Ugly Cars: A Picture Thread

Surely the GTL would have had cloth seats, Snoball? Wow.

But yeh, I recall the searing agony of melting-hot vinyl against skinny white thigh. I have a strong eidetic memory of getting into my dad's orange 1973 Datsun Sunny by the side of Stanley Park in Blackpool one beautiful summer's day and ... AARGH, JESUS, THE PAIN.

check this big fuck off suv-antecedent/convertible action

http://michaelelyard.com/CarsMC%20of%20Europe.htm

1938 Mercedes Benz G4 (as in 4WD)

"Only 38 of these were ever produced, primarily for the upper military elite of the 3rd Reich. One was given to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and others were used in the occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia."

^^^ this somehow makes total sense

Took me fucking ages to find a picture of a 1973 (actually: this would be '72, I think) Datsun Sunny.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/49/183706410_e5f2e21332_m.jpg

And I've totally confused myself as to what the 120Y was, and where that fitted in. One to ponder another time, perhaps.

I trapped my thumb in the door of ours when I was a kid, as well. I think it was the next Sunny:

http://www.fortunecity.co.uk/pitstop/racer/108/images/dat_48.gif

in which I burned my thumb on the cigarette lighter. (What does this do? Ooh, look, it glows! *PRESS* ... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!)

Aww, the Sunny is kind of cute.

take two

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c163/wvferrell/merc.jpg

Whoa! I just noticed it's a six-wheeler.

The Aztek is still the champion of this thread though. The comments from Aztek owners in http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000321.html are hilarious.

http://files.nireblog.com/blogs4/ossimpsons1/files/20041201canyonero.jpg

I'm not old enough to remember the last time there was a giant stink about the government bailing out an auto manufacturer, but the story damn near tells itself.

http://www.allpar.com/photos/plymouth/volare/volare-fleet.jpg

Let's try that again.

http://www.allpar.com/photos/plymouth/volare/volare-fleet.jpg

wow, that's annoying.

What led me to that picture was actually my looking for a picture of the family car when I was a wee one. It was a 1975 Plymouth Volare 4-door. And it looked exactly like this:

http://www.allpar.com/model/aspen-pix/Aspen-01.jpg

That is a picture of a Dodge Aspen. It's the exact same car. So frickin' hot they had to make it twice.

(Honestly, it's not half as bad in any other color. But that's the color we had.)

(And all apologies for my hotlinks not working. It is damned annoying.)

The Volare also came in a 2-door coupe.

http://www.moparautos.com/images/80volare.jpg

Something about this car says, "Check out how my gold chain shines in the midst of my chest hair. You know, I submitted a science fiction story to Playboy last month. They never got back to me."

Here it is for anyone who can't see it

http://i36.tinypic.com/29bj6nk.jpg

Aw... I even checked that one in a different browser. Sigh.

Anyway, yeah. There she is.

And here's the first pic I so arrogantly tried to post:

http://tittysprinkles.net/images/ilx/volare-fleet.jpg

You could fill this thread with American cars but anyway

http://www.thevso.com/Stage2/images/blog/08-06-22%20APG/pt-cruiser-2007.jpg

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/autoreview/400x266/2007-Porsche-Cayenne-06605141990001.jpg

^ IT'S A FUCKING PORSCHE

also good call on that revolting BMW X6 thing.

The Porsche... Cayenne? God in heaven. Can't wait for the 2010 Porsche Canyonero.

http://www.megangolf.com/uploaded_images/renault-megane.JPG
baby got back. seemingly only driven as real estate agent company cars.

That Porsche looks like a steer's skull, and pretty much cheapens the entire company image.

Also lol at the the Coding Horror website with Aztek drivers defending the car; pretty much consists of 'I CAN FIT 3 BOOSTER SEATS IN THE BACK'.

http://i34.tinypic.com/o6lhqu.jpg

^ftw

...which segues nicely onto this, the Rover 213/216

i think that's what the sterling was based on. sold in the US in the late 80s/early 90s, touted as a combination of british "class"/"charm" and japanese reliability (it had an accord motor). big surprise, everything on the car that wasn't made by honda fell off in short order.
http://www.aronline.co.uk/press/sterling_1.jpg

I forgot all about the Sterling.

No one has made uglier ultra-luxury cars than the revived Maybach:

http://www.carforums.net/reviews/makes/pictures/maybach08.jpg

"Hi, I'm a cross between the ugly early 2000s Benz and the monopoly car"
http://www.news-blogs.com/_images/auto/maybach_57_2006.jpg

Looks like someone melted and stretched a regular car.

hahaha jon stewart just said he drove an amc gremlin in high school -- "the gremlin existed so drivers of the pinto could have something to shit on"

1985 mosler consulier GTP

http://img.timeinc.net/time/2007/50_cars/gtp1.jpg

that is terrible!

still can't believe that porsche shit-canned their racing activities (that give their road cars the race-tested aura) for a few years to produce the cayenne

subaru's 'jet-inspired' coupe of the '80s, variously called alcyone, XT or vortex:

http://images.drom.ru/reviews/photos/subaru/alcyone/alc4.JPG

worst-looking rally car of all time, the citroen BX 4TC

http://www.groupbrally.com/images/citroen/citroen_bx4tc_small.jpg

road version: even uglier!

http://koti.mbnet.fi/css/bx/4tc-3.jpg

It's clear that someone in Citroen said "let's build something exactly like an Audi, but make it ugly to throw people off the scent."

My first car: behold, the 1969 Austin 1800 MkII

http://www.aronline.co.uk/images/1800_05.jpg

Inherited from my grandmother. Tractor-sized steering wheel...big long spindly floor shift...manual choke, UGH...steered like a TANK...resplendent in shiny poo brown.... but goddamn I loved that car. Everyone I knew laughed at it, but all my tall friends secretly loved it because they never had to put the seat back when they sat in the front seat. Deceptively roomy.

Throw in power steering and automatic transmission, and that car's just fine!

that's not ugly!

Yeah, I wouldn't kick that car out of the garage.

It looks almost like a VW Squareback with different cosmetics.

yeah definitely. the grill is kind of busy but it seems pretty solid

awww. I've never seen so much Austin love in one place. You guys rule.
Back in the day it was hailed as a 'triumph of engineering over design'. Its nickname was 'the land crab'.

xpost David R: automatic transmission entailed a crazy little flip switch on the dash console. Which, given the angle of the steering wheel and depth of the seats, always sounded kinda awkward to me. Not convinced autotrans was the way to go though. My girl was heav-y...you need the guts of the manual tranny to get it over the hills.

It's clear that someone in Citroen said "let's build something exactly like an Audi, but make it ugly to throw people off the scent."

I love how French auto design departments are so willfully insane. Here's a Peugeot 308RC.. still trying to clone a Audi (the TT I'm guessing) but just so utterly unholy in its wrongness.

http://www.carpages.co.uk/peugeot/peugeot_images/peugeot_308_rcz_05_08_07.jpg

It's funny how real cars are starting to look more and more like Hot Wheels.

that citroen rally car looks like someone just took a regular, shitty citroen wagon, nailed a spoiler on the back and slapped on some decals. And the road version looks like its door is smashed in.

that citroen rally car looks like someone just took a regular, shitty citroen wagon, nailed a spoiler on the back and slapped on some decals

Er, that's because ... :)

I didn't mind the BX, actually. It wasn't a patch on what came before it, but it was still a little bit interesting, as opposed to the tedium Citroen churns out now. Indeed, this:

http://www.greencarsite.co.uk/GREENCARS/green-cars-photos/citroen-xsara-picasso-hdi.jpg

is a car I loathe so much I barely have the words. There's something about the rear view:

http://foto.autozone.be/fotoseurotax/450/citroen-xsara-picasso-diesel-2004-4475.jpg

that really offends me. And that - ^ - is the kind of view you tend to see a lot, ie stuck in the middle of a road with the brake lights on and the indicators doing something mental, because these things (and apologies if anyone round here has one -- BUT REALLY, GO AND GET A BETTER CAR, PLEASE -- seem so often to be driven by brain-dead fucks in their early 50s, for whom the Highway Code is but a distant memory).

Chris B.'s choices baffling to me, until I remember his picks for a beautiful car thread on here. He gets major points for consistency, although I think he lives in crazy upside-down land. (Well, ok, the X6 IS an abomination.) More seriously, the Mercedes GLK and the Citroen C6 work a lot better in the metal than in pictures -- maybe you've never seen them on the road?

Anyway: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.saxby/marcos/mini.jpg

"Hi, I'm a cross between the ugly early 2000s Benz and the monopoly car"

I think those Maybachs are pretty nice.

HI DERE

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Ford_Scorpio_1995_Taxi_hl.jpg