Cars so ugly you do a double-take..
Discussion
About 20 years ago I was recruited to take part in a car styling clinic. A smartly dressed lady knocked on my door one Sunday morning and asked if the sports coupe on my drive was mine. Once I confirmed, and after verifying her ID as working for a market research agency, she asked me if I'd be happy to commit two hours the following week to attend a styling clinic in return for £20. Being a car fan I agreed (I would have done it for nothing just out of curiosity.) She could reveal no details about who was sponsorong the exercise. Cut a long story short I turned up the venue and was put in a group. During the course of the two hours we were exposed to different images of areas of the car, ie front end, side, rear end etc etc and asked to comment, in some detail, about different styling treatments. It was quite hard work, tedious at times, and from the images I was shown this was going to look like a real pig's ear of car. I never found out who the manufacturer was but at a guess, judging by the quirkiness of the designs, it was someone like Subaru or Hyundai. Thankfully, in the following few years I never saw anything on the road that resembled what I had seen in the clinic. I was quite harsh in expressing my dislike for much of what I was shown.
LuS1fer said:
I'll leave this here as I puke in a bucket and despair at a vast and hideous 3600lb, 4WD "Cooper S" and all that once meant.
I mean, it was vile before... but f*** me...
I know they are milking the Mini design for all it's worth but do they ever look at these things in isolation as an object and think - does this look any good?I mean, it was vile before... but f*** me...
Any vestiges of cute are long.
LuS1fer 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
Nope, not letting you have the Solo. As a teenager I really wanted one of those, although that may have been more to do with the revolving headlights, rather than the admittedly slightly less conventionally attractive rear quarter view.TooMany2cvs said:
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.I had to look it up to find out what it was but couldn't believe how gopping it was.
It's a Smart Forfour.
LuS1fer said:
They should call it the Smart For-FS... you see what I did there...
They really should. 
RoverP6B said:
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 f
king 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?But I will agree the rest of the list is cock on lets face it most cars >2010 are f
king 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.
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.
DoubleD said:
The F40 is ugly, but the Rover 75 is something that you could quite fancy?! Wow
RoverP6B said:
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.
Again i dont agree about the F40, But the fact that 99% of cars in current production are hideous means you notice just how nice some older british designs are, X300 Jag for instance The 75 is a superb design and the ZT and ZT-T even better imho.
And what would those pesky itals know about design with their zagato's and bertones
Nice cars ill take mine in a monogram hue thanks.
(even if it was built on a shoestring!)
vsonix said:
sounds like the kind of thing someone who has never done acid would say...
Well, do try it, but follow a few ground rules:1. If it's the first time you've tried it, it's good to have a buddy who's done it before to be around
2. Make sure you have no pressing engagements for at least 24 hours
3. On no account attempt to drive
4. Drink lots of water
5. Don't watch any scary films
6. You'll probably enjoy live music DVDs or comic books (Freak Brothers are excellent)
7. Probably best to stay somewhere non-threatening, with afore-mentioned buddy
8. Smoke a little grass as you come down - helps the relaxation and helps you to sleep. Sleeping during a trip won't happen.
Let us know how you get on.
MarshPhantom said:
cj2013 said:
RoverP6B said:
The F40 looked wrong at the time and has aged very badly. The Jaguar XJ220 is vastly better-resolved.
Crazy talk. The F40 is beautiful - one of the top 5 'bedroom wall poster' cars of all time.
I took delight in peering under the xj220 at gaydon and spotting... A large stainless steel drip tray!!!
Edited by DegsyE39 on Wednesday 26th October 23:38
DegsyE39 said:
Again i dont agree about the F40, But the fact that 99% of cars in current production are hideous means you notice just how nice some older british designs are, X300 Jag for instance
The 75 is a superb design and the ZT and ZT-T even better imho.
And what would those pesky Itals know about design with their Zagato's and Bertones
Nice cars, I'll take mine in a monogram hue thanks.
I forgot to mention Zagato! Never designed a car that wasn't a total mess. The Fulvia Zagato is awful compared to the standard Fulvia - ditto the DB4GT, DB7 and V12 Vantage.The 75 is a superb design and the ZT and ZT-T even better imho.
And what would those pesky Itals know about design with their Zagato's and Bertones
Nice cars, I'll take mine in a monogram hue thanks.
Touring came out with some right mingers too, from the Jensen Interceptor to the Bentley Flying Star...
And don't forget, Pininfarina was responsible for the Hyundai Trajet and Daewoo Tacuma... Aston Martin's Ulrich Bez also gave the world the Daewoo Nubira, and the Daewoo Espero was designed by Bertone... Ulrich Bez and Giorgietto Giugiaro gave us the Daewoo Leganza (based on the equally wretched Jaguar Kensington concept)...
Thank goodness the in-house X300 design was selected instead of the Kensington. It might just have been a re-skin of the XJ40, albeit with significant improvements underneath, but it remains a very attractive car. My elder son and I are considering getting an X305 XJ12 or maybe the even prettier X308 XJ8...
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RoverP6B said:
I forgot to mention Zagato! Never designed a car that wasn't a total mess. The Fulvia Zagato is awful compared to the standard Fulvia - ditto the DB4GT...
I could forgive the F40 heresy because a) the road cars popup lights, wing mirrors, wheels and spoiler have not aged well and mine has none of those and b) because my grandad had a p6 with factory fitted white shag pile carpet... BUT the DB4GT Zagato is one of the prettiest cars ever made. You are completely insane!Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff