Today's reveal of the "polarizing" look of the new 2009 Acura TL and the minor facelift on the 2009 BMW 3-series got us thinking about design. Specifically, bad design. Does the TVR Sagaris 2 really stand up to the TVR designs of yore? After a sudden revolution in design a few years back we feel like maybe some designers are just adding more lines to cars they've already created rather than going bold.

Ray's orange Challenger looks pretty sharp, but it's not exactly a "new" design. We have a theory about this. In between big automotive design revolutions companies have to come out with "new" models so they get "new" upgrades, which is some variation of changing the shape of the fog lights and adding a new crease somewhere. In this case, there are so many lines on the cars already that adding more just makes them look stranger. Or maybe we're taking the narrow view. Maybe cars in general are getting better and we're just picking out a few. Maybe you think they are better looking. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so, what do you behold? Are cars getting uglier?

Send an email to Matt Hardigree, the author of this post, at matt@jalopnik.com.