Scottish Elises

Ive been playing white van man for a couple of weeks and fook me there all ugly.

Ford
Vauxhall
BMW really don't like the front end of the new 3, 4 & 5 series. although I do like the new 6 and X6
Toyota
Skoda
mini - the 4x4
merc - the new cla WTF
Jag - I do like the XF and the shootingbrake
Audi have some nice cars but still boring.
Volvo, im I used to be a fan.
as for all the cars from the far east, they all look the same.

So prove me wrong?

New car shopping is pretty uninspiring in the looks department. Even if I had unlimited funds there aren't too many that float my boat at the moment.

I have to declare a bias in one of the following, but I think the Astra GTC is a fantastic shape and I haven't seen a colour it looks bad in although it needs BIG wheels. The other looker is the Jag XJ although that is better in dark colours.

On the whole though you're right Scotty, I would say we are going through a low as far as new car design goes

I think the new 4 series looks alright.

Does this mean I'm getting old?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

V40 r-design? Exterior is nice and you're interior is excellent (imo)...

Had mine 8 months now and really like it..not exciting but excellent for what I need it for..

agreed. there is one or 2 that i like(jag xf shooting brake being one) but generally they suck. i feel the same about most modern motorbikes as well. i guess its also an age thing where you start harking back to bikes and cars that floated your boat in your teens and early 20's.

I like Alpha's of late , dont want one but look ok.

Buy old

j2 lot wrote:Astra GTC

I have a big problem with this car. See, it's just a 3dr Astra (in itself quite possibly the most suicide inducing car on sale today) and in my day would have been sold as such. A 3dr Astra. Therefore cheaper and even less desirable than it's hugely undesirable 5dr brother.

Then along come some marketing bods wearing dark jeans, brown leather boots, black roll neck sweaters and big rectangular glasses. Some with brylcreamed hair. Some with long hair tied back in a pony tail. Some with hair like Harry Styles. During a think-outside-the-box brainstorming session one of these bods strikes upon an idea. Let's make the 3dr Astra sexy. Let's call it a 'coupe'. No no wait. Let's call it a GT Coupe. Yeah. And charge more money for it. So it will be more desirable. Genius, why didn't we think of that before ?

So the end result is as attractive a proposition as the heavily bearded 2nd row from your local rugby team wearing a short dress and some make up.

And it's not just Vauxhall to be fair, others are at it.

Agree on the Jag XJ though. A stunning car and very unique & individual which seems to be a rare commodity these days.

I also like the CLS shooting brake, a great looking car.

Most of the other metal out there is inoffensive but ultimately dull. You'd buy it for what it offered rather than how it looked.

Hopefully with the 4C Alfa have got their mojo back and some of this DNA filters down through the rest of the range. I for one would be all over an Alfa styled proper 1 series rival rather than the warmed up Fiat Punto leftovers they've dished up in recent times.

Regards,

Jeremy

There's good and bad. See: The rest of time.

A lot of stuff that's seen as classic now was honking (or bland) in the day and the design has matured with age and exposure. Modern cars look blobby and bulbous because pedestrians are supposed to bounce off them (ignoring the fact that most pedestrian impacts could be avoided... by the pedestrians...) The ones that work use that in the design language - XF being a good example. The Astra is a pretty hateful car, but it does look pretty. There's lots of stuff out there that's handsome - but the days of handsome small cars are over, I think. Alfa made the 4C incredibly wide to try and stop it looking dumpy, with the high bonnet line it's got to have - I'm still undecided on whether it works for me.

Don't get me wrong, I wish we could still make cars like the Batmobile CSL or the Alfa Giulietta (the original one), but we can't.

I agree on the Astra front, but it's nothing new, companies have been making more 'desirable' redesigned versions of their 3 door and badged as a coupe version for years.
With the first Megane Renault didn't even bother making it look different a normal 3dr, Rover had a 2 series coupe in the early 90s, BMW have made 3 series coupes for years too, where do you draw the line? VW Scirocco?

Alfa wise, I doubt the MiTo idea will fade away, more or less every car company is making shared floor pan cars, even my (imo) stunning 159 is one. The Giulietta isn't as pretty though.

Having watched car designs change, I don't think this is anything new to be honest. It used to be that cars were almost all either dull or cool, with the possible exception of the French, now it seems that every other car is trying to be something different, and the Koreans etc have largely taken over the dull sector.
The problem is that there are so many out there looking cars, that you don't bother to like them just because they are different, so you start to look at how ugly they actually are.
Citroen DS3, Nissan Duke, Fiat 500L (or Giant Panda as IO prefer to call them..), Mini Countryman...

Then you're left looking to the performance models, or at least premium cars for good looks such as the Jag XF and F-Type.
On the cheaper end of the scale, Alfa still stand out from the crowd, Mini isn't too bad however common they may be, and for some reason the new Fiesta ST really appeals to me.

Going back to Vauxhall, I actually think they're on a winner at the moment.
The new Astra is probably the prettiest of all Astra's, and is an improvement over the previous boy-racer-special shape.
The Insignia is a decent looking car, miles above the Vectra.
The Adam is kinda funky looking compared to the alternatives, but then Aygo etc are ugly things, and the Up etc are just dull.
The Corsa is just a Corsa mind..

Im with you on this one Scotty,

The current jag range is lovely IMO, with the F-type coupe being top of my list, the new Rangie Vogue is very nice,

The New M6 is stunning, and I love the F10 5er touring. i'll ignore that you think the X6 is nice on this occasion!

pretty much every run of the mill car is horrid and the only cars that I really see on the road that I like are old ones!

it does mean that when you see an old merc 190 or un-molested early Subaru its a little exciting amongst a sea of corsa and fiestas, and that Giant panda WTF is that, its like they took all of the good parts of a pnda and threw them away, then took all the horrid parts of a fiat multipla from the left over parts bin and used them!?

there is a chap near me with a mk1 fiesta 1300 Supersport, in brown and yellow with rust who is learning to drive, puts a right smile on my face when I see him out with his L plates as its not often you see vintage like that around - even if it is a bucket of sh1te - and with Peter Vardy doing corsas for 12 pence a week there seems to be more of them on the road than anything else.

I too (perhaps unsurprisingly) agree. The older I get the less interested in new cars I get.
Although our new diesel 1 series M sport is a good tool for munching miles (20k since April and rising) it is bland, boring and has zero style.

In keeping with my love for old things I bid a dealer for a 17 year old V12 Merc last week and I think he is coming round to a deal so that should be good for a laugh for 2014s road trips.

My bro-in-law just got a Jag XF Sportbrake co. car in titanium and sport trim (dechromed and tastefully bodykitted) and it's bloody gorgeous in the flesh.

Only the 2.2d but still a lovely thing.

Totally agree ref the 500L, and the forthcoming 500XL is even worser!!! (but the C*ntryman Mini is pot ugly too)

4er beemer is handsome, like an old 3 coop with 6 coop genes, and I do quite like the 6 GranCoop, so an M6 4dr would be something to sniff out at 3yrs old

Spotted a Maser GranTurismo yesterday in ABZ parked at ConocoPhillips and it was just perfect in my eyes, other than being bloody big!

Latest Renaults are horrid, Megane and Laguna in particular, and the estate versions of both