, who began his career as one of those clay modelers. “We’ve got to really put excitement into the surfaces, but without the usual tricks you would do in car design.”

There aren’t many cars—new or old—that pull off the same feat. Perhaps the only other example is the Porsche 911, a car Beaven is personally fond of.

But his design team doesn’t draw inspiration from other cars. “It’s never cars,” Beaven says; inspiration often comes from architecture, product design and sculpture. He cites Mies van der Rohe‘s Barcelona Pavilion and Farnsworth House as reference points.

With an iconic design like Range Rover—now in its 56th year—there’s also a constant tension between nostalgia and innovation. But it would go against everything the brand was built on to simply coast on retro charm.

“I think the secret is to respect history but not become harnessed by it. We want to be progressive,” Beaven says with genuine passion. “We want to do something modern and relevant to the future.” I’m sure that’s what the creators of the original Range Rover would’ve said too, and now, after 56 years of staying true to the original without being harnessed by it, they’ve forged an icon.

Photos courtesy of Range Rover.