[Closed] What is the ugliest new car currently on sale?

[i]Odd thing aesthetic interpretation - we are all different.[/i]

And the stating the utterly bleedin obvious award goes to...

I've defended two Prius models but the latest one made me wince driving behind one last week.

I think matt_outandabout's BMW looks alright- it's like a fat datsun 240. A fatsun.

And the stating the utterly bleedin obvious award goes to...

Actually it isn't Mr Smartypants. Well, it should be but it isn't. Lots of research out there indicates we (humans) have an unrealistic expectation that others share our own aesthetic viewpoint. Designer aesthetic decentreing is a learned skill.

Some of the big expensive cars are almost funny. That Bentayga is a prime example, but the X6 and GLA are similarly guilty. It's almost like the cars have a personality and are acknowledging their ugliness but sneering at you all you the same.

"Yeah, I've got a bulbous nose and a giant arse but guess what? I am considerably richer than yaaw. <Vroom, pollute, trample> "

Whereas the Juke is just a car for people who want their cheap pointlessly-jacked hatchback to look awful. So that's worse IMO.

Not really an aesthetic thing per se, but there is a special place in hell reserved for those who stick M badges on their (leased) 320d.

I give you the new Toyota Prius
[IMG]

[/IMG]

[img] ?v=2[/img]

I'm sure it's confirmation bias but everyone I've seen driving an X6 has looked like an ar####le.

The cactus in the right colour looks ok, my neighbour has one in black with red trim and the bumps are black looks pretty mean looking, he has changed the wheels.

I also own a DS3 and think its quirky, although hate the new one with the new lights and no citroen branding.

I hate the Fiat 500xl its been hit with a big ugly stick.

I don't think they are manufatured anymore but for a company with such iconic cars in their history Lancia should be asahmed for this!

[img] [/img]

Mini Countryman. Phonetically appropriate at least.

But this for ugliness to £ ratio must be close to the top.

[img] [/img]

The Evoque is pretty bad though. Like a proper Range Rover that's been hit by a piledriver.

Citroen Cactus is properly awful. And why is it called a cactus?

Because with a real cactus the pricks are on the outside.

Wow, I was going to vote for my own car (pictured below) but its not as bad as some of the others on this thread:

[URL= http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i426/wilko1999/ford-grand-tourneo-connect-7556329_b_45918524_zps7nk2nrf9.jp g" target="_blank">http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i426/wilko1999/ford-grand-tourneo-connect-7556329_b_45918524_zps7nk2nrf9.jp g"/> [/IMG][/URL]

Ford and their grills. Someone loved this game as a child

[img] [/img]

Wilco1999, It's got nothing on any of the more ostentatious design exercises in fugliness that the Germans excel in at the moment.
It's a Ford, it's just average and fairly anonymous.

Agree with a lot of the above.

There's a Merc GLE parked near me and the hideousness of it is hard to comprehend.
I also find the BMW X6 and any of the "GT'ed" models horrible, horrible.

I have special hatred for white Evoques, but that's probably more about the people that buy them then the actual car (obviously that's doubled up for the convertible Evoque).

Ho has no one mentioned the Nissan Juke?

Because they have.

^^^^ yeah, on the first page..

the X4/5/6 BMW's are vile IMO.

We were at a dealer the other week and I looked in the boot of an X6 - the lip above the bumper was way above waist height - wholly impractical !

Ford Ecosport

[img] ?756232[/img]

The majority of new Mercs are hideous. They have the look of a shitting dog, the arse end is falling off the lot of em. If I get caught unawares seeing one a little bit of sick comes up...

ocrider - average and fairly anonymous - a car truly is an extension of it's owner 😀

Vauxhall Mokka.
Just offensive from every angle.
Not even deliberately ugly enough to be interesting.
Just sad and depressing.

Anything retro that's just a styling exercise - front engined FIAT 500's, new Beetles, MINIs etc - ugly from an engineering point of view.

Those new Ford vans (and many, many others) are Doblos with a new nose.
Not as beautifully, willfully ugly as the first ones, sadly.

🙂

It's not an exhaustive list, and some have been mentioned already but these offend me....

[img] [/img]
[img] ?itok=3GsK9DOJ[/img]
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]

It's a funny thing, this.

I would much rather see quirky cars on the road that divide opinion than what seems to be the current trend of racing to be the most bland and anodyne for a lot of mainstream cars.
Focus, Astra, Golf, Leon, A3, A4, mainstream BMWs, most Peugeots - yeah, they can look OK in certain trim levels with some pimped up wheels and perhaps a different bumper but I just find them bland.....

Things like the Nissan Juke; wouldn't choose them myself, but I like the fact that they are different and have been styled in that way.
Others that are different, but I quite like; C4 Cactus and most of the Citroen DS range, Kia Soul, Hyundai Veloster etc.
What do I know though - I quite like the look of our C3 Picasso (even if it is a Citroen) because it's not just a bland, used bar of soap outline....

I'd agree with comments about the Fiat 500L, the Mini Coupe & the Mini Countryman.
What annoys me about the Countryman is that if it had a Hyundai badge or similar people would be pointing & laughing at it, but people seem to gravitate towards the Mini badge.

A lot of the current crop of Mercedes are awful - can't remember the name of it, but there is a C-class sized coupe that looks like they put the clay model near a 4-bar heater, it melted & no one realised....I think it's the CLA.

Northwind - Member
I think matt_outandabout's BMW looks alright- it's like a fat datsun 240. A fatsun.

I agree, it's a stupid car, but it's not hideously ugly. There do seem to be quite a few genuinely ugly cars, but also a lot of stupid cars being lumped in as ugly.

+1 for the Evoke. Especially white ones

Nissan Juke. A modern day Allegro.

Tried earlier but didn't work,....I give you the new Toyota Prius
[img] [/img]

Electric / hybrid cars seem to be quite ugly almost by design. I'm thinking -

Vauxhall Ampera
The BMWs, although the coupe is a bit marmite
Nissan Leaf

It's like the car companies only want the most committed people to buy them, or for people to know irrefutably that they're a hybrid / electric car. The Tesla's are Ok, but a bit like a swish Vectra given how much they cost

Also - Impreza and Evo.

Grotesque.

[img] [/img]

Porsche Macan. Another step in taking the elements of Porsche design and applying them to a completely unsuitable car. A pig in lipstick is not a supermodel - it's still a pig...

Those C4 Cactus (Cactii?) in remind me of the latest Nomad.

C4 Cactus
[img] [/img]

Nomad
[img] [/img]

It's like the car companies only want the most committed people to buy them, or for people to know irrefutably that they're a hybrid / electric car.

Its the latter. They're all following Toyota's lead. To begin with early models of hybrid cars were all fitting the hybrid gubbins within existing models. The only thing that distinguished a regular from a hybrid car in any manufacturers line up, visually, was a badge. The exception was Toyota. Not only did they make their hybrid car look different to other cars, it didn't even really look like other Toyotas.

They made sure a car that was different on the inside looked different on the outside. As a result the shape of the Prius pretty much became its own logo and its own brand, and it also became the archetypal hybrid car. People started to use the word 'Prius' to mean hybrid in the same way people use 'iPod' to mean MP3 player.

Either the consumer wanted to believe that hybrid cars were [i]so[/i] different they[i] had [/i]to be a different shape - or Hybrid drivers want everyone to know they drive a hybrid.

Certainly for the US market it probably the latter - adopters of green technology really want to let people know about it. Americans are more likely to place solar panels on the side of the house where their neighbours can see them than on the side of the house where the sun shines for instance.

Anyway for Toyota it worked because although the Prius wasn't alone in the marketplace 9 out 10 hybrids sold were [s]Priuses[/s] [s]Priususes[/s] Prii?

[i]Lots of research out there indicates we (humans) have an unrealistic expectation that others share our own aesthetic viewpoint.[/i]

Hmm, where's this research? Genuinely interested in seeing that.
I've always been aware of the phrases: "Each to their own", "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and "De gustibus non est disputandum", which are contrary to what you say. Can't recall any that suggest people think others have the same taste.

GolfChick and co you are all wrong, the Citroen Cactus is brilliant. Those bubbles on the side are air filled TPU bubbles so amazingly tough.

I mentioned the BMW in the OP a few months back in an ugly car thread and someone actually said they like it! I wouldnt say it's ugly, just incredibly boring and really, really not BMW. Mercedes have some hideous looking cars at the moment and

I like the Cactus.

Fiat Multipla I too think were a work of urban car design genius.

not up close or having used one it wasn't (had one as a courtesy car for a few weeks). Actually a really inefficient use of the space/volume it takes up. Like an inverse Tardis. Built by drunks. Out of the cheapest materials they could find.

It also managed to combine lousy performance with shockingly high fuel consumption.

T'other half has a Berlingo and after 6 months we are still finding cubby holes, storage spaces and useful little additions.

Any sporty makeover of a 4x4 platform (many already posted), and some of the 4-door family variants of sports cars are abominations

[img] [/img]

Ahhh, Nissan have stopped making the Cube

I quite like the Nissan Cube 😳

andyl - Member

GolfChick and co you are all wrong, the Citroen Cactus is brilliant. Those bubbles on the side are air filled TPU bubbles so amazingly tough.

And yet it has painted bumpers, and tons of unpainted protrusions. Airbump itself isn't a bad idea at all, it's just that it was implemented in a way designed to draw attention to the idea, without really making it work.

Ugly? Mercedes-Benz have it wrapped up which is a shame as the previous shape c and e class were good looking cars.

For bland, Vauxhall do this pretty well. It's almost as if they wait to see what every other manufacturer makes a car look like and then follows suit.

And as for the drop top Evoque, I literally thought I'd never see one. Then saw one driven by your stereotypical footballers wife wannabe on the a1 the other weekend. You ain't seen ugly til you've seen one of these. And like a Mercedes e class convertible, you'll never, ever, ever see one with the roof down.

I saw one in white and it reminded me of the 'Crowmod'

[i]Actually a really inefficient use of the space/volume it takes up. Like an inverse Tardis[\i]

It's an MPV with a bigger than usual boot, or a hatch with six proper seats, but shorter than a Fiat Bravo 3dr. I thought it was a clever use of space but you're right, cheap and plasticky. Not sure why it's only competition was the Honda FRV.

But back on track, the only cars that annoy me are the Plus size and Coupe versions of the new Mini and Fiat 500. I think they are devaluing the brand/image in the long term. Saw one of those Porsche Macans yesterday, I don't really see how someone can choose something like that with all the other choice!

They're all following Toyota's lead. To begin with early models of hybrid cars were all fitting the hybrid gubbins within existing models. The only thing that distinguished a regular from a hybrid car in any manufacturers line up, visually, was a badge. The exception was Toyota. Not only did they make their hybrid car look different to other cars, it didn't even really look like other Toyotas.

They made sure a car that was different on the inside looked different on the outside. As a result the shape of the Prius pretty much became its own logo and its own brand, and it also became the archetypal hybrid car. People started to use the word 'Prius' to mean hybrid in the same way people use 'iPod' to mean MP3 player.

Either the consumer wanted to believe that hybrid cars were so different they had to be a different shape - or Hybrid drivers want everyone to know they drive a hybrid.

I don't think that was the case with the Prius. I think it was thought of as a really left-field experiment and therefore they didn't do it as a world/multinational car. Instead they had the Toyota Tercel dashboard and interior with a "streamlined for maximum fuel efficiency" body, including slightly faired in rear wheels. Honda did something similar for their first hybrid.

We may think that Japanese cars don't quite get styling, but most of those we see are their attempts at European styling. If they were solely for the Japanese market they would be truly awful to our eyes.

I thought the C4 Cactus was loan car that repair shops gave out, whilst yours was in, hence the all round bumpers!

It seems car designers don't know when to stop....oh maybe a bit more chrome here....maybe rubber panels on the side!