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.


Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Toronado from the Land of Oz


In the sequel to the "Wizard of Oz", Dorothy attempts to create a movable car based home to prevent it from being sucked up again. Car of choice? Oldsmobile Toronado of course.

Those beasts were front wheel drive too. With all THAT to haul around, the front tires were probably permanently burning rubber.

Worst Prowler Ever


Behold - the Lonestar Growler. Innovative name! Sadly, it looks very much like the half Jeep test mules Chrysler made up back in the day to test out the mechanicals but keep the paparazzi confused as to the final styling.

On the guessing theme, is this made out of a BMW Z3 or a Miata?

Lamest Hummer Ever


This super-obvious Jeep YJ to "Hummer" conversion must fool everyone who sees it, it's so well done. I especially like how the very wide Hummer's looks are squashed into the front of the Jeep.

1957-1965 DKW 1000Sp - Thundering Ripoff


Auto Union was a well-established German car manufacturer before World War II with marques like Horch, Audi and DKW. Think German GM. The War changed all that when most of the Auto Union factories were destroyed. Still Auto Union managed to survive, but only one of the old Auto Union marques was revived: DKW - the brand for the masses (motorcycles and affordable lower middle class cars). Audi obviously came back from the brink as well - to be Auto Union's only surviving member.

As Germany struggled to get the economy up and going again, much effort was taken to bring Western Germany back to the top of industrialization. The economy and industry of the United States formed the example of which to strive for. US American design of the 1950s was transmitted by music and movies into Western Europe and was regarded as an icon for financial success, especially in Western-Germany which was still in search of a new identity (as the one that was just destroyed obviously did not want to be remembered).

Auto Union, like many car companies post war, found restarting to be hard. This left little room for developing new models and technology so post-war DKW cars were quite similar in construction and design to the pre-war models. In order to survive DKW needed something that at least appeared up to date. To revive the brand image a fresh looking, attractive and youthful car was developed: the 1000Sp.

The 1000Sp basically adobted US American space age style complete with tailfins but downsized to European proportions. To be more specific, they stole the look of the 1957 Ford Thunderbird. Underneath the dazzle lied Trabant-esque 2-stroke technology. It's not fugly in itself, but the idea behind it - a kind of automotive plagarism - is.