Why are French cars so ugly

  • Thread starter Thread starter Skython
  • 98 comments
  • 34,236 views
maybe they drink too much wine?
 
the french car that looks good is the peugeot 908 hdi fap and thats because its an LMP
 
I bet there's a French guy wondering why American cars are ugly.
 
sumbrownkid
I bet there's a French guy wondering why American cars are ugly.
Click to expand...

Probably, and Italy wonders why... never mind, that would be an insult to the Italian cars
 
French cars are not ugly... Maybe because you are not French ;)
 
and speaking of...
i think Nissan's sharing bodies around. a couple weeks ago, I had a nissan behind me. when he turned off, right there in my mirror was the Bustle Butt of a Megane!
 
I always thought the 908 HDi FAP looked good
2010-Peugeot-908-HDi-FAP-Front-Side-Tilt-View-588x441.jpg

2010-Peugeot-908-HDi-FAP-Rear-Angle-Tilt-View-588x441.jpg
 
You're a bandwith thief! (hotlinking)
 
I laughed so hard at the title !!
 
Fact is, most French cars are terrifyingly ugly in some respect. They look good, but they're still designed by a committee with no taste, like most cars these days.

The front end of the new Renault Laguna and its siblings are awful and cheap looking. The Clio is pleasing though. Pretty much everything Peugeot makes is ghastly, their last decent looking car being the 406 coupe. Of them all, Citroen is making the best cars right now but that's simply because they look strong and aggressive. They're still butt-ugly though.

Honestly, I can hardly think of any properly elegant cars on the market today. Somebody enlighten me please because it's depressing.
 
I don't think most French cars are ugly, but I do think they are terribly built! That is why I would never buy a Clio even if you gave it to me. But its something all the manufactures have been tackling recently so hopefully things will improve.

Robin.
 
Keef
Honestly, I can hardly think of any properly elegant cars on the market today. Somebody enlighten me please because it's depressing.
Click to expand...

Nobody's going to buy one, it's couldn't depreciate any quicker if it was on fire, and it's going to be awful, but here's a contender.

It's also flown entirely under the radar, I had no idea it existed until I saw a billboard for it today.
 
daan
Part of that is due to legislation. There must be a gap of 7cm (IIRC) between the bonnet/hood and the hard top of the engine. This is to help a pedestrian by giving them a "crumple zone" in the event of a collision. The easiest way to do that is to have a high bonnet/hood.
Click to expand...

... Jaguar's electronic bonnet safety system?
 
Citroen GT... I'd buy that over any other super car if I had the money.*

*does not include products built by, or powered by BMW engines
 
MatskiMonk
Citroen GT
Click to expand...
One of the most monumentally ugly things, car or otherwise, ever created.

Face it people, thanks to mounting international safety regulations, the days of well-designed cars are pretty much over. For example, I'm not confident that BMW will every crank out a car as properly elegant as the E24, E28, E31, or most things up to and including the E39. Ever since then regulations have gone up at the same drastic rate that design sense has gone down, and that goes for pretty much all companies.
 
Last edited:
Danny
Nobody's going to buy one.
Click to expand...
Actually, it's quite popular in the business lease market over here, so I expect to see them regularly.
 
I wouldn't call French cars ugly, but more to like unique... However, these are just the cars that I think looks great!

2008-citroen-C5.jpg


renault-megane-rs_2.jpg
 
In the end it's probably more to do with cultural differences. Check out the locations of the people posting in this thread and you will notice that Europeans on average likes the designs better than North Americans. From an European POV you have a very strange taste in USA (mainly) and this thread is proof that you feel the same about our preferences.

All I can say is: Vive la différence!
 
Danny
Nobody's going to buy one, it's couldn't depreciate any quicker if it was on fire, and it's going to be awful, but here's a contender.

It's also flown entirely under the radar, I had no idea it existed until I saw a billboard for it today.
Click to expand...

Supposedly it's quite good. But no, nobody will buy one in Britain, at least.
 
Anghammarad
From an European POV you have a very strange taste in USA (mainly) and this thread is proof that you feel the same about our preferences.
Click to expand...
Taste has nothing to do with principles of design. Well-designed cars are a rare happening by any company, and even rarer today with all the rules they have to comply with.

Though Europeans tend to prefer European cars, to me that shows the same lack of design sense that everybody else in the world suffers from. If I had to name anybody in particular who was consistently good at car design I would first look to the Italians, but Ferrari in particular has been and still is on the brink of losing it.

In my opinion, some of the best designs to ever grace asphalt were the 1961-1963 Lincoln Continental, preferably the 62-63; and the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado. Since then Olds had never made anything resembling good, and Lincoln has been struggling lately, though some of their concepts have been epic and I'm the only person on the planet who thinks the MKT is one of the best designs driving right now.

Those are just a few American designs because that's what I'm familiar with. I'm sure there are plenty of standouts through European companies' history also, mostly from a long time ago.
 
Keef
Taste has nothing to do with principles of design. Well-designed cars are a rare happening by any company, and even rarer today with all the rules they have to comply with.
Click to expand...
Well, this thread did start using the term 'ugly', which implies subjectivity and thus taste.

But I can see what you mean, and it's most obvious when companies show us an incredibly awesome and well-designed concept, only to release an enormously watered-down version for mass-production a few months later.
The truth is: for most brands awesome design won't sell, mediocrity/mass appeal will. Audi/VW being the best example lately, with their 'design once, resize many times' design, the only difference being the row of christmas lights on front. :yuck: I would pick an 'ugly' car over that any time. ;)
 
I think good design is inherently attractive. The new A8 for example has some design anomalies here and there, but in general it's a really nice looking car. Still not as good as the pre-facelift D3 or D2 though.

In general, small cars are hard to design by nature. It's much easier to get a big car to look good. Case in point, the Continental I mentioned earlier:

lincoln-continental-1961.jpg


Kennedy should be honored to have been shot in the back seat of such a gorgeous car.
 
Last edited:
Keef

Kennedy should be honored to have been shot in the back seat of such a gorgeous car.
Click to expand...

Yeah, just think of all the free publicity that it gave Lincoln! That type of stuff is forever - it immortalized both Kennedy and the Continental - albeit for the wrong reasons!
 
I hate to sound like I'm skirting the issue, but throughout automotive history, most French cars are a little weird and odd in style, but few are ever ugly. The latest Peugeots just suffer from having their individual part numbers corporate-raided and ruthlessly mimeographed after the theft, but they aren't really ugly.

The Citroen Ami, of course, is the exception...but it's a really ugly extreme of the entire automotive spectrum. One could say that a lot of Japanese cars are getting ugly now, whereby they excelled once at the simple and refined, and Ferraris are even kind of losing their lusty-looking ways in some cases.

It's funny to me that most recent American cars don't get the chance to be ugly; in many cases, there's been few styling risks taken in the first place. I mean, it's generally either retro, staid, or rather anonymously boxy with a logo-face. That's why stuff like the style of the 2nd-generation Ford Taurus is so polarizing: It's so many things to so many people ranging from weird to neat to ahead of it's time to Very Ugly (other than being a maintenance and repair problem-child). Style is a totally subjective thing, and our opinions are generally formed by what we've experienced in the past...something had to mold it in the first place.
 
Last edited:
Back