Thursday, July 7, 2011

Addendum to Yesterday's Post

Yesterday I listed my picks for the five butt-ugliest cars for sale right now. On my list was the little Nissan Cube.


I got to feeling slightly guilty about that. After all, the other four cars on the list are egregiously, offensively ugly. The Cube is just quirky and awkward and kind of tacky. It's like throwing a gawky adolescent in with a group of hardened criminals. For crimes against aesthetics, its goofy bubble-butt bumper just isn't in the same league as the Cadillac Escalade EXT's comprehensive lack of good taste.

Lord, please smite this vehicle.
So, with help from Precocious Daughter, I tried to find an ugly car to take the Cube's spot on my list. We scoured the streets and pored over websites, looking for likely candidates. Here's what we came up with:

Chevy HHR

This is the mood ring of cars. My feelings about it seem to vary depending on how I'm feeling that day.

Maybe they should call it the Bipolar Express.
My gut feeling is that the boxy little pseudo-wagon is not an attractive vehicle. It's trying too hard to be something - most likely the PT Cruiser, whose design it shamelessly apes. But there's no doubt the PT Cruiser was uglier (or maybe just more disappointing, given that it could have been a cool retro-woodie and ended up being an uncomfortable compact fleet car), although it doesn't qualify for inclusion because it's out of production. In any event, I'm actually quite envious of the HHR's ample cargo room for its size and would consider gettting one myself if I weren't leery of Chevy's quality. PDaughter agreed it's probably not ugly enough to replace the Cube.

Ford Flex

Every time I see this thing on the street, I think, "What the hell is that thing?"

It looks like a sandwich made of the square bread
instead of the bread-shaped bread.
The Flex is simply jarring to look at. It's so very...linear. Interestingly, this is the only car I've looked at for my list where a Google search doesn't list the manufacturer's website anywhere on the first page of results. I'm not sure if that's an omen. PDaughter has the same reaction to it that I do, but neither one of us feels the visceral, gut-twisting outrage over the Flex that would catapult it over the Cube.

Toyota FJ Cruiser

This SUV-like creature isn't the ugliest vehicle I've ever seen, although it certainly won't win any beauty contests.

You know, the longer I look at it, the less I like it.
There are two specific things about the FJ Cruiser that really bother me. Make that three - first, I hate the name. What does FJ stand for? How can you market something as both a "cruiser" and an off-road vehicle? Especially since most of these bad boys will spend their existence shuttling between a driveway and a Walmart. The bad name makes the second thing I dislike even worse.

Approximately 0.000000001% of owners will ever drive this thing in a desert.

It's hard to see in the above picture, but the big black spare tire cover is emblazoned with a particularly ugly "FJ" logo. For some reason that repulses me. I hate it. Toyota would be better off putting a bandana-wearing hippie smiley face back there instead.

The final thing that puts the FJ Cruiser in the running is that no matter what color you buy, the roof is white. Which it makes it look like a giant rubber-toed kid's sneaker. With an annoying logo on the back. 
 
OK, I think we have a winner.

2 comments:

  1. Have you considered the Chevy Spark?

    http://fcwhitesborotx.holidayautogroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/2010-chevy-spark-beat-image-leak-low-res.jpg

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  2. I like the Cube precisely because it looks like an awkward, trying-too-hard-to-look-cool teen. It makes me smile but then, I drive a smartcar.

    Too many damned surpremacist boxes on the road now.

    BEST car seen recently – a '17 Nissan Z. **DROOL**

    ReplyDelete

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