Relax, folks. Not surprisingly, no BMWs or MINI's made the list. Thank you BMW. http://www.forbes.com/2010/12/01/ugliest-cars-autos-2010-lifestyle-vehicles-design_slide_10.html
Impressions.... The crosstour just looks like the old Saab's.. but the Saab's looked better The cube looks like the outcome of a Spongebob Squarepants gastrointestinal disaster... Chevy HHR = '30's era panel truck... eh, big deal, but it ain't that bad Honda Element - noncommittal, but.. something that's trying too hard to be different.. Ford Flex... Hey! Look! Ford made a stretched, lowered Range Rover! (but it ain't all that bad lookin') RX8.... taking the RX7 from iconic to laconic (really, that's the most disappointing of the bunch due to expectations of what it should be considering the legacy of it's most recent predecessor). Acura ZDX - boldly going waaaaay too far where no drafting-compass-angle-theme has ever gone before... and never should again. Oh wait, I get it, they stuck a Nissan Z-coupe on a truck chassis! Scion xB... ummm... The Matrix meets cubism?? They stuck a Fiat X1/9 into a program and age-progressed it forward 30 years?? None of these got anything over the Pontiac Aztec in the fugliness dept.!
Not to nitpick, but this list includes current production vehicles only If GM wants to stay out of bankruptcy, the Aztek (this is the correct spelling -- yours is the correct spelling of the Native American Indian tribe) needs to STAY DEAD.
I can agree that some of those cars got hit a few times with the ugly stick. But I personally don't think there's anything wrong with the Flex or RX8. And there are some cars that should have been on that list more so than what's there. Like the aforementioned Pancakeamerica.
Agree 100%. Nothing wrong with the RX-8 or Flex, at least they're not cookie cutter designs. I love Porsches but the Panamerica is just a clumsy attempt at keeping the Porsche design theme where it doesn't belong.
Agreed...thank God for that... Also not surprising that several on the list wear the "Honda" nameplate or are refrigerator-boxes-on-wheels...WTF is up with those things? I realize the car companies are reaching at a younger segment with these vehicles but really - is our youth THIS devoid of taste? One they missed - the Smart Car - BLECH !! Just drive a golf-cart for Pete's sake!
Isn't it funny how tastes change with time? When I was 15 or 16 my dream cars involved everything from muscle cars to Saab 900s to German performance cars to Lotuses (Lotii? Doesn't matter, I've always been a sucker for Lotus cars) to the usual Italian exotic cars - the whole gamut as long as it was fast, fun and nice to look at. Today's youth seems to be more into iPhones with wheels and by that I mean rectangles like the Honda Element or Nissan Cube. Seems like cars are just not that important to this generation as they once were. My niece could have gotten her driver's license months ago but she still hasn't, it's just not a top priority with her. I got my license first thing the morning of my birthday!
Ohhh, you are soooo right!! My daughter wasn't all that in a hurry to get her license 2 years ago. Me?? Could hardly wait! Now, when home from college she's zipping around all over the place. Freedom is a wonderful thing, eh?? As far as today's youth and (wellll, let's call it for sake of arguement) their "taste" in cars, I blame 2 factors: 1. this whole green movement rubbish we've had jammed down our throats, and 2.a pervasive attitude lately that having a nice, or fast, or stylish car is somehow a sin or a baaaadddd thing . Like you're supposed to feel bad because you drive a BMW or comparable vehicle. GMAFB!! I got style, decent power, AND surprisingly good gas mileage in my E39...drivers of these fugly euro-wanna-be-econo-boxes only got one of those.
Agree with the sentiment about the RX-8. I think there are much worse looking cars on the road than that (plus my first car bought with my own money was a Mazda, so I do have some love for the brand). The first time I saw pictures of the Honda Crosstour, I didn't think it looked that bad. Then I saw it in person and it looks huge and ungainly. My big problem with this list, is that most of these car's aren't new. They've been ugly for years. This should be new or newly redesigned for 2010 that are ugly. The Element has been ugly for years!
An Ugly Trend: "Bee Sting" swollen wheel well lips... I am just praying the aesthetic affliction which has ruined the Mazda 6, Subaru Legacy, several Acrua sedans does not get to our marque. Why do the designers believe that putting swollen, cartoonish lips around wheel well openings looks better?
Hey..............some boobs, like me, like that. At least, it adds some character to the sheet metal.
While the Honda Element was aimed at the youth market, most of its buyers were "active" folks in their 50's. Trying to build and sell a vehicle that's targeted at the youth market seems to be really hard these days. IMHO, young people really don't feel a need to be mobile and the "car culture" has been relegated to the kids that enroll in VoTech. We, as a nation, are quite divorced form the idea of building physical objects and, therefore, we have little interest or respect for the design of those objects. Somehow, they just appear, produced by somebody in a far off distant land. We use and dispose of those objects as necessary. That's the world our youth have been raised in. As such, I don't expect them to be interested in cars or other physical things. How we make the money to buy these objects is what really baffles me. In 2000, I used to joke that I made money by buying stock in Neighbor A and then reselling that stock to Neighbor B. Then, that ended.