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Top 10 Design Winners and Losers
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Nothing to compare to a 1959 Buick or a 1957 Chevy Nomad, my all time favorite vehicle.
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Our 1990 LS400 is my wife's car. I do not like cars at all because of clearance. I like to be able to go off road at any given time without worrying about clearance. And getting in and out of low slung cars gets tougher every year.
Inside they are a great design. Versatile as all get out.
The Aztek was just plug ugly now matter how you approached it.
Oh no it isn't>
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
The last time that happened was 1958-59, and the auto industry straightened itself out very quickly. But for some reason this time around, the ugly has stuck, and we embrace it!
I saw a Nissan Juke on the road the other day. At least, I think it was a Juke. Front-end made me think a bit of the [non-permissible content removed]-end of a '59 Ford. Hideous looking little thing.
That thing you posted above, while ugly, IMO at least still has an endearing sort of charm about it. It's like a pug dog, or one of those wrinkled, hairless cats...so ugly it's almost cute!
I worry sometimes that ugliness grown on me. As example I give you the Nissan Cube. For an age I've thought it to be the worst of the square boxes that started with the Scion Xb. But I find it's growing on me and I find it kind of cute...
I knew someone who had a black Aztek as a company car awhile back. This was before they gave you the option of body-color cladding (or maybe they took the cladding off completely? I can't remember now). Anyway, in black, with that black cladding, it didn't look AS bad.
The Aztek also had a sort of a double-grille effect up front, like two different car front-ends were forced on, one above the other. And, even little details, like that exposed fuel filler on the Aztek, which draws attention to itself, gives it a haphazard, thrown-together look.
I think the Aztek actually looks better now than it did when it was new. What with the likes of the Nissan Juke and Cube, some of the goofy Scions, the cowcatcher Acuras of late, the current Honda CR-V, with a front-end that looks inspired by the '61 DeSoto, right down to the slanty headlights and double-grille effect. Ugly and awkward, jarring and disjointed, has become mainstream. When the Aztek came out, it was pretty unique in its ugliness, it's off-the-wall-edness (I know that's not a word!). The only other really oddball vehicle from that time I can recall was the Isuzu Vehicross. IIRC, it was a poor seller too, but part of that could have been that Isuzu was rapidly declining.
Sort of like this? Without that top grille, the '61 DeSoto would've looked like a 1960 Lincoln.
That bulge at the top that houses the upper grille makes me think a bit of how modern cars started swelling up in that era, such as the 2007 Camry and 2008 Malibu. Supposedly nowadays it's for pedestrian safety, but back in '61 it was probably to keep the pedestrian stuck to the front of the car, out of your windshield! :surprise:
I remember going to the NY Auto Show before the Rendezvous had started selling but the Aztek had been on the market for at least a couple of months.
It was very entertaining. The Pontiac and Buick displays were very near each other and the Pontiac folks had several Azteks on display including one with the tent option set up. It was kind of cool if you didn't look at the outside of it.
I went over to the Buick guy and asked him if you could get the tent on a Rendezvous and he had a long, rehearsed speech about how the Buick was an entirely different vehicle and had no parts in common with the Aztek. Um, yeah...
I was behind one today. It reminds me of the rear of a '98 Taurus with a box welded on top.
I can only imagine if one of the Big Three had come out with that design (although I'm glad they didn't).
Oh, if GM had made it you would have never heard the end of it! Heck, if Honda made it it would be another sign that the styling folks at Honda continue to have lost their minds.
With Nissan it's merely the latest in quirky designs....
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