Going Ugly On Purpose

I recently visited the great state of Texas (State motto: “Don’t shoot!”), where I made several highly important observations that I will now share with you. They are:

1. Everyone loves pickups. This matter is not up for dispute. If you walk into a dealership, you will walk out with a brand-new pickup, even if you’re just the FedEx guy dropping off a package.

2. Everyone loves Texas. Nearly all of those pickups are the “Longhorn Package” or the “Lone Star Model” or the “Build A Huge Border Fence Edition.” Also, more than one resident told me a story about how some giant, low-priced national chain restaurant tried to move into a local strip mall, only to be put out of business by a mediocre, Texas-owned fish place.

3. It has not rained in Texas since the Bush administration. Governor Rick Perry responded to this in 2011 by asking Texans to pray for rain over a designated three-day rain-praying period. Interestingly, the governor of my home state, Georgia, attempted a similar thing in 2007, and it only just stopped raining this morning.

But my most interesting Texas-related observation relates to license plates. This won’t surprise regular readers, as I go on license plate-related rants with surprising frequency. There was, for example, that time I made fun of Montana for having a “Quilt Lover” license plate, which resulted in a ricin-laced quilt appearing on my doorstep.

Anyway, the observation is: Texas license plates are really boring. I mean really, really boring. In fact, the latest Texas license plate is so dull that it looks like it was created when someone made a black-and-white photocopy of another state’s license plate.

So why would the proudest state in the union uglify its license plates? Money, of course.

Texas, you see, recently privatized the sale and design of its special license plates. That means some large private company – presumably one that’s based in Texas and has a lot of pickup trucks – now shares profits with the DMV whenever a special plate is sold. So the DMV decided to drum up special plate sales by ditching Texas’s colorful standard-issue license plate, which featured a gorgeous blue sky over rolling, water-starved hills.

Texas isn’t alone in this. Virginia has done it for years. Virginia’s normal plate is a boring white and blue design, while the special tag options include plates for Jimmy Buffett fans, Friends of Tibet, and my personal favorite: one that says “ROBERT E. LEE: THE VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN.”

But Texas and Virginia don’t hold a candle to the true masters: German automakers.

The very worst offender is pictured above, and at the top of this article. If you’re a European (in which case: please send some of your rain to Texas), these are the base wheels on your all-new, 2013 Mercedes-Benz SL-Class. That’s right: unless you pay thousands of dollars for an upgrade, you’re stuck with what can only be described as imitation hubcaps.

While I understand that taste is subjective, these wheels are so bad that Mercedes doesn’t even take press photos with them. Seriously: they’re called the “Stern” design and they’re standard on the SL350. Google that and see if you can find even one photo with these wheels. My bet is you can’t. You wouldn’t know it existed unless you saw the image at the top of this article, which is from a European Mercedes configurator.

In fact, I had to travel to Zurich just for this picture, which proves my unending commitment to providing you, dear reader, with the finest coverage of every single issue. Over there, the base-level SL350 starts at 126,400 Swiss francs, which translates to more than $130,000 in the US – or nearly $138,000 in Canada. With those wheels. You have to pay another $1,500 to upgrade to something else.

Another car that’s famous for sticking you with crappy base wheels is the BMW 5-Series GT. Of course, we all know the 5-Series GT is ugly to begin with, and that can’t be remedied. But it’s made worse by the 535i GT’s base wheels, which make the car look like a cargo van sitting on four cans of tuna turned on their side and surrounded by rubber.

Things wouldn’t look so bad if you could get a set of nice, big wheels, like the ones they offer on the 550i GT. But you can’t do that unless you actually upgrade to a 550i GT. Presumably, some people have actually done this just so their 5-Series GT wouldn’t tip over in hard cornering.

The Porsche Panamera S has the same problem, among many others. The base wheels are awful, and may have been pulled straight off the kind of tiny, diesel-powered hatchback they would only drive in Europe. You have to spend $2,000 to get anything decent, and more than $3,200 to get something really meaty.

You might be thinking that this is nothing new. Of course they make the base wheels small so that people spend more for the nice ones! But my theory is a little more sinister. I think German automakers make their base wheels not just small, but intentionally ugly, just so people will pay for upgrades.

That’s right: I think, during the development of the car, a bunch of Germans are sitting around a table sharing ideas (Such as: “Ze car must include a very large ashtray”) and one of them reminds everyone that the base wheels have to look like a worn Frisbee. Then they all nod in agreement and drive away in their tiny, diesel-powered hatchbacks.

In other words, German automakers have a lot in common with the Texas DMV. It’s easy to see where this is going: the BMW X5 Quad Cab Texas Edition. With 14-inch base wheels.

@DougDeMuro operates PlaysWithCars.com. He’s owned an E63 AMG wagon, road-tripped across the US in a Lotus without air conditioning, and posted a six-minute lap time on the Circuit de Monaco in a rented Ford Fiesta. One year after becoming Porsche Cars North America’s youngest manager, he quit to become a writer. His parents are very disappointed.