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The automotive design community sat up and took notice in 1996 when the Volkswagen Passat launched in Europe on the new B5 platform, then arrived in the U.S. two years later.

The car’s A-pillars were bowed, the windshield more steeply raked and the roof was a shockingly complex array of angles and flowing lines that seemed to connect the hood to the trunk lid.

It represented a radical departure from the slabby, straight-lined roofs and A-pillars of vehicles on the road at the time.

“The Passat was a big deal. That car caused a lot of reaction – it was real positive,” recalls Larry Erickson, who at the time was working as a designer at General Motors and now chairs the Transportation Design Department at Detroit’s College for Creative Studies.

“It was a really contemporary style,” he says. “That was one of the first cars that took aesthetic advantage of the A-pillar. It was contributing as a design element to the construction of the roof.”

The Passat was the first of many sedans soon to arrive with similarly tapered rooflines and bowed A-pillars that would set the template for improved aerodynamics and more dramatic styling.

But this trend has brought the industry to a potentially dangerous intersection, literally, as auto makers prepare to meet new federal roof-crush standards that take effect in September 2012.

The code requires roofs to be at least three times more rigid when compared with vehicles of the recent past, providing better occupant protection in the event of a rollover.