Daily Podcast: Ugly
After I labelled the Volvo P1800 ES a hideous mutation, TTAC commentator beetlebug questioned my aesthetic sensibilities. The usual reply to such cavil: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My fellow pedants will have grasped the facile nature of this aphorism long ago. Hearing is also in the ear of the listener. And? Of course, this oft-repeated gem is nothing more that a rhetorical upraised middle finger to anyone who disagrees with its proponent's idea of beauty. In other words, your opinion of beauty is as subjective as mine. So if I think a Pontiac Aztec is a beautiful vehicle who the Hell do you think you are to tell me it isn't? Nonsense. I once read a study wherein an anarchic academic set out to prove the fallacy of this shibboleth. He schlepped a range of pictures of female beauty all over the world and asked representative of over a hundred different cultures to identify which photographed females were babes, and which ones were dogs. Some eighty percent of ALL respondents identified the same ten percent of subjects as the most comely amongst them. This is not a long-winded and unctuous way of saying I'm right and beetlebug's right. I mean, wrong. OK, it is a bit long-winded, but my main point is this: I'm satisfied with both our readers' initial Ten Worst nominations and the TTAC writers' final twenty. Just as humans have an innate ability to choose which women deserve a little genetic blending, pistonheads are a reliable indicator of automotive excellence or lack thereof. We may not be the ultimate arbiters of which cars suck and which cars soar– the commercial marketplace serves that role– but we are pretty damn good at identifying a pile of steaming crap when we see one. If someone then steps in it, well, disgust is on the foot of the easily offended.
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I tend to agree with you kansei. I was excited when the Dodge Magnum was introduced. It was the antithesis (atleast in concept) to most American wagons up to that point. The commercials really drove the point home - "The Dodge Magnum. It hauls." That is why I like the Caliber and the Mazda 3 5-door. That is not to say that I don't think sedans are asthetically more appealing, but I see your point.
I must confess, I always liked the ES as well. While it may not be one of those obviously beautiful designs, I liked it. Think about what kinds of houses that you find attractive. Do you like houses from a certain period, ranch, modern, big, brick, victorian, etc. If we were to show you a bunch of houses that experts said were beautiful, you would likely agree with most of them (just like the study on faces that they did). You would agree mostly whether they were a style you liked or not, objecting only to the styles you really don't like. There are objective standards to architecture that will make a house stand out as well designed to both a panel of experts and most people. However, when it comes to the style of house you like best, you would find houses attractive that the experts would quickly find plain and common. OTOH, you will find plain houses, and even some nice ones unattractive if you dislike the style. Unfamiliar styles which are very foreign and unknown to us often register just like styles we hate. Gisele Bundchen would still look good to us if her earlobes were enlaged with big loops, but not many other women would. Bringing this back to cars - Americans tend to like sedans better than hatchbacks. The standard for a hatchback to be considered attractive is much higher. Even though by objective standards of design agreed upon by experts, both cars can be made attractive. In the US, the bar is higher for cars that are not sedans. Now, back to the ES. I think it has nice proportions, and I really like the glass hatch. However, it is so different that it's practically alien (especially in hot pink). It's harder to find attractive. Just a thought.