Subarundai

Hyundai's new 2015 Sonata I find to be quite a looker. It's exerior has matured yet it still looks like a Sonata. Gone is the garish chrome waterfall grille, abandoned for a sleeker front end that has some family resemblance to it's older brother, the Genesis.

However, that matured mug also is a bit more generic, looking a bit like other premium brands like Audi and Volvo. And then seeing a the newly revised Subaru Legacy today in the flesh, it hit me that it looks a lot like the new Sonata (although, like the Sonata, it simultaneously looks like an evolution of the last Legacy). It's like the two designs evolved to look like siblings - the Legacy your average sedan, and the Sonata the sporty "4 door coupe" version.

Roundel Rondo

This post may be a little confusing for those living in the US, where the Rondo was discontinued in 2010 after slumping sales and the debut of the redesigned 2011 Sportage, which they assumed would fill the void left by it's departure.

However, this wasn't the case in Canada, or most of the rest of the world where the model is known as the Carens. Sales were better in Canada and model carried on, albeit with a revised front end featuring the now standard punched grille.

But enough with the history lesson. What you see here is the next generation Rondo/Carens. It's much more attractive than its dowdy predecessor, and is still missing from the US lineup.

The newfound attractiveness comes at a price though, as it's very close to the BMW 2 Series Active Tourer, which itself is based on the 2012 Concept Active Tourer show car. Yet another recent Kia design that seems to borrow heavily from the BMW school of design  Even the rims above are similar. Regardless, it's one of the better looking small people carriers. I even think I like it better than the BMW, which manages to look not a lot like a BMW with its Mini based-bones.

Butt Doubles

I should start out by saying that I don't find the new Chrysler 200C to be an ugly car. It's sleek and has lots of interesting details, especially up front. The only problem is that it looks a bit anonymous, something I've especially noticed when seeing them in public. It tends not to shout at you visually like butch 300C, but blends in the background in a sea of mid-size sedans.

I find this especially true of the rear end, whose treatment looks like any number of near-luxury Japanese cars I'm sure it was trying to ape (as well as many other common mid-size cars who may be trying to do the same). 

So I thought I would use this post as a bit of a quiz.  Below are images of the butts of few common cars, badging removed.  Can you pick you the 200C?  The winner will get my unending admiration.  Bonus points for anyone who can name them all correctly (bonus points are worth even more unending admiration).

What the Hyundai Honda?

Presenting the 2013 Honda Accord sedan.  Although it's miles better looking than the current Accord, it also looks remarkably like a Hyundai. And not even current Hyundais, but the previous generation Sonata (up front) and pre-facelift Genesis (out back). In fact if the current Sonata were one of those "coupe sedans", the styling of this Accord could definitely fill in for the "regular" version.

Pininfarina Plagiarism

I started a “Guess That Car” thread over at the Car & Driver Backfires forums – basically a car picture is posted and the users have to guess the make and model. Every time one of these quadruplets appears I never know which one of the Pininfarina designs I’m looking at. Sure they’re pretty, but talk about milking something for all it’s worth.  At least the Alfa Romeo 1900 has a little variation up front. The Peugeot 404 convertible and Fiat 1600 convertible are near clones of each other, especially the later models with the grille mounted driving lights.  They even share chrome bodyside detailling that ends midway through the doors.