Man I saw once of these heaps today-it s seriously FUGLY! The front looks like a squished EDSEL-what kind of crack were they smoking?
Anyway, are these things selling?
It beats that square Honda thing or the Scion square thing… but even those don’t beat the Aztek for butt-ugliness.
I hate all the new shiny, curvy, bulky, rounded “crossover” SUVs. Why do they keep trying to mix sporty and rugged? Those two things don’t go together. Something should either be sporty, or rugged - but not both. Also, these new futuristic designs all clash with both the architecture and the natural environment of pretty much any city or town.
They might look good if we lived on a city on the Moon, but to my eyes they look like a bunch of robot slugs.
…if the Edsel had been designed by Raymond Loewy. It’s like a cross between an Edsel and a Studebaker Commander!
Who cares what it looks like? You don’t buy a Subaru for looks, you buy it for power, handling, comfort and reliability. If all you want is looks, you might as well buy an American car.
I kind of like it. It looks unique. It has its own character.
I hate to agree with Argent Towers on the topic of car esthetics–this is, after all, a guy who considers the '71 Mustang Mach 1 to be [thread=374401]the epitome of automotive design[/thread][sup]*[/sup]–but I’m forced to concur with his opinion regarding on-pavement “crossover” SUVs. My personal bugaboo is the hideous Toyota FJ Cruiser, which looks like some six year old’s attempt to render the venerable Series 40 Land Cruiser (an awesome off-road jeep) with Legos. I can’t imagine seriously taking this thing off-road; it looks like you’d leave a trail of plastic bits behind you.
The Subaru Tribeca falls squarely into “meh” territory as an attempt at a post-minivan seven-person-and-groceries transport except for that butt-ugly front facia. It’s clearly not, and not marketed as, an off-road SUV, what with the low clearance and lack of even ostensibly off-road features (brush guards, cab lights, et cetera) so I don’t think it’s fair to criticize Subaru for cashing in on the SUV craze; if anything, they’re offering a more reasonable, better handling, and safer alternative to Explorers and Highlanders. I think Subaru did worse, esthetically, with the Baja (nice concept, lose the mass of Pontiac-inspired plastic body cladding), but I think they did very well with the Forester, which is serviceable as a light off-pavement vehicle but lacks the capabilty for true off-roading an is too small to properly transport more than two adults comfortably. (The rear seats are fine for kids, but the height and leg room is insufficient for adults.)
I’m glad to see that automakers are migrating away from truck-based SUVs and over to more rational, better designed vehicles for the suburban set, but I do lament the loss of cheap, robust, no-frills off-road jeep-type vehicles.
Stranger
[sup]*[/sup]Sorry to keep ragging on you, but I just find this really amusing. No insult intended.
At least it’s named appropriately enough for a toxic pit in New Jersey. I agree, they’re poorly designed and have rather odd protuberances that look like afterthoughts.
The obligatory link for the Subaru Tribeca . Nose like a Saturn/Pontiac Vibe (ugly) but the rest looks generic Japanese.
If you want fugly, look no further than AMC. The Matador (Barcelona version), the Gremlin and the Pacer. I rest my case.
Stranger, I quite like the FJ Cruiser as a pretty decent attempt at an off road vehicle. I’d seriously consider getting one compared to the competition (Jeep excepting Wrangler, Hummer, LandRover). I mean, it’s a Toyota. It’s a bit unfair to compare it to the iconic FJ series of Landcruisers, as I doubt many 2007 Landcruisers are seeing the Rubicon trail.
Well, like I say, the front has that weird “toilet seat” EDSEL grill-but the back is totally fugly-those projections which house the taillights-bizarro! It looks like the designrs were smoking something!
‘So that’s a Matador!’
I don’t find the Tribeca ugly. I wouldn’t own one, but it’s not something that will make me gag and proclaim ‘The goggles! They do nothing!’
When I chose a Jeep Cherokee the competition were touting their ‘car-like rides’. One review I read mentioned the Cherokee drove like a truck. If I’m going to buy a 4WD truck that I’m going to take off-road, ‘car-like handling’ doesn’t do it for me. I want a vehicle that behaves like a 4WD off-road vehicle. And the Cherokee just looked more like it belonged on rutted dirt roads. And it has performed well on steep, narrow roads snotty with mud, and rutted and washboard roads, and snow and ice. I don’t think most sport-cutes are bought by people who actually want to use what their designs are meant to suggest.
Hey, Toyota is inviting those comparisons by naming it so. It still looks like little bits of glued on plastic to me. I don’t think we need to return to the 70’s grotesque chrome and exaggerated front-end hangovers, but I would like to see someone produce a true jeep-type vehicle with a small, torque-y inline 4 or 6 cylinder engine, a substantial frame, and robust body capable of taking a few bangs in the brush without leaving pieces behind. I can’t say much for modern Jeeps (AMC, for all their faults, still made the best Jeep, and the Jeep Liberty is an amazingly crappy vehicle by any standard) and the current crop of gignormous SUVs (Hummers, Land Rovers, Expeditions, et cetera) are a blight on the landscape. I’d love to see Toyota start making the Series 40 again, or someone to make an updated version of the International Scout.
Stranger
I agree, although I still hope to own an FJ40 some day. For now, I still love my '84 4Runner, which can take an amazing amount of abuse. I’m thinking something like those micro central American 4WD Suzukis with Toyota hybrid gas mileage (and Toyota reliability) would be a pretty great car. Screw the safety, I know the thing is going to flip over! That’s what a roll bar is for.
My cousin-in-law had a '68ish Scout. That was a sturdy vehicle.