A lot of designs tend to 'gravitate' towards one type of look.
The type of look is trendy, similar to the fashion world. So as with all trends, people want to jump on board.
I think they call the overall look of the car the 'language' or 'design language'.
Individual ques or quirks or small details help round out the design language but the overall shape and major dimensions and ratios really set the basis.
Eg:
Bentley has a very distinct design language, large wheels and wheel arches, rather squarish siloute, small window height, ...
Chrysler pretty much copied the Bentley language with the 300C, whereas the 300M was an evolution of the intrepid design.