CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 16years old!
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It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Following on from the Nissan Juke mention on the lighting thread...
I vote for (currently available cars):
Nissan Juke
Mini Countryman / Paceman
Fiat 500L
BMX X6
I have, in the past, had soft spots for cars others have considered ugly, from the practical Fiat Multipla, to the outrageously stunning Lamborghini Countach (which I have been taken for a drive in for charidy and didn't stop grinning for hours afterwards).
Anything with a Dacia badge on the front!
There are also some really fugly cars coming out of Inda and China currently!!
It would be easier to compile a list of cars that weren't ugly. They seem to have gone through a process of convergent evolution to all end up looking the same, all pointless curves, just because the technology exists to produce complexly curved mouldings and panels, doesn't mean it should be used.
Front ends are too aggressively styled, wheels are too big, tyres are too low profile. If manufacturers style their cars based on cues from the motorsport industry it's hardly surprising so many people think they're Colin Macrae when they get behind the wheel.
Anything with an air scoop on the front or spoiler on the back should also be crushed into a cube at the owner's expense.
Either Audi or BMW (or quite possibly both) produce a thing like a 4x4 crossed with a sports car. It is hideous.
"Anything with an air scoop on the front or spoiler on the back should also be crushed into a cube at the owner's expense."
You should suggest that to Keith Brown, he's looking for cycle friendly policies.
"Anything with an air scoop on the front or spoiler on the back should also be crushed into a cube at the owner's expense"
Oi! Leave my car alone!
(in fairness the air scoop on the first BMW Mini Cooper S was needed for the supercharger. But the engine now has a more common turbocharger which doesn't need the big draw of air from the scoop - it's there purely for the aesthetic. And I like it. So nerr!
I do actually like the old Subarus Imprezas and Mitsubishi Lancer Evos too (though not necessarily those driving them) - much more than the dull homogenised hatchbacks they've become. In truth I'd love a really high performance car, but any speed would be saved for track days at Knockhill (and a trip to the Nurburgring - I don't have a bucket list, but it would be on there if I did).
You'll just have to take your cosmetic scoop off and live with a hole in the bonnet then!
Porsche Cayenne
Range Rover Evoque (or indeed any range rover)
Practically everything has a spoiler o it now.... perhaps that's your point ;)
Citroen's have a knack for being ugly.
Except the big luxury ones, they have a knack for being ugly and beautiful at the same time. I don't know what they do that.
There's a hole in my bonnet dear Jezza, dear Jezza
There's a hole in my bonnet dear Jezza, a hole
Then mend it dear Anth'ny, dear Anth'ny, dear Anth'ny
Then mend it dear Anth'ny, dear Anth'ny, mend it
With what shall I mend it, dear Jezza, dear Jezza
With what shall I mend it, dear Jezza, with what?
Get a bike dear Anth'ny, dear Anth'ny, dear Anth'ny
Get a bike dear Anth'ny, dear Anth'ny, a bike.
"Except the big luxury ones, they have a knack for being ugly and beautiful at the same time. I don't know what they do that."
Y'know, you're right.
"...in fairness the air scoop on the first BMW Mini Cooper S was needed for the supercharger..."
Supercharger.
SUPER.
CHARGEr.
Improve the means of the introduction of vital gases to the combustion chamber if you like, vehicle manufacturers, but please give the systems responsible sensible names rather than WOOAAARRRRGHTHRUSTIMAX-style things which only egg on the easily egged-on. Fuel injection could easily have been called simply fuel introduction rather than barging straight to fourth base.
Bike names can be excessively WOOARRRRGHy too. A couple of years back there were a bunch of Konas in the office car park called things like Fire Mountains or Pyroclastic Throbtivators or whatever.
"should also be crushed into a cube"
I was going to nominate the Nissan Cube actually.
I don't really buy the "all cars look the same" line because cars have *always* all looked the same. Particularly true in grainy black and white photos from days of yore.
Where can I buy a Pyroclastic Throbtivator?
"Where can I buy a Pyroclastic Throbtivator?"
Gumtree
Any 'luxury' car that has 'Christmas lights' around the headlamps is just tacky kitsch.
Do they still stick the letters X, R, S, T and i after car names in varyingly silly combinations as a method of bumping up the price and inflating the ego of the driver?
Any 'luxury' car that has 'Christmas lights' around the headlamps is just tacky kitsch.
All Audis are guilty of this. The Germans are particularly adept at designing brutish, aggresive looking executive saloons and then styling the rest of their range around them in either bigger or smaller versions. Take a BMW 3 series and stretch the boot a bit you get a 5. Stretch the whole thing you get a 7. Chop the tail off you get a 1. Make the roof higher and jack the suspension up and you get the "X". All the same predictable design formula and all equally butt ugly.
I think this has pretty much been nailed already: it's any of the cars (not sure if they're all 4x4s or not) that are essentially the house design car but too big - they look like the normal car has been dropped into a Warner Bros cartoon, a bicycle pump inserted into whatever orifice is appropriate, and they've been inflated to the point where they're about to go pop.
They're extremely lazy designs and the proportions are all wrong.
Examples - the BMX X6, Mini Countryman, Porsche Cayenne...
"letters X, R, S, T and i"
i iS TiT Si
Hmm, needs punctuation.
"Do they still stick the letters X, R, S, T and i after car names in varyingly silly combinations as a method of bumping up the price and inflating the ego of the driver?"
I'm beginning to think this is personal.... *Mini Cooper S driver*
@wingpig - Agreed, but 'supercharger' is far from being a recent coinage: 1920s racing cars were equipped with superchargers, and a quick google reveals that they were first used with internal combustion engines as early as 1878. It's an engineering rather than a marketing term. Perhaps less macho sounding is the German equivalent 'Kompressor', but that's probably a Mercedes trademark.
I thought 'Kompressor' was the German for 'Turbo'? You're right though, I think Merc has managed to corner that one.
EDIT: I'm completely wrong on the meaning, is indeed Supercharger.
Bike names can be excessively WOOARRRRGHy too. A couple of years back there were a bunch of Konas in the office car park called things like Fire Mountains or Pyroclastic Throbtivators or whatever.
Kona used to name their bikes after features of volcanoes if I recall, eg. 'caldera'. This makes sense as, apparently "The company name comes from the owners' love of Kailua-Kona in Hawaii."
AFAIK a supercharger is driven off the engine shaft and a turbocharger off the exhaust gas of the engine using a turbine or impeller. A turbosupercharger is a hybrid between the two.
There also exists the compound engine where there are turbines in the exhaust that provide further power to the driveshaft. It's not a new concept and was used in the last big aero piston engines before jets took over. Apparently it is being looked at by the likes of BMW again to increase engine efficiency. I suppose it would be too much to ask them to do this by reducing engine output from multiple hundreds of horses powers.
There was the recent Roubaix-gate where an American bicycle company were trying to claim the naming rights of French words for their Taiwanese-built bikes.
I believe Whyte have a bike named a Portobello. Not sure if this is after the Peoples Republic of or the mushroom.
I saw one a few days ago, so Austin Allegro. With square steering wheel.
@Kaputnik - maybe the street in London famous for it's Market?
@Wilmington's Cow I was going to express an opinion that some of the modern Minis are not the most beautiful cars on the road, but that I thought you drove one... (I think I am thinking of the Minis that look like they've been crossed with a 4x4? (Is there a theme developing in my posts?))
"(I think I am thinking of the Minis that look like they've been crossed with a 4x4? (Is there a theme developing in my posts?))"
The Countryman is the big 4x4esque version and is hideous.
I like the 'smaller' (obviously not Mini mini) versions, and have a Clubman (estate version). Not everyone's cup of tea though :)
Any 'luxury' car that has 'Christmas lights' around the headlamps is just tacky kitsch.
Oh I hate that. I hate it even more when it is the indicator lights that are a string of tiny, well spaced out bulbs. Makes them very difficult to see, even on the rare occasions the driver actually uses them.
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