2 Million Dollars of Ugly

The Lamborghini Pregunta has many impressive features:

• 530 horsepower V12 engine
• $2.1 million dollar price tag
• 207 mph top speed

Sadly good looks is not on the list.

I searched the article to find an angle that looked good and could not find it.
The car may use the same paint as a Dassault Rafale fighter jet but the jet looks cool at any angle.

A $2.1 million car that's ugly from any angle.

Can One Ugly Feature Ruin a Whole Car?

I think the answer is "YES" and I'll try to make my case using the GMC Terrain

Looking at this picture you may wonder which feature I'm going to single out...

The fenders and the wheel wells. The picture does not do them justice. To really see them in all their ugly glory you have to see them in person in a side view.

Here's a picture that helps illustrate the ugly

 

"Round peg in a square hole" comes to mind

I hear you saying - "This does not look so bad, what's the big deal"

Maybe comparing it to one that is not ugly will help.

 

Here are some good looking fenders with wheel wells made to have wheels in them.
"That's not fair, you are comparing a sports car to a truck" comes the objection.

I would argue that the Terrain is not a truck it is a "crossover" vehicle - because GMC says it is.
What is a crossover? According to Wiki it is
"a vehicle built on a car platform and combining, in highly variable degrees, features of a sport utility vehicle (SUV) with features from a passenger vehicle, especially those of a station wagon or hatchback"
I like to think of a crossover as being a chubby station wagon and an SUV is a fat station wagon.

Anyway - I should compare a crossover to another crossover or SUV.

 

 

Mercedes did a much better job than GMC. Do a search on "crossover" and look at images and you will find many auto makers who did a better job than GMC.

Wheels and fenders are critical to the aesthetics of a car. The Terrain / Denali is ugly. Put the Terrain fenders on the Mercedes and it would be ugly too.

Eye Of The Beholder - A Discussion On Proportions

There are people who like the Lexus SC430
The fact that you are looking at pictures of it here indicate that I do not.

What makes a car pleasing to look at? Many things but in this case the proportions are wrong.

This is the 2001 to 2005 version
About 60,000 of these were sold in the U.S.

This is the Australian version
Just like a dog with a head that's too big for their body or a tail that's twice as long as it should be cars with incorrect proportions look strange.
I suppose that 60,000 people in the U.S. felt that these proportions were endearing - kind of like the character in E.T. was "cute"


The back of the car is too long in proportion to the rest of the car.
The door line is too high making the windows too small.
The front end is too big and the grill is too small

And just like dogs, every possible aberration has been built and purchased/liked by someone.

In fact, I bet you could build a business model around the premise that there is always someone who will like something no matter how ugly it is. Maybe there are already several businesses based on this...

Maybe a class on aesthetics should be taught in high school.

A Wort On A Beautiful Face

Many of the cars I enjoy looking at were designed by Italians.

• TR-6
• 1995 to 2003 BMW 5 series (E39)
• Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce
• Ferrari California
• Ferrari 458 (and many other Ferrari's)
• BMW M1
• You get the idea

Sometimes when a car is modified to get a bigger engine into it the result is pleasing.
Like when Carroll Shelby took an AC Ace:

And stuffed a V-8 engine in it with larger wheels (not my favorite paint job but you get the idea)

Here is a case where the modification for a larger engine was less than graceful:

When the Iso Grifo went from a small block V-8 to a big block V-8 the result was less than pleasing.
To quote an anonymous 11 year old "Dad, dad, look at this one! It has a table growing out of the hood"
For comparison here is the original:

I suppose someone said "I don't care how it looks make the car go faster"
Or maybe they actually liked how it came out - beauty is in the eye of the beholder I'm told.

If You Built a Rolling Joke...

It would look like this:

The Reliant Rialto was made from 1981 to 1998 by Reliant Motor Company in England. Boasting an 850 cc four cylinder engine with a fiberglass body.
More pictures here

The Rialto was built to replace this...

A 1979 Reliant Robin -
This "car" was built by the Reliant Motor Company in England from 1973 to 1981
In 1989 Reliant brought back the Robin name and produced a version of the vehicle until 2001.
73 MPG and a top speed in excess of 100 mph on only 37.5 bhp
Lots of better pictures can be found here.

The Robin was built to replace this...

A 1969 Reliant Regal
This "car" was built from 1953 to 1973.
65 MPG, just over 110,000 units sold - more than any other model.

The Regal was built to replace this...

Built from 1946 to 1953
Believe it or not the Regal had a spin-off
The "Bond Bug"

Built from 1970 to 1974 this vehicle had some Reliant running gear including the engine. Originally produced by Bond Cars Ltd.
The landspeeder from Star Wars was built on the chassis of a Bond Bug.
Tons of pictures here.

Now that I've documented more than 50 years of ugly what is the draw?
Why would someone subject themselves to driving or even riding in one of these?
Lots of them were sold to people who had good reasons for buying them.

• The vehicle was light weight and not very powerful so it could be driven in the United Kingdom on a motorcycle license.
• More than 65 MPG
• Small cars are better in crowded cities with narrow streets.
• Easy to park
• They are good to drive in straight lines.

Jeremy has some thoughts on the car. Some of them are even positive.
Jeremy put a four point harness in his - highly recommended.
Some people don't think the Robin is as bad as Jeremy says at least as far as rolling over is concerned.
One down side is safety. The thought of even doing 50 mph in a three wheeled, fiberglass, tip over-mobile worries me.
It's important to drive these in highly populated areas so that there is always someone to roll you back over close by.

Rollover Video One
 Rollover Video Two - The Stig Rolls a Robin
Robin Video - To Infinity and Beyond

This Must Stop - Coin Covered Cars

Coin Covered Cars - Why?

Possible reasons:

"I had a jar full of pennies and my car needed a paint job. It was the only sensible thing to do"

"My car needed some extra weight when driving in the snow so I used 25 pounds of glue and 180 pounds of pennies for better traction"

"This is just my way of sticking it to the government for even making this useless coin. I took 33,000 of them out of circulation"

Please submit your own "possible reasons"

Did you know that if you use pennies made from 1982 to the present it takes about 181 pennies to make a pound?

If he used 33,000 pennies that means he paid $330 (not including glue and time spent) when a cheap paint job is $100.

I'm guessing at how many pennies are covering the car in the above photo based on the numbers provided in this article related to a Camaro covered in coins.



If you think my numbers are all wrong feel free to write your own article.

Just in case you think these are isolated instances here's a link to a wackymobile page with 15 coin covered cars.

The version of this psychosis that put me over the edge is this Vette

I'm now a single issue voter. Any politician who will campaign to ban coin car coatings will get my vote.

Ugly With The Doors Open

This was suppose to be a show stopping, super amazing concept car - a "pure dream car".
From the side it's interesting but far from amazing.
The 2010 Bertone Pandion (no Pandion is not a group of Pandas)

But, with the doors open the key criteria for posting on this site was met.

The "What Were They Thinking" moment slapped me in the face.

Proceed to the rear view and the moment turns into - well, something more than a moment

What is all that garbage in the rear of this car?
The yellowwheels.com article tries to explain some of the thought behind the car.
 But the Top Speed article really captures the craptastic marketing techno-babble
 For your convienience (there are a lot of words in that article, if you like techno-babble or you enjoy being dizzy you'll want to read the whole thing) I'll quote the relevant part:

"The rear end features a striking array of crystal-like blades which are intertwined in various widths and lengths, protruding out into space. The rear of the car in fact has a disembodied or “pixilated” look, representing a tail-of-the-comet metaphor, as if the sheer speed of the vehicle is pulling the underlying, technical “Frame” rearward, away from the sensuous, flowing “Skin” above. This “dematerialization” phenomenon of the car is generated by the intrinsic motion of the form, which means the car looks like it is moving even when it is standing still."

If you have to explain it you've failed.