Taste is subjective. We can quantify things like performance, interior space and efficiency with data, but ugly is just that: ugly.
We can’t really measure ugliness, but we know it when we see it. And much like beauty, ugliness is in the eye of the beholder.
The CarExpert team will often have spirited discussions about which vehicles look good and which don’t, so here are some of the latter.
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Let’s be clear: we’re not calling any of these vehicles bad. Just ugly. Let’s set aside any discussions of performance, efficiency, quality, comfort and all of that more important stuff, and just zero in on styling.
Much as our team members will often disagree with each other on design (I like the Cadillac Lyriq’s design, JWo…), I expect you’ll disagree with some of our team’s choices. Let us know how you feel about our choices, and which other vehicles merit inclusion, in the comments below.
Marton Pettendy: Hyundai Ioniq 6
Design may well be the number one purchase consideration, but it’s a subjective subject and for me the Hyundai Ioniq 6 is easily the ugliest car on sale in Australia today.
There’s no doubt the mid-size electric sedan looks much better in facelifted form, and better still in hot N guise. And it doesn’t really have a high bar to jump, given its top-selling rival in the Tesla Model 3 is looking decidedly blobby these days.
But the sagging rear-end of the newer Ioniq 6 is just too much, and makes it look like the Apple mouse of cars – a lot like the unloved AU Falcon of 1998, which Ford defended by claiming it was ahead of it time, then promptly made visual changes in an effort to tone down its excesses – including making a rear spoiler more widely available to disguise its drooping derriere.
Alas, Falcon sales would continue to slide until its axing in 2016, just three decades after the XF Falcon was Australia’s top-selling model for seven years in the mid-1980s.
Perhaps that explains the lack of love for the Ioniq 6 in Australia, where it was outsold by more than four to one last year by the BMW i4 – a handsome electric sedan that also looks a lot sexier than its mushroom-shaped rivals from Mercedes-Benz.
MORE: Explore the Hyundai Ioniq 6 showroom
William Stopford: MG IM6
There are some cars that are mercilessly bland (Leapmotor C10, Geely EX5). There are some that are unashamedly ugly, but could be largely fixed with a facelift (Kia Tasman), and others that are quite handsome but suffer from having bodies that look too big for their chassis (GWM Haval Jolion, MG 5).
But if you want to know what I think is the ugliest, I’ve got one answer: the MG IM6 electric SUV.
A facelift couldn’t fix this. How do I know? Because the IM LS6, as it’s called in China, has been revealed in facelifted form and while it’s had the automotive equivalent of having its teeth straightened, the rest is still a mess.
From the old Tesla Model Y-style front to the faux Aston Martin DBX rear, it’s a mish-mash of design cues. It looks oddly tall and narrow with too much front overhang, and somehow manages to look smaller than it actually is (it’s 4.9m long!) It’s clear the somewhat attractive IM5 liftback’s design language just doesn’t work on an SUV.
Let me save some nails for a few Mercedes-Benz products, too: the current EQE SUV and EQS SUV (if you can tell them apart) and the upcoming CLA. The luxury brand’s design language jumped the shark under Gorden Wagener, who is now departing, and while it acknowledged its EQ cars didn’t have the right look, it subsequently revealed the dire CLA.
Maybe it’ll look better in person. Then again, I said that about the Kia EV4…
MORE: Explore the MG IM6 showroom
James Wong: Cadillac Lyriq
There are a lot of fussy, busy and questionable new car designs today. One that has stuck out to me is the Cadillac Lyriq, specifically the rear… I just can’t appreciate it.
I like the electric SUV’s face, but the angular, fussy and jagged detailing is just a bit too much for me. The crisscross lighting signatures are too busy, and I feel it lacks cohesion and identity.
Cadillac SUVs have always been boxy and distinctive, something the smaller Optiq and larger Vistiq do a much better job at – though I hate the names, too.
Harsh? Maybe. But, I said what I said.
MORE: Explore the Cadillac Lyriq showroom
Josh Nevett: BMW XM
What. An. Abomination.
Nothing says “I don’t know how to spend my abundant riches” like a BMW XM, with its hulking proportions, oversized kidney grille, awkward creases, and squinty lighting signatures.
There’s just no cohesion to the design, and none of the elegance that BMW worked hard to build a reputation for.
It’s a shame, because everything under the edgy, unsightly skin is quite good.
MORE: Explore the BMW XM showroom
Damion Smy: Hyundai Ioniq 6
The demise of the Mahindra Pik-Up has elevated the Hyundai Ioniq 6 to the number one car I’d least like to look at in my garage, despite its excellent capability – and a much-improved facelift due here later this year.
While the update will improve the front, the Ioniq 6’s layer-cake rear, with its multiple overhanging horizontal appendages, reminds me of a Bangle-era 7 Series rump crossed with an HJ–HX Monaro spoiler. And that swooping roofline makes the AU Ford Falcon appear a much safer bet…
MORE: Explore the Hyundai Ioniq 6 showroom
Sean Lander: Lotus Eletre
While you could argue a lot of the Chinese SUV entrants are ugly, I think they are just bland. The Lotus Eletre didn’t get that memo.
From the company that brought you stunners like the Elise, the Evora and even the new Emira comes this disaster of a ‘car’. It’s a 2.5-tonne electric SUV. Let that sink in for a moment: a 2550kg fully electric SUV from the company that built its name on one simple phrase – simplify, then add lightness.
It not only spits in the face of everything the sports car manufacturer once stood for, but it’s horrible to look at too.
The front looks like they described a Ferrari Purosangue over a patchy telephone line to the designers. The rear is drab and it looks like they forgot to finish designing the spoiler and the interior… which is exactly what you would expect from a Chinese car company.
If I never have to look at one again, it will be too soon.
MORE: Explore the Lotus Eletre showroom
Ben Zachariah: Mahindra XUV700
Aren’t we a spoiled bunch, these days?
When asked what we think the ugliest car on sale is, we are overwhelmed with choice. In fact, I had a hard time choosing just one.
However, there is a vehicle that really stands out to me every time I see it on the road, and that is the Mahindra XUV700.
There’s something about it that just doesn’t gel. For one thing, the wheels are too small for the car, leading to a large slab of metal at the rear quarter panel. They tried to hide the small wheels with moulded plastic wheel-arches, but once you see it, it cannot be unseen.
Then there are the wheels themselves, which look like Rodney Jane specials, purchased for $175 a piece. The pop-out door handles, C-shaped headlights, and Y-shaped tail-lights all do their best to modernise the Mahindra, but there’s no getting past the car’s overall shape, which looks like it was borrowed directly from 2007.
The strange window line above the rear wheels attempts to make the car interesting to look at, which it not only fails to do, but the chrome trim highlights the poor alignment of the back doors.
Out front, the grille sticks out like a tongue stuffed into one’s upper lip. Overall, blandness and try-hard design have been mixed together and undercooked, which eventually resulted in the XUV700.
MORE: Explore the Mahindra XUV700 showroom
Max Davies: Subaru Outback Wilderness
Who would’ve thought something as unassuming as an Outback would provide so much to unpack?
Look, Subaru isn’t known for conventionally attractive cars, nor has it ever claimed to produce anything that could objectively be considered ‘beautiful’. The arrival of the Wilderness brand in Australia is also something to be celebrated.
But wow, the new off-road-ready Outback variant isn’t easy on the eyes. Standout features include a new extreme for black plastic cladding, split-level front lighting, and a colossal ‘SUBARU’ wordmark on the grille that seems to be trying a little too hard.
The strikingly square body is capped by a thick black bar across the tailgate, broken up by two black plastic rectangles and weird-looking spotlights. We understand it’s supposed to look rugged, but the outgoing Outback Wilderness seemed much more tasteful in its cosmetic mods.
The standard Outback doesn’t look fantastic itself, but it’s made more pleasant to my eye by the existence of the Wilderness. It’s a stark departure from the relatively stylish SUV/wagon this generation replaces.