Cars so ugly you do a double-take..

[C70R]

swisstoni said:

Desperately tried to like these when they were being sold off.
Hand built British roadster. V8. Fantastic lineage. But ...

No idea what that is, but it smells a bit of Marcos. They were truly hideous, although undeniably purposeful, cars.

[swisstoni]

C70R said:

swisstoni said:

Desperately tried to like these when they were being sold off.
Hand built British roadster. V8. Fantastic lineage. But ...

No idea what that is, but it smells a bit of Marcos. They were truly hideous, although undeniably purposeful, cars.

It's an AC Ace. From the good folks who made the original Ace then the Cobra and the 428. And, er, some other stuff.

[fatboy b]

hairyben said:

fatboy b said:

I find these rather comical....

philistine, thats one of dalis finest works

If that's his best, then I'd hate to see his worst!

[TooMany2cvs]

swisstoni said:

It's an AC Ace. From the good folks who made the original Ace then the Cobra and the 428. And, er, some other stuff.

[LuS1fer]

TooMany2cvs said:

I was going to post the ME3000 but began to like it so I will give you the hideously malformed Panther Solo, Rio (tarted up Dolomite) and Six

[Dyl]

AVV EM said:

Dyl said:

AH33 said:

av185 said:

Has this thing been mentioned yet?

I saw a brand new one yesterday. None of the rear lights worked, apart from the high level brake. Looked about right for the car.

That's one of my biggest annoyances about the design of this car, the brake lights are illuminated from the clusters in the bumper. Makes it look like the ones in the door are broken and the bumper lamps are being used as a backup.

IIRC you can't have brake lights on anything that moves, ie doors or boot.
It might just be the US though? perhaps they are catering for their market, a lot like the ferrari california

No you are correct on that in the UK. However, there are much better ways to engineer out a solution!

Audi with the Q7 get around it by having the boot mounted lamps illuminate as normal, unless the boot is open where it switches to using the bumper lamps.

Then there's also the Audi A1 and Vauxhall Insignia estate (only 2 which come to mind immediately) where there is a second set of lamps mounted inside the boot so they are visible one the bootlid is open.

Edited by Dyl on Tuesday 25th October 20:12

[av185]

RoverP6B said:

Also, the 458... the lack of side air intakes unbalances it, the taillights look like nailed-on afterthoughts, the entire rear is just a mess - and who thought that gurning, grimacing fizzog of a front end was a good idea?! The whole thing looks like some kind of angry fish/insect hybrid. Truly grotesque from every angle.

Ah yes, the 458, widely regarded by many experts to be the most beautiful Ferrari since the Dino. But what would they know?

One of my favourite cars ever owned and to drive:

[Thelotusguy]

A discussion on ugly cars and no one mentioned this?

[DegsyE39]

RoverP6B said:

List with some questionable cars lobbed in

While i share your love of the e39 and DB9..

I dont know how you can utter the GTO and Miura in this thread and the f40 and many of saccos designs at merc SEC 560 Included

But i will agree the rest of the list is cock on lets face it most cars >2010 are fking hideous, Gopping even, What people forget is crash regs and pedestrian safety dictates that most cars have to have huge bonnet bulges high waist lines and a gopping ''face'' grafted on.


There are some exceptions but very few.

Edited by DegsyE39 on Wednesday 26th October 02:32

[RoverP6B]

DoubleD said:

The F40 is ugly, but the Rover 75 is something that you could quite fancy?! Wow

The Italians gave the Rover a major design award at the time. It's aged very well too, unlike most of its rivals. The F40 looked wrong at the time and has aged very badly. The Jaguar XJ220 is vastly better-resolved.

C70R said:

Every contribution I've seen of his appears intended to be as inflammatory as possible. I only got a few lines into his initial post before checking the author and giving up...

I don't set out to be inflammatory. Most cars which are generally thought to be good-looking, I agree that they are. It's only a small number, of which a few appear to be sacred cows, on which I disagree with the majority.

av185 said:

Ah yes, the 458, widely regarded by many experts to be the most beautiful Ferrari since the Dino. But what would they know?

The Dino is a weird-looking thing, but not half as wretched as the 458. The best-looking Ferraris have always been those with V12s in the front anyway - the 550/575 is a personal favourite, I quite like the F12, the 456 was rather pretty, and I nearly wet myself with excitement recently when I got a close-up look at a 250GT Lusso - utterly gorgeous.

As for "experts" - experts tell us that modernist architecture is wonderful. Experts tell us a third runway at Heathrow is necessary and a great idea. Experts told us the economy would immediately plunge into recession if the country voted for Brexit. An expert, my late father (a research scientist and university librarian) used to opine, is anyone who is more than five miles from home. An expert, in his view, was someone who stood up on stage or in pulpit to pontificate, "six feet above contradiction". Consequently, I tend to disregard the subjective views of opinionated "experts", especially if they are contradicted by fact.

DegsyE39 said:

While I share your love of the E39 and DB9... I don't know how you can utter the GTO and Miura in this thread and the F40 and many of Sacco's designs at Merc SEC 560 included

But I will agree the rest of the list is cock on lets face it most cars >2010 are fking hideous, gopping even. What people forget is crash regs and pedestrian safety dictates that most cars have to have huge bonnet bulges high waist lines and a gopping ''face'' grafted on.

There are some exceptions but very few.

Oh, I love those old Bruno Sacco (and Paul Bracq) designed Mercs - sorry if I gave the opposite impression. Bracq is, I think, one of the most underrated designers - the E23 7-series looks so taut and sporty for such a big lump of a saloon. Didn't Sacco also design the E34 5-series?

The Miura is an odd thing - the Murcielago-based Miura concept sorted out the proportions and ditched the ugly eyelashes. The 250GTO isn't THAT bad, but there are much prettier 250s, and the 275GTB is gorgeous. It's the car the GTO should have been. Modern design seems to have reached something of a nadir, and it's not just down to regulations. It should be perfectly possible to design something which fits all the relevant dimensions but which is still tastefully designed and detailed. The problem is cars like the M4 which have simply too many details, the designer never knowing when to put his pen down (the McLaren P1 also suffers this), and those which are full of awkward lumps and bumps and where surfaces simply never quite meet (see the nose of the F10). One company which has consistently managed to get it right, if forgettable, is Audi. The B8 A4 is a far nicer-looking thing than the F30 3-series. Just a shame Audi has never had the chassis to match BMW.

I would also add, line up three Range Rovers, an early BMW-engined L322, a final-year Jag-engined L322, and an L405, to see how design is going wrong even within a shape that has hardly changed for 46 years. The later L322 has too many fussy details at the front, mainly the radiator grille, but it's otherwise a handsome car. The L405 carries forward that fussiness and sticks it on other parts of the car - the weird tabs at the back of the headlight and taillight units, supposedly inspired by expensive kitchen knives and cleavers, the redundant (now fake) side-gills, and, like the Evoque, has gone for a rising beltline and sloping roofline (both are perfectly horizontal on the L322), a feature which I think first appeared on the E46 Touring, and makes rearward visibility an absolute pain.

Don't even get me going on the atrocious new Discovery.

[ZesPak]

Nobody mentioned this car crash of a car before?



Seriously, did someone had a look at the Hyundai Matrix and think :that's nice, we need a piece of that!

[budgie smuggler]

ZesPak said:

Nobody mentioned this car crash of a car before?


Seriously, did someone had a look at the Hyundai Matrix and think :that's nice, we need a piece of that!

It's a great innovative car in a lot of ways, but clucking bell that front view...

[C70R]

RoverP6B said:

I don't set out to be inflammatory.

While I can't be bothered to do it, I'd bet a pound to a penny that looking back over your recent posts would reveal the opposite.

[swisstoni]

budgie smuggler said:

ZesPak said:

Nobody mentioned this car crash of a car before?


Seriously, did someone had a look at the Hyundai Matrix and think :that's nice, we need a piece of that!

It's a great innovative car in a lot of ways, but clucking bell that front view...

Awww. Cute !!

[Fastdruid]

I did a double take on one of these in a car park yesterday.


I had to look it up to find out what it was but couldn't believe how gopping it was.

[clonmult]

C70R said:

swisstoni said:

Desperately tried to like these when they were being sold off.
Hand built British roadster. V8. Fantastic lineage. But ...

No idea what that is, but it smells a bit of Marcos. They were truly hideous, although undeniably purposeful, cars.

That Marcos is ruddy gorgeous. Always loved them, an uncle had one as a restoration that he worked on for years. Think I was about 14 when he had it finished, he took me for a drive. Awesome machines.

[TooMany2cvs]

clonmult said:

C70R said:

swisstoni said:

Desperately tried to like these when they were being sold off.
Hand built British roadster. V8. Fantastic lineage. But ...

No idea what that is, but it smells a bit of Marcos. They were truly hideous, although undeniably purposeful, cars.

That Marcos is ruddy gorgeous. Always loved them, an uncle had one as a restoration that he worked on for years. Think I was about 14 when he had it finished, he took me for a drive. Awesome machines.

The red one's gorgeous. The blue one? Meh.

A fine example of a basically good, if a bit awkward, design that got buried under chintz.

[ChasW]

fatboy b said:

I find these rather comical....

+1

[TooMany2cvs]

Fastdruid said:

I did a double take on one of these in a car park yesterday.


I had to look it up to find out what it was but couldn't believe how gopping it was.

It's a Renault Twingo.

[C70R]

For me, while I'm sure there's some performance rationale to the blue car's styling, it's an absolute mess of curves, slashes and straight bits. Totally lacking in any kind of design cohesion, albeit with an undertone of purposefulness.
The red car on the other hand looks like a low-rent kit car body that's been lobbed on a chassis that's too small for it. The height of the nose, the lower grill, the arch gaps, the afterthought that is the roof/cabin design - just awful all round.