Thoughts from the Curb

Nov 17, 2008 - Scenes from the Curb: Ugly Cars in Korea

I'm back from my Alias-like journey from L.A. to Korea to L.A. to Cancun and back to L.A. With the Los Angeles Auto Show media days on Wednesday and Thursday, plus the 2010 Mazda 3 event I'm going to tomorrow, there's going to be plenty of news and thoughts coming in the next few days.

So before that happens, I thought I'd share some of the pics I took in Korea. Most of my thoughts can be found in my blog from there, but as I mentioned in my 2010 Kia Soul first drive, Korea is mostly a sea of grey and black ho-hum, non-descript cars. However, some of their lesser known brands like Ssangyong have the knack of making some truly hideous vehicles. Case in point these two barf bags: the Ssangyong Actyon and the Ssangyong Rodius. Since R&T's Mike Monticello and I ditched the chaparone car, we got into the Gwangju airport early enough to spend a good 10 minutes snapping pictures of these hideous things. Fun times.

The first drew the small press pool's attention for its passing resemblance to the BMW X6 from the rear. After I assured them that the Actyon actually came before the X6, BMW's weirdo coupeish SUV thing suddenly lost even more stock. I noted that it boosted its logo from Starfleet.

And then there's the Rodius, which I believe was voted ugliest car in the world by CAR readers a few years back. This thing looks awful from every direction, with terrible bloated proportions. It doesn't get much worse than this.

- James Riswick

9:48 am | Categories: scenes from the curb Permalink | Alert Administrator

Add to: