A blog devoted to RANTS ON AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN, car reviews, and - above all - fugly autos. whether looking for vehicular plagiarism or rides of extreme tastelessness, you've come to the right place.


Sunday, February 21, 2010

Lamborghini Coatl




The Lamborghini Coatl is the product of Automóviles Lamborghini Latinoamérica S.A., which was given the right to build and distribute modified and rebodied Lamborghinis as the real thing in South America in the 90's. The particular Diablo based car was given a new look and some modified internals to achieve a top speed close to 240mph, and a 0-60 time of around 3.5 seconds. However, that wasn't fast enough to outrun ugly. It was the Mitsuoka Orochi of it's time.

El Crown Victoria



The Ford Explorer Sport Trac's distant relative.

Ain't Beehaving




Posting this mainly for it's bizarre bee / fairy theme. Nothing says macho like bumble bees and naked fairies.

Automotive Hoarding?


This is proof that the Kia Amanti can in fact get uglier. Given the multiple identical fake scoops (maybe they were going for a Buick look) and the mess on the dashboard, this may be an auto customization example of hoarding.

Ford Crown Victoria Wagon


Got a hankerin' for a Crown Vic wagon? Just weld on the back of a Taurus. All things considered, I supposed they did do a pretty good job...

Toyota T100 Prius


Who needs a Prius when you can make your own out of an old T100...

It all makes sense...

I found where ASMA gets their inspiration from.

1958 Plymouth Tornado


No - this isn't something someone made in their barn, although it looks it. Apparently this is an official Plymouth made concept from 1958. Thankfully, this is one Chrysler concept that didn't go into production.

Maybe Ford was onto something...

It seems lately that Ford's Edsel is really making an impression in automotive design. Yeah - everyone is trying to make throwbacks to their heritage. But to me they all look like the Edsel.

Attack of the Clones: UnImpreza

When the new for 2008 Impreza debuted, it got a lot of flack for being ugly. And although it's grown on me a bit, I still find it less than attractive. And less unique (or attractive) than it's predecessor. And it's a bit of a conglomerate of numerous other make's models, making it a bit of a slightly homely "everycar".

The 5-door hatch is seemingly the most popular model, and the most drastically changed. While the previous Impreza carried over a lot of (unique) styling features from the previous (and first) generation, the 2008 broke the mold. Apparently when they broke the mold, the stole the one Mazda used for the Mazda 3. The DLO is strikingly similar as is the rear spoiler. The front end of the Impreza also looks remarkably like the 3, with similar looking headlights and similarly placed openings and fog lights. The grille setup is different, but it's finicky treatment is one of the front end's worst features.


The DLO and rear end treatment of the 4 door sedan though is remarkably Korean - not something most car-makers would aspire to. The DLO itself is very Daewoo Lacetti / Suzuki Verona / Chevrolet Optra, with it's tails also having a similar look (yet a bit too vertically oriented). When I first saw the tails, the Kia Rio instantly came to mind. Those tails also feature another fugly trait that seems to be increasingly common - strange cutlines. Why are they curved along the bottom? It doesn't follow any of the body lines... It just ends up looking like a manufacturer error, or that the car's been in an accident.