I don’t want this to be an attack on the designers/builders of this car, Ferrite Motors. They seem to be an India-based custom coachworks shop, and I bear them no ill will. I even sort of like some of the things they’ve done with Nanos. But this one car, the Crunk, I can’t imagine a context where it’s not ugly. Am I wrong?
I’m asking because I want to isolate some fundamental automotive aesthetic laws here, and figure out why so much of this car looks so wrong. The use of angled surfaces and angular wheelarches, for example, doesn’t have to look terrible, but somehow, they sure as hell do here. There’s just something so incredibly inharmonious and out of balance about the whole thing that I’m almost impressed.
The Crunk is a re-bodied Hyundai Sonata. The Sonata isn’t the most exciting car, but it’s not bad looking. The Crunk is, at best, memorable, and at worst it looks like a partially corrupted JPG of a bunch of Storm Troopers in full gear having an orgy on a flatbed trailer.
I have some theories why these elements don’t work — all the major character lines on the car seem to be in conflict with one another, with each having a directional vector designed to collide with the other. There’s unexpected bends and angles where you don’t expect them (look at that lightning-bolt jog in the rear doorline) and everything seems fractured and chaotic. There’s more good — if that adjective can actually be used in this context — pictures here.
It actually makes me uneasy to look at this car.
I know tastes are wildly subjective, and I love the look of many cars that some people wouldn’t be caught dead in for all the zirconia on the moon. I love many cars lots of rational, eyeball owner/operators would call ugly.
But this, this thing, this terror has to be universal. I have to know. If there’s someone out there who likes this, please, please, tell us why. Help us understand.
Help us help you.
Contact the author at jason@jalopnik.com.