Ugly Cars: A Picture Thread

I was a big fan of the Chevette. My late great-uncle had a P-reg Opel Kadett saloon (the Kadett being the same car as the Chevette, and obviously sporting interesting phonotactic similarities, too; that said I never quite understood the point of being able to buy both Opel- and Vauxhall-branded vehicles in the UK, and obviously GM agreed because they canned that idea in the eighties). I loved it, especially the weird plastic flaps on the rear pillars, one of which opened up to reveal the fuel nozzle.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Vauxhall_Chevette_Sedanlette.jpg

So many of these look fucking cool. Including the Mustang II.

It helps that I had toy version of a lot of the 70s cars, the AMC Pacer included.

entertaining racing but ugly - the Daytona Prototype

http://www.autocult.com.au/img/gallery/CARmageddon690.jpg

wow, erm streamlined?

it kinda reminds me of this

http://misc.kitreview.com/shipreviews/images/ussmonitorreviewbg_1.jpg

http://www.ukcar.com/road_tests/mazda/demio/Demio1.jpg

this is the car i drive. (sans bumper and in muddy green)

boringest cah evah

Thank you, Mazda, for not even bothering to market that car in America.

Although, my favorite car I've ever had was a 323 Wagon that looked something like this:

http://i38.tinypic.com/2u89ys1.jpg

...except it wasn't beat all to hell, had alloy wheels and a sunroof.

Nothing says "upgraded rental" like a Chrysler Sebring

http://www.theautochannel.com/media/photos/chrysler/1998/98_chrysler_sebring_conv_jxi.jpg

"Sebring" sounds like medical shorthand for a really unpleasant condition; one I don't actually want to imagine, but can't help doing now.

All those square Scion cars bother me.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/5909/scioncarsjz9.jpg

^no

Yeah, any Scion which isn't a tC is pretty gross. And I'm not even convinced by the tC anymore, which has become boring in its own way.

I hate everything about this vehicle

http://www.horizonluxurycars.com/used_cars_images/2004_Chevrolet_Avalanche_1500.jpg

my "no" meant no, it's not ugly. Love that thing.

My old boss drove one of the Chevy Z71 things. He was a huge asshole.

I have a KA! i think its homely! glad its in black though.

the grill of both the ford focus and the kia amanti are truly ugly

(i've got images off, sorry if these were mentioned)

the Z71 is one of those vehicles that I'm sure lots of people purchase for its functionality, but you can pretty much guarantee any one who owns but doesn't 'need' is indeed a huge asshole.

http://hembaba.com/reviews/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/toyota-prius-hybrid.jpg

Yeah, is there any reason Toyota had to make the Prius as ugly as they made it?

ford focus was mentioned, in fact ford as a whole was condemned

omg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e327/oldschool92/caprice004.jpg

that has an awesome affinity to the humble platypus

o don't go knockin the caprice now

http://cache.jalopnik.com/assets/resources/2008/07/Ten-Ugly-Compass.jpg

That looks like a "future" car from some sci-fi movie made in 1964. xxp

It's 1980!
http://ufoseries.com/hardware/strakersCar.jpg
er, except it isn't...

Is it just me, or was much of today's rough and tumble US car/truck aesthetic inspired by the Sony "Sports" Walkman school of design:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/712BRX9Y5AL._SL500_AA280_.gif

I think you're on to something.

Chris B.'s choices baffling to me, until I remember his picks for a beautiful car thread on here. He gets major points for consistency, although I think he lives in crazy upside-down land. (Well, ok, the X6 IS an abomination.) More seriously, the Mercedes GLK and the Citroen C6 work a lot better in the metal than in pictures -- maybe you've never seen them on the road?

So in sane right-side up land the Panamera and the Eclat are good looking?

I saw lots of C6s when I was in Europe last year and bulbous back end reminded me too much of the final series of Pontiac Bonnevilles. The new C5s look good though.

Is it just me, or do most of the coupe/fastback four-door sedans all look like different spin-offs of early-80s Rovers?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/23/Rover_SD1_series1B_rear.jpg

It's just you. The Rover SD1 is a thing of incredible loveliness; if more cars looked like that, I'd be a happy man.

Well. Happier.

Occasionally, when I was thinking about cars.

Which isn't often at all, actually.

"He thought of cars.."

The Rover SD1 is a thing of incredible loveliness; if more cars looked like that, I'd be a happy man.

So would I, except when it's the Prius (#1 on my list of "cars that will look incredibly dated in five years")

I was behind a Prius the other night; I actually found myself thinking: "That's quite a nice-looking car."

Mind you, it was dark and incredibly foggy.

I have ridden in so many of these cars. One dude I knew in high school actually had two Renault Alliances before he got a Dodge Aspen. Another friend's Colt caught on fire in front of a Chinese restaurant.

But the Prowler - I had forgotten that one. The company I worked for in 1997 did Plymouth's website and I spent a couple days cutting a photo of that car into a nested-table javascript-rollover monstrosity. So horrible:

http://web.archive.org/web/19980113130008/www.plymouthcars.com/nav/fs_master.html?contentPage=/prowler/

Is it just me, or do most of the coupe/fastback four-door sedans all look like different spin-offs of early-80s Rovers?

did rover start that style? ain't no rovers in the US (aside from the "sterling")...we first saw this design with the chevy citation:
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/chevrolet-citation-3.jpg
typcal of GMs of the era (1975-present), it found new and innovative ways to fall apart.

^ My first car, a 1981 model, various shades of blue.

Aren't you just asking for trouble by driving a vehicle called a "Citation?" BTW, my sister used to drive one, & for years she had to start it by opening the hood and doing something involving a ballpoint pen.

This was the car my family had when I was a kid (age 0-9 or so). I remembered it being a behemoth of a car, but I saw one in a parking lot the other day and it didn't really seem so huge at all.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Oldsmobile-Cutlass-Sedan.jpg/800px-Oldsmobile-Cutlass-Sedan.jpg

I remember reading an article in Automobile magazine a long time ago that was about finding the cheapest car in, like, Philadelphia. They ended up buying a Citation off a used car lot for about a 100 bucks. A few blocks off the lot, the thing threw a rod and the engine was destroyed.

Next generation Prius (2010). An improvement?

http://www.motorauthority.com/content/images/2/0/2010_toyota_prius_leak_001-1015.jpg

Looks as smug as the people who drive it.

It looks like what Voltron's head would look like if all the little component vehicles of Voltron grouped to form a giant robot bird of prey.

LOL

"So in sane right-side up land the Panamera and the Eclat are good looking?"

Yes. Also the GLK looks good because it is small, for what it's worth. The first-generation Subaru Forester was an ugly-ass small SUV. A very good car, but ugly.

Rover tried to sell cars in the US before the Sterling. They did not have much success.

Yeah, is there any reason Toyota had to make the Prius as ugly as they made it?

― Johnny Fever, Saturday, December 6, 2008 5:08 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

A hybrid prototypey car probably needed to have a hybrid prototypey design. Hybrid cars were so new and omg fascinating then that to scream 'LOOK AT ME I AM INTERESTING AND WEIRD' would have been advantageous.

while i would happily take a prius if someone were to give me one, had i the $$$, i would definitely go the honda civic hybrid route. prius is kinda fugly.

"So in sane right-side up land the Panamera and the Eclat are good looking?"

Yes. Also the GLK looks good because it is small, for what it's worth.

Got it. I just have to consistently take the opposite of what you like then.

Mercedes GLK = boring-ass dreadful. Does the world really need a Mercedes version of a BMW X3 / Grand Cherokee? ATTENTION M-B stop building me-too cars that no one wants and get to producing the conceptFascination

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/09/mb_conceptfasc_450.jpg