Bloomberg Businessweek
Considering how many new cars are rolled out every year, it's no surprise that a few might be just plain homely. There's a chance that certain styles might become fashionable with a dash of retro hip. (Well, maybe not from the
1970s.) But for the most part, the following 50 cars will never be anything but design duds...Continued:
The earlier version of the Pacer (without the lumpy grille) is a lot LESS ugly than the later version - and having owned one and put up with all the jokes, I must admit I kinda liked it.
I know, I have strange tastes. I liked early fifties Chrysler products too (53 Coronet and 57 Fargo among others)
I can't access the link, but I'm sure most AMC cars from the 70's are there, right? (Gremlin,pacer, etc)
Don't even have to look at the list. Just my .02, but nothing, nowhere could have been uglier than the VW Karmann Ghia, and the '59 Chevy. I'm a GM man, but my God, the '59 was a foul looking car.
Garrett Fulton
Where is the Volarie, or the Mirada, or the K-car based New Yorker? Where is the Rover 3500? The Lincoln Versallies? Heck I can think of at least 100 cars ugler than half the cars that were included on the list.
Ed
>"Garrett Fulton" wrote
I had a couple of the Ghias. Aside from the poorly protected front getting bopped a few times, it was a great little car and fun to bang around in with the top down. I paid $15 for my fist one and took a week to get it roadworthy.
My father had a '59 Chevy and it was popular and accepted style in its day, but my favorite Chevy is the '58 Impala. Much classier, IMO.
Couple i'm disappointed to see are:
El Camino, Delorean, BMW 7
Happy to see:
PT Cruiser, X90 or whatever they called that stupid looking thing, astek, honda element
On Fri, 7 May 2010 13:48:29 -0700 (PDT), Picasso wrote:
That was a pretty good list, but everybody has different tastes. El Caminos looked just fine to me. Never wanted one, but they didn't hurt your eyes. Same with Gremlins and Pacers, which I thought looked better than the Mavericks, but I had actually ridden in a Maverick and thought it was junk, so that was a prejudicial influence. The new bug looks pretty much the same as the old bug. You spend most of your time with a car inside it, not looking at it from the outside. I've had a couple cars where I didn't like their looks much until they gave me some amount of trouble-free transportation. Then they got real easy to look at. In fact, downright pretty. On the flip side, Chrysler came out with some sedans whose styling I found attractive about 10 years ago. Can't remember the models, but when a workmate and others started complaining about the issues they had with hers, they started looking ugly to me. And I hardly ever see old ones anymore which says something. You might say beauty is sometimes only skin deep. But no sense starting out ugly if you have a choice. I never thought the Aztec was ugly, just funny looking, like a transformer toy. There was one parked on our route home from work, and every time we saw it, the wife and I would chuckle. Every time. For some reason, she hates seeing a mini-Cooper. Looks ok to me. The Honda Element gets my vote for the most god-awful car I ever saw in person. That's one ugly car, right off the showroom floor. The PT Cruiser looks like a hearse to me, but I've never been in one. There's only one car I ever considered buying because I just liked the looks of it. '94-96 Impala SS. But they held their value too well, and I'm too cheap to pay a lot for a used car that the rust will get to in the end.
--Vic
FWIW (and I haven't read the article) this is a case of someone telling you what you should think. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder".
So many vehicles were hard to look at when new - yet familiarity brought a new appreciation for the designers efforts... Flip side of the coin.... I recall so many "WOW" cars that, after the passage of several years, have become dated... outdated... or just plain unattractive to my jaundiced old eye....
Some day, I may take the investment in time to read the article and view any pics.... or not.
I LOVE pickled jalapeno peppers... a sandwich made of cold cuts with (depending on the donor animal) horseradish or hot mustard can only be made more complete with the addition of a ramiken of these little delights. Others may find these little gems a tad offensive.
Indulge me... WTF is "retro hip"?
Couple i'm disappointed to see are:
El Camino, Delorean, BMW 7
Happy to see:
PT Cruiser, X90 or whatever they called that stupid looking thing, astek, honda element
Pontiac Aztek!! Ugliest ever!
I have to agree there, even as some of them are pretty bad. IMO, most late model Nissans are awful, and Pontiacs remind me of a guard rail. I drove a Pacer (rental). While it was an odd looking bubble, the low windows made it easy to see what was around you and it was fun to drive... as long as you didn't have to own it. Also drove a PT Cruiser (another rental). What a piece of junk. Falling apart, with less than 10K on it. That, the Plymouth Prowler, and several of the retro-look cars must have been built for baby boomers with a serious mid-life crisis. Butt ugly.
I once thought the '60 Valiant was the ugliest car ever built. That said, I now own its better looking sister, a '62 Lancer, 2-door sedan. The older it gets, the cuter it gets. There was a photo going around, a few years ago, of a sea lion trying to mate with a dark gray Prius... is it any wonder?
;-{
"uncle K" wrote
Funny, but a lot of cars I thought were ugly would be fun to drive today, probably because they are so ugly . That includes most of the 1950's Chrysler cars, Edsel, etc.
Sorry, but I don't agree with most of them, which only proves beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Some of these cars are truly beautiful, and some are just plain funky, which makes them just plain lovable. I mean, common. The Enzo is one of the ugliest cars of all time? It's supposed to look like a street legal F1, and the shape embodies that. Somebody in the neighborhood has one, and whenever he parks it in town it draws a crowd faster than you can say Enzo. And the exhaust note is even more beautiful than the car itself.
The new Beetle? You have to admit it's cute, and does a good job of updating the original bug. And the Prius? Yeah, it's no Ferrari, but it beats the pants off most race cars in a wind tunnel.
The Element? Okay, I'll give you that one, but if you need a box on wheels to haul stuff it looks pretty good.
What do they consider the 50 most beautiful cars?
The Pacer. Was that American Motors?
Frank Lardino
"Frank L" wrote
Yes, as was that other snappy looking car, the Gremlin.
The Javelin though, was not bad looking for it day.
How about a Marlin?
Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. Nasty. Looked like a turd going down the road.
"Garrett Fulton" wrote
Hey, I had one of them. Paid $15 for it. First convertible I owned.
The ones that DO NOT use petroleum fuel. (thanks to BP).
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