So close to thanking that post...till you threw in the Saab jab, ha.
But yeah, I actually tend to like it when cars get a little weird. The Juke, Multipla, Smart, b200 etc...they might not all be great cars (the Smart is downright terrible), but I love the fact that they tried something a little different. There's nothing worse than a bland inoffensive jelly bean of a car. Unfortunately, that's exactly what sells.
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I was actually considering a CrossTrek for my wife who wanted a smaller vehicle that was more fuel efficient. Didn't think they were that ugly, just looked like a Subaru Impreza with better clearance for the snow.
You have to be doing some pretty serious off-roading or rural driving before ground clearance becomes an issue.
I drove an S4 which was already lower than an A4 stock, and had a full aftermarket suspension on it which put it about an inch lower than that, and the only problem I had was the plastic belly pan getting torn to shreds. After replacing it with a steel skid plate I never once got stuck in that car or had a problem with ground clearance.
It was a major pain in the butt leaving parking lots. I'd have to take crazy angles out of the steep ones and I'd 3 wheel all the time.
I don't think I'd ever want to daily drive a low car again because of the hassle, but I'd never seek out ground clearance.
Looks like a shopping cart with that spoiler. To say nothing about the hideous mail slot in front and garbage interior from the 90s. Nothing screams obnoxious boy-racer like this car.
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You have to be doing some pretty serious off-roading or rural driving before ground clearance becomes an issue.
I drove an S4 which was already lower than an A4 stock, and had a full aftermarket suspension on it which put it about an inch lower than that, and the only problem I had was the plastic belly pan getting torn to shreds. After replacing it with a steel skid plate I never once got stuck in that car or had a problem with ground clearance.
It was a major pain in the butt leaving parking lots. I'd have to take crazy angles out of the steep ones and I'd 3 wheel all the time.
I don't think I'd ever want to daily drive a low car again because of the hassle, but I'd never seek out ground clearance.
Really, you don't find build up of snowbanks annoying in the winter? We have a large curb on our driveway, annoying to always have to angle up or down and not hit the bumper. At my parents house (same size curb back in the day) my buddy brought over his moms new benz and took off the front end going directly straight off.
I've always driven SUV's and now a truck for pulling a trailer and love that I can go into a parking lot and not have to worry about that odd time you'd hit the bumper on the curb.
Really, you don't find build up of snowbanks annoying in the winter? We have a large curb on our driveway, annoying to always have to angle up or down and not hit the bumper. At my parents house (same size curb back in the day) my buddy brought over his moms new benz and took off the front end going directly straight off.
I've always driven SUV's and now a truck for pulling a trailer and love that I can go into a parking lot and not have to worry about that odd time you'd hit the bumper on the curb.
I've always been in the habit of putting one wheel across the transition at a time, if for nothing else it's way smoother than going perpendicular to it and plowing the whole front end and back end at once instead of one wheel at a time.
The snow banks were fun, I definitely plowed snow with my old car at times, rarely now with a car at stock height. What sucked was thinking it was snow but finding out it had thawed and frozen back as ice. I've never once damaged a bumper though and I've driven some fairly low cars. I did beat the crap out of the X pipe on my S4 on speed bumps. The mountainous over the top huge ones took some severely angled driving to make it over without scraping. I could not make it over the monsters at the Winter Club without scraping. Stuff like that grew pretty old. I absolutely loved snow days in that car though. I'd look for excuses to go for a drive.
I've always been in the habit of putting one wheel across the transition at a time, if for nothing else it's way smoother than going perpendicular to it and plowing the whole front end and back end at once instead of one wheel at a time.
The snow banks were fun, I definitely plowed snow with my old car at times, rarely now with a car at stock height. What sucked was thinking it was snow but finding out it had thawed and frozen back as ice. I've never once damaged a bumper though and I've driven some fairly low cars. I did beat the crap out of the X pipe on my S4 on speed bumps. The mountainous over the top huge ones took some severely angled driving to make it over without scraping. I could not make it over the monsters at the Winter Club without scraping. Stuff like that grew pretty old. I absolutely loved snow days in that car though. I'd look for excuses to go for a drive.
Sorry, what's an S4?
I used to drive a big boat, a Pontiac Parisian, by current car standards that thing wasn't low at all and I used to love plowing through anything with that. Always going over things one wheel at a time, especially large curbs. Creeks, snow, mud, etc. were always fun to drive through.
Way over powered V8's with rear wheel drive was so fun! But yeah, the occasional snow drift that had something under it was a bit sketchy. I almost hit a power box doing that last winter in an alley. Totally deserted, fluffy snow everywhere, piles of it from banks, I narrowly decided one snow bank was a bit too high and as I brushed by it the snow fell off and revealed a huge green power box.
Anyway, on topic, the cross trek just seemed kind of neat, we were considering impreza's and the crosstrek just seemed like one but a bit higher. So why not have the extra clearance. Actually seemed like a more compact Forrester with similar height.
we were considering impreza's and the crosstrek just seemed like one but a bit higher. So why not have the extra clearance?
Because while that extra clearance will make a significant difference only a few days a year, you will have a poorer-handling car (compared to the regular Impreza) the whole year round. As good as technology is these days, gravity is one persistent mother! Personally I'd rather have a car that is better at driving in 95% of situations, and put up with the misery of that 5%.
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I think you mean the signal lights. The headlights are lower.
As someone else has alluded to, it gets pretty tiring looking at the same cookie cutter designs done over and over. At one time I could name every car model on the road, today it's pretty much impossible to distinguish one brand from another.
Anyway, if I am allowed to go outside North America, I can checkmate this thread in one solid move. Behold, The Fiat Multipla:
Besides the obvious eye vomit, the frikkin front and rear door handles don't even line up. It is hard to believe Italy produced this monstrosity.
It looks like a fugly cartoon character. What are those designer thinking? What does Fiat allowing this fugly car on the market? I would have fire the designer on the spot and hire some kid instead to design a car.
