UGLY CARS

I’m going to keep this brief today, as it’s more of a visual thing anyway, and, in the life of someone who still can albeit loosely describe themselves as “a designer”, it’s really not the done thing to criticise the work of other designers, especially when one’s own glass house is always prone to several severe public brick-chucking incidents.

Suffice it to say that, whilst I am a mere motorist, and not a car designer, I do consider myself to be a person who thinks that they might still have a little sense for what is aesthetically pleasing, especially when it comes to the things that are pleasant about our environment and the various adornments thereof, and, because of this, there are one or two cars that I see driven about (and parked) that, in my humble opinion (and possibly in mine alone) could be considered as bordering upon what I can only describe as being “ugly”.

I am sorry if the term is considered offensive nowadays, and in this modern era, when you have to be so very careful with the words you choose to describe pretty much anything. It is not a word that I have chosen lightly, but, nevertheless, that is the word I chose to use because that is very much the way I see these mechanical monstrosities.

You see, I have a new personal favourite candidate for the ugliest car in the world, after spotting one parked at the kerbside a few weeks ago. Actually, I considered it to be such a monstrosity when it flung itself out and wrenched at my disbelieving eyeballs that I almost managed to provide the late, lamented “Blinky, the Wonder Car” (and, incidentally, myself) with that final blaze of glory that I suspect that it probably so craved.

Exhibit "A"

“What was this visual anti-delight?”, I hear you ask, assuming of course that you haven’t sneaked a quick peek at exhibit “A”… It is, of course, the asymmetrical monstrosity that calls itself the Nissan Cube, to my mind the very first car for which I can honestly understand the label “boxy” actually working, after years of not really getting what the term was referring to when various of my favourites were thusly (and, I believe, undeservedly) labelled.

To spend 100 years perfecting aerodynamics and styling to almost an art form, and one which sometimes allows the likes of even Jeremy Clarkson to TURN his descriptive POWERS to SOMETHING almost APPROACHING poetry, and then throw away everything you ever learned and literally put a box on wheels just seems so very counter-intuitive that it really beggars belief. And then to actually call it a “Cube” is almost to just open up your flies and piss upon generation after generation of designers.

You might, I suppose, if you were feeling generous, perhaps consider such an act to be “Making a feature of it” as my old pal Laurence on the set-builder would once have said, but I’m not really feeling much generosity towards them, so I won’t, even though it might just have the hint of genius about it. After all, if you take a look at the current Nissan range, it is just possible that they have a whole post-modern “ugly” styling ethos going on. Or something...

After all, if you actually manage to sell a vehicle with all the aerodynamic styling of a housebrick to the gullible masses, you might very well be on to something. I personally might very well believe that the asymmetric quality of the offset back windows does it few favours, or that a car design based on a Lego brick was something that should remain in the nursery, but someone has obviously forked out good money for this, because I have seen one, parked on the very high street I drive along nearly every day, and it shamed my eyeballs so much that they left me a note requesting that I poke them out with a stick.

I didn’t of course, because that would be stupid, and would have left me unable to warn you good people about it.

I imagine that it was only meant to be a “city runabout” so I’m sure it fulfills that function very well, even though the one I saw (damn these eyes!) had patently escaped into the countryside instead of hiding in plain sight like it normally would, alongside the various skips and portaloos that it so resembles.

The previous "front-runner"

My previous front-runner, that mobile greenhouse known as the Fiat Multipla now seems to be a positive triumph by comparison, and I don’t mean a TR6, and, almost unbelievably, shoves the “push-me-pull-you” people carrier known as the Citroën Xsara into third place, which almost means that it is possibly, and somewhat incredibly, slowly starting to gain an air of respectability.

An "almost respectable" 3rd place

Incidentally, talking about Citroën, there is another way to save money, and it doesn’t involve encouraging people, however comedically, to steal petrol from other motorists by using their gymnastic little doggies… Mind you, with other televisual advertisements demonstrating the typical APR on payday loans at 1741%, perhaps the options are becoming more limited and we should start asking who’s robbing who…

And on that bombshell, goodnight and thanks for watching…