I’ve softened on the Bentagaya, and don’t mind the Velar. All even-numbered BMW Xs are gross, though. As is the Aston DBX, the Rolls Tulliallan, and the Lamborghini Urine. The biggest Mercedes thing is horrible as well.
I’m not a fan of SUVs, I find the majority of them a little chintzy and well, bulbous. I’m also two and a half decades too old to look vaguely cool in a hot hatchback.
For the most part I agree, they’re horrible things. There’s a few Bentayga’s round here in North Wales and they look chuffing awful. However, I do like the I-Pace. It’s not really an SUV in my mind, more of a supersize, luxury electric hatchback. If I had the means, I’d have one, that or a Polestar 2.
Most modern stuff looks vulgar to me with their oversized wheels, fake vents, overly butch design and all the bollocks that is AMG-Line, M-Sport Design and fake exhaust nonsense. Most SUV’s look awful, normal hatchbacks and family cars all have to be ‘sporty’ and aggressive and it all seems style over substance. Much more of a fan of the simpler, understated looks from the late 90’s and early 00’s. That may explain why I have a Fabia!
This new Audi shows what I think is everything wrong with modern vehicle design:
Massive wheels, aggressive styling, touchscreens for basic controls, massive body and style over substance. It may well be a very capable EV that looks more normal but why does it have a stupidly long bonnet when there’s no engine under there? The thing doesn’t even fit in a standard parking bay as Jonny demonstrates for half the video!
Agree re. the Rolls Royce – that is fricking horrendous. I have always detested the Evoke convertible although the picture above with the roof down doesn’t tell the full story…
They mostly look like badly designed built up shoes, turned into roller skates.
That’s a great description for a lot of modern cars tbh. I’m not a massive car fan but find most modern offerings to be either bland or of the hideous orthopaedic roller skate school of design
…it is used for purpose though – to tow a horse box and chuck all the associated horsey crap in the back off. And it was the cheapest one we could get that could do the job. The wife drives it, I try and give it a wide berth as it feels like driving a barge! 🙂
There’s a blacked out Bentayga with some daft plastic body kit all over it that lives outside an old ex-council-semi in the estate up the road from me.
It doesn’t exactly scream ‘purchased with legally acquired funds and competently driven’ to put it mildly.
They mostly look like badly designed built up shoes, turned into roller skates.
That’s a great description for a lot of modern cars tbh
My father’s generation used the same description to complain about the first Ford Sierra. I’ll add in ‘they are all getting too big’, ‘my wife drives one and I drive a proper car’ and ‘kids these days – nobody knows how to adjust a carburettor properly anymore’. 😀
Vulgar is not the same as ugly. There definitely a lot of ugly cars here, but taste is subjective.
I’d posit any Rolls Royce is vulgar but not ugly. As a piece of design and engineering they’re quite beautiful and exquisitely made, but as a statement they’re utterly vulgar.
That X2 looks like someone’s taken a normal hatchback and driven a riser wedge into its backside. Look at the size of its rear door aperture, what are they trying to squeeze in there, a hippo? Too many confused folds, creases, ledges. Ugly it is, Pininfarina it ain’t.
It’s weird isn’t it – I have always disliked BMW ‘SUV’ vehicles even though I don’t mind their saloons/estates etc. Then there’s Lexus – their saloons are bloody awful but I quite like the styling of their SUVs.
The thing doesn’t even fit in a standard parking bay as Jonny demonstrates for half the video!
Not much does. Car have got bigger parking spaces haven’t. There’s a car park in my home town that redone a few years ago, even a fiesta only just fits. It’s notorious for people scraping other cars as the spaces are so tight, that and people take no heed.
Anyway that GT E-Tron may look like it has pointless designs but it doesn’t, there’s a lot in the design to make it as efficient as possible while maintaining a super car look.
All SUVs are vulgar pointless horrific monstrosities and nothing shall change my mind. I can’t think if a single one that I Would buy (if I could afford such a thing).
I think the BMW X6 takes some beating. Suge a huge car with only seating for four. I had a client who was the area manager for BMW and even she said they were an horrendous vanity project when they first came out. Here in Germany they seem to be very popular with body builder types with tribal tatoos.
The X2 is pretty awful. Lease on wife’s one is thankfully coming to an end. Less practical and a far far far less pleasant drive than the 1 series she had previously. I happily grabbed the keys for a spin in that. I’ve probably driven the X2 half a dozen times in 3 years. How they can make a car ride that firmly but so wallowy in the corners is beyond me. Thankfully she has seen the light and has moved away from SUV misery for the next one.
How they can make a car ride that firmly but so wallowy in the corners is beyond me.
Because physics. If you raise the centre of gravity of a car by making it taller then it will roll more in the corners. Just one of the reasons SUVs are a stupid idea
Most of the premium SUVs are just badge engineering too. In order of conspicuous consumption, the Bentley Betangya, Lamborghini Urus, Porsche Cayenne and Audi Q8 are all based on a Volkswagen Tuareg