What is the ugliest new car currently on sale?

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 4×4 platform (many already posted), and some of the 4-door family variants of sports cars are abominations

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’

How does that ugly bmw look like a turbo pro mod, apart from having 4 wheels and being white.

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!

maxlite – Member

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

The guys that we hire from got a bunch to try, for this reason. But it turns out that they still pick up just as many scratches and dents apparently, it’s just a wee bit more expensive to fix them because of the extra bumpers to remove/mask/replace. Or so the grumpy dude that works there says, but he seems to hate all cars.

They made sure a car that was different on the inside looked different on the outside

I would not agreed with that. The first Prius (actually the MkII but let’s not talk about the MkI) was shaped that way because its the theoretical most efficient design. The curve of the roof and the taper of the rear are defined by the aerodynamics equations and they fit the interior into that space. Thats why the boot is small but there’s loads of rear legroom. The hybrid drivetrain is only one of a load of innovations in that car which is why its different to all other Toyotas.

After they succeeded with that car they started adding what design elements they could without harming the aerodynamic efficiency.

It was the most aerodynamic car on the market when it came out, and the new one still is, being even more aero than earlier models. Despite the fugly.

Another liker of the Cactus here, only in certain colours though!! Not that blue up there^^…

Was thinking of this thread today while out and I realised that the only cars that seem to catch my attention and look good to me are the ones you wouldn’t think of. A new-shape Hyundai I20 and a Kia were the stand-outs (think it’s the coupe version of the C’eed?). Certainly all the mainstream models from Ford, Vauxhall, VAG etc seem to all look like different variations of each other or just plain dull. But then again I drive a non-designed Fabia 2 (that I like for exactly that reason, it’s just a comfy box with an engine) in silver so can’t really say anything 😆

Skoda Roomster. Total cut n shut ugliness.

The latest Civic has one really ugly back-end. Thought the last one was weird (but got used to it) but the newer one jars. There’s also a kinda curved small bit of plastic that sits right on each side of the back corners. It just looks stuck on. Does it do anything?

lobby_dosser – Member
the multipla and the citreon eggbox thing are genius. the rest I agree with.

Agree. I had a Multipla, bought it cheap as a mobile bike box and came to really appreciate it. Very clever maximisation of volume within a small car envelope.

Being a FIAT it inevitably shat itself expensively, but I still regret not replacing it.

+1 to Stumpy01’s comments on the other page, but there really are some shockers out there.

Had a couple of those Bentley SUV’s go past the office recently; the really are hideous. I can’t think what inspired Bentley to do something like that, the designer should be sectioned.

deadlydarcy – Member

There’s also a kinda curved small bit of plastic that sits right on each side of the back corners. It just looks stuck on. Does it do anything?

Aerodynamics. I think they are to separate the airflow from the body of the car at that point in a controlled manner. The point that the airflow separates from the body can have a large bearing on drag.

I think they are like an opposite feature to the cowled fins that you often see on the front of HGV cabs that wrap around the front edge at either side. These are designed to channel the air hitting the front of the cab around the side & keep it attached, rather than separating at that edge & causing drag increasing eddies & vortices.
EDIT – I found a pic and everything (of the truck bits, not the Civic bits at the opposite end….)

@stumpy, you can see it in this picture here

dd….yeah, it’s to control separation of the airflow from the body of the car as it gets to the back end to improve aerodynamics…

The Audi A2 had the same sort of thing over a decade ago, but this was part of the rear light cluster moulding…

dd – just realised my original rambling post was a bit confusing…

The point of mentioning the lorry stuff was that at the front of the car you want to keep the airflow attached, so it runs down the body.
On a car this probably isn’t too much of an issue, but on a lorry, the bluff front means the air wants to separate immediately. Those turning vanes at the front help to keep the air attached.

At the rear of the car, you want to separate the airflow from the car in a position that minimises drag. Those stick on bits on the Civic will be positioned to separate the airflow at the best position….

Not as bad as some of the exhibits above, but it just looks wrong from any angle!

Those stick-on bits on the Civic apparently get the C02 emissions (or something) down a tiny bit, but that tiny bit results in a significant drop in road tax bracket.

Those corner vanes on the front of lorry cabs, you also see a similar idea in the form of lots of little triangles on the fairings behind the cab, to smooth the flow of air between cab and trailer. And they tried a similar corner vanes idea on the sides and roof of the trailer to smooth airflow over the back, significant fuel savings I think, but didn’t catch on as it would result in a shorter trailer (by a few centimetres). US trucks sometimes have these big ugly wings that can be folded out behind the trailer.

Range Rover Evoque. Utterly tasteless cars. Only beaten by the Evoque convertible that I see on its tests routes near me.

The definition of ugly.

Most Chinese knock-offs are hilarious 😀

Awful awful design

It’s metal sculpture. Aerodynamic performance is very limiting on the overall form, so it’s just really a case of “where would you like your character lines?”.

I wanna travel in tubes.

How did they make the Mercs so ugly? Did they look at their (previously sharp, good looking, wedge shaped) cars and say to the design team “keep the merc signifiers and basic shape but make it look like it’s eaten all of the pies and then been left next to the radiator, before someone took a butter knife to the side”

simons_nicolai-uk – Member
How did they make the Mercs so ugly?

They stole a Korean designer? Or maybe trying to make their cars appeal more to Asian eyes?

I had the misfortune to be stuck behind a Mercedes C200 coupe on the M62 last night. It looks like they’ve taken a Renault Laguna coupe, which is very nice looking, then destroyed it by trying to make it look really macho but all they’ve done is turn it into something that the hairdresser will trade-in their Mini Clubman for.
Fugly

Or maybe trying to make their cars appeal more to Asian eyes?

That might be it, but I’d always assumed a lot of the attraction of European cars in those markets was that they *didn’t* look like local cars. Maybe the economics have changed and it’s a conscious decision to appeal to the mass market there which is/will be larger than the rest of the world.

That said, MB seems to alternate between making good looking cars and ugly. I never liked the lights on the W203
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_C-Class

Did they look at their (previously sharp, good looking, wedge shaped) cars and say to the design team “keep the merc signifiers and basic shape but make it look like it’s eaten all of the pies and then been left next to the radiator, before someone took a butter knife to the side”

It looks like they’ve painted a picture of a mercedes on an old Rover 75

As much as I hate the current trend for SUV / Crossover / Faux by fours – I understand that there will always be some people who feel comforted making up for what ever deficiencies they have in there lives or driving ability by wanting someinting with the size and driving position of a Transit van a really big high car.

But what the flipping chuff is the point of these SUV / Coupe crossovers

the X6 was first and now we have the Merc GLC and the Mini Paceman among others. Everyone of them is an absolute minger

Also – slightly OT – there should be a special ring of hell reserved for people who buy diesel cabriolets and sports cars – Mecredes SLK CDI, Audi TT TDI WTF!