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Detroit, 4:45 PM
Sat Nov 7
15 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/04/09
11/04/09
My bottom line: I want a Tucker. Cd: 0.27. Name a modern car that can match _that_. #uglycars
11/04/09
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11/04/09
;-D #uglycars
11/05/09
11/04/09
And also a Seven. #uglycars
11/03/09
I think that's a challenge.
Oh Wartburg 353, how do I wuv thee, wet me count da ways...
1.) You are red. Red is the most awesome color ever. It's in sunsets, fire, fire engines, clown noses, and ketchup. It's also a popular sports car color. Shame on BusinessWeek for hating on not one, but six red cars.
2.) The engine. It's a two stroke with just seven moving parts. SEVEN. I can count that on my fingers, even after the heavy casualties Lefty took in the Battle of Cannes-Opener. I can even wiggle my fingers to signify that they are moving parts. Spirit fingers go!
3.) It was made in East Germany. I mean, the country no longer exists. People love orphaned cars, right? Except in this case, not just the company went under, it was the whole communist block. I mean it would be like if Yugoslavia had made a hip-to-be-square car before it went away. Oh wait...
4.) It was made for twenty three years. In East Germany. It's like the Wartburg 353 and the Volkswagen Beetle were sisters. All the boys chased the curvy, older, just-wanna-have-fun Beetle, while the poor young tag-along Wartburg got stuck with the embarrassing name, the thick geek glasses, and 23 years of braces. Poor underdog. Gotta love them underdogs!
5.) The fact that the jalopnik article ([jalopnik.com]), the businessweek article, and the wikipedia page ([en.wikipedia.org]) all have the same picture of the car. It's like only one of them existed to be photographed, meaning it must be SUPER RARE!!!
So BusinessWeek, you suck for saying a rare underdog red car with an awesome engine that comes from East Germany is ugly, and then copying your picture straight from wikipedia, without checking your facts and realizing how wrong you are. I'm subscribing to you just so I can cancel my subscription!
11/03/09
11/04/09
First of all: <3
Second of all: ?
I haven't seen anything specifically about Wartburgs having Duroplast bodies, only Trabants. They COULD be Duroplast though.
Still, another thing to add to ze list...
6.) Traburgs. A three-cylinder engine is swapped INTO a car rather than OUT OF it. Who does that!? And when does it result in such an awkward name!? #uglycars
11/04/09
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11/04/09
@Jim-Bob: The resemblance... #uglycars
11/04/09
@Plasma X: ...is eerie. I see what you're saying, but it's only in the front fascia.
11/04/09
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11/03/09
11/03/09
How can he include the Lightburn Zeta? Everyone knows the Lightburn Zeta Sports was the ugly one! #uglycars
11/03/09
Now I could understand that the ordering was off. #uglycars
11/03/09
11/03/09
But I've been riding motorbikes for years, and Volvos are my #1 pet hate. There is nothing more brain dead than a Volvo driver. #uglycars
11/03/09
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11/03/09
I'll count you as two, as I've yet to meet a "bad" driver whose also ridden motorcycles for years. For some reason, the two seem to be mutually exclusive.
I'm pretty sure it's not an Australian thing, that Volvo drivers are considered the worst drivers. I know a lot of riders put it down to a "safety" thing. ie. I'm in a safe car, so I don't have to look where I'm going, indicate or anything else a reasonable driver does.
Volvo actually created a (very successful) advertising campaign around the bad rep their drivers had. #uglycars
11/03/09
11/03/09
But I'm not kidding about their drivers. And there's plenty of people who agree with me. Considering, this is the internet, that's no big surprise. I did hear about a serious study (over 10 years ago) that was undertaken in Europe to try and work out why Volvo drivers were so bad. I couldn't find any references to it, so I'm writing that off as an urban myth.
However, even Volvo acknowledged how bad a rep the drivers of their vehicles had in their advertising here: [www.autoweb.com.au]
11/03/09
Clarkson's review of the S60 R showed him driving around with his right blinker on. No Buicks over there, so the driving-challenged end up elsewhere. #uglycars
11/03/09
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11/03/09
It's funny, but I think the reputation of Volvo drivers has slowly improved. I suspect there is a direct correlation with the increased affordability of BMWs. But apart from the bad rep of soccer moms in X5s (a very small sub-category of bad driver), I don't think there is any vehicle driver that has earned quite the rep that Volvo drivers earned. #uglycars
11/03/09
Wow, i just realized I own a grand total of 1000 HP. #uglycars
11/03/09
11/04/09
The worst:
BMW
Audi
Panel vans, contractor trucks and landscaper trucks #uglycars
11/03/09
How anyone can hate an El Camino, of any vintage, is a mystery and proves how little value should be ascribed to this arbitrary list by those with no taste in vehicles.
11/03/09
Proud Volvo 240 owner, and lover of half the cars on that list checking in. #uglycars
11/03/09
11/03/09
Ripping on the DMC for, ahem, not being painted. FAIL
Saying the VW Thing needed a grille up front. FAIL
Ripping on the Avalanche and then not showing a picture of it with ghetto cladding. FAIL #uglycars
11/03/09
As for the list, besides the cars mentioned by Jalopnik, how can anyone really hate the styling of the Bond Bug, VW Thing, Renault Twingo, Citroen BX, Toyota Van, or the Rav4? The Chevette may be plain and dull, but it's not actively ugly. Even the lowly and awful Wartburg was quite advanced in styling for 1966 - it simply hung around for 20 years too long. The first-generation Sable was very slick and advanced in 1986. The 1996+ Taurus became over-familiar as a rental car. Is the Escalade really ugly or merely glitzy? Is the New Beetle ugly or just effete and girly? Where's the Austin Allegro, Datsun F-10, Mitsuoka Orochi, Reliant Regal, or 1980 Seville? Once again, we see the sort of clueless list generated to sell magazines and website hits. In this case, the author doesn't know the difference between a bad, inept, or uninspired car (or even a car that dares to defy the mainstream) and an ugly one.
11/03/09
"Why Nascar Drivers Would Dominate F1"
"An Outsider's View of WRC - Needs More Pickups"
"GT-R First Drive - Simple, Elegant and Beautiful"
"Porsche Panamera, the Last Word in Sedan Design" #uglycars
11/03/09
@tonyola: I totally agree. It looks like someone just googled "ugly car", and placed the first 50 unique hits in this list.
I almost smashed my head against my monitor when I saw the Citroën BX in that list. I really don't understand how you can list a car like that, and forget about the ugly cars you mentioned or the Fiat Multipla, BMW X6, Lada 110, Daewoo Matiz,
Daihatsu Copen and Daihatsu Trevis. But maybe I'm biased as a flagrant hydropneumatic-Citroën fanboy.
Edit:
Apparently the Fiat Multipla was on the list. Whatever, it's still a random uninspired list (just look at 'who' they name as the designer of the yugo).
11/03/09
The 1989 Mercury Sable? Come on now, I still think that car looks good to this day, better then many cars!
I'm also pissed that he shows the 1989-1991 model, which had 4 lights in the front light bar, instead of just 2, as when it was introduced in 1985. #uglycars
11/03/09