Abstract The rapid evolution of generative design through artificial intelligence has opened new avenues for innovative product styling. Integrating this efficient generative technology with established professional theories presents a novel challenge in contemporary international design research. In response to this challenge, this paper introduces a pioneering and collaborative approach for the swift generation of automobile styling designs. The primary objective is to investigate an intelligent generation method that incorporates analogical reasoning and Stable Diffusion to support industrial designers in innovating product styling. This study scrutinizes traditional analogical reasoning design alongside the intelligent analogical reasoning design proposed herein, elucidating the distinctions through multidimensional comparisons using illustrative examples. The proposed methodological framework encompasses several key steps. Initially, a dataset comprising branded automobile images is meticulously constructed. Subsequently, an exclusive style model is trained leveraging Stable Diffusion techniques, coupled with advanced computer graphics and machine learning methodologies. Following this, design requirements are inputted, facilitating intelligent analogical reasoning design across multiple spatial dimensions to yield diverse and innovative automobile styling solutions. Finally, eye-tracking experiments are conducted to quantitatively compare the traditional analogical reasoning design approach with the Stable Diffusion-based analogical reasoning design method. The results substantiate that the latter effectively generates innovative and diversified automobile design solutions. This research contributes to enhancing the quality of automobile styling design, optimizing the design efficiency of enterprises, and catalyzing innovation in the automobile styling design process.