Nissan's designs have all been a little... interesting for the past few years... but what the hell is going on at their design center now?

The new "Leaf" makes the Prius look almost attractive... this thing should have been called the Slug... which feeds on leaves.



And then the Juke... which should have been called the Joke or the Puke... somehow I don't find the Aztec to be so offensive any more.


Heinous.

The Leaf looks like a Catfish, the Juke looks like what you would use to catch it.

awww i like the juke!

goofy, a bit sporty, and plenty different.

uhmm....wow.....and I thought the Soul was bad.

who would've ever thought that there would be something uglier than the Aztek?

Posted by PorkChopExpress uhmm....wow.....and I thought the Soul was bad.

I love the Juke, except those lights on the hood. I see them all the time at head office of Nissan.
they look like a frog, and take alot of styling from the 370 if you look at them both.

and i own a soul..........so i clearly like odd cars.

Posted by team haymaker I love the Juke, except those lights on the hood. I see them all the time at head office of Nissan. they look like a frog, and take alot of styling from the 370 if you look at them both. and i own a soul..........so i clearly like odd cars.

guy at work as an avacado/vomit green Soul... what is it that you like about it?
I was just wondering, not flaming, just seriously asking what it was that you liked about your car. no ulterior motives. no flames in waiting... just curious.

i liked the body style to start, thats what got me to the dealership.
From there it was the combination of the price, standard options for the 4U I was looking at. The Soul comes with everything option you could want.
It lacks some things, such as power. But i dont need that for my daily.
Safety tests were great.
theres alot of room inside for passengers suprisingly. the cargo area is small.

I bought it basically right when they came out so they have recently upgraded the interior and instead of the hard plastic door panels I have the new ones have leather and are now padded.
but the dealers are swapping them if you request because people were scratching them too easily. I personally dont have scratches on mine so I wonder what people do to these things.

The people who own these cars love them. I meet with other Soul owners from a Soul forum and the group is just so upbeat and joyful all the time. these people truly love their cars and makes for a great atmosphere. im usually the youngest one there but thats cool.

Basically, its an odd shape that only appeals to some. I got a wicked price on it due to knowing the manager that sold me the car. I would never have found a car with zero KM on it for the price i paid and the options on the car, mileage is decent, warranty is good. and Kia has actually started making good cars and has stepped uo their shit from that crap they used to produce.

big fan of the forte, forte koup, and forte 5 door as well as the new sportage to be honest

also helps that Mike Torpey designed the Soul......


heres my Soul.
all stock. its odd because this is actually my first car that I havent modified heavily. I want to really bad, but Im looking for something else to do and keep this as my daily.
i like that its photogenic




if I had my way with it this is what it would look like.
Photoshopped my personal pic for this

i looked at drove a Forte Koup during the summer. I was not too keen on the dealer experience and for just $3k more, i could've had a Cobalt SS Turbo. But, the car did have a good 'look' to it and was nicely optioned. It was the lack of power that I didn't care for. Because I had a hate for the Cruze (before I drove one), i was seriously looking at a Forte Koup.

If GM does not make a coupe version of a Cruze, you never know, because frankly a Camaro is just out of my price range. The days of me having a $600+ car payment will never happen again/

Posted by team haymaker I love the Juke, except those lights on the hood. I see them all the time at head office of Nissan. they look like a frog, and take alot of styling from the 370 if you look at them both. and i own a soul..........so i clearly like odd cars.

No offense man. To each his own. It's just not for me. Someone near me has a red one. I swear it's not much bigger than one of my boots.

Posted by Samurai If GM does not make a coupe version of a Cruze, you never know, because frankly a Camaro is just out of my price range. The days of me having a $600+ car payment will never happen again/

I bet that in a few years you will be able to pick one up at a decent price.

definately, everyone has their own style when it comes to cars, and thats whats so good about us enthusiasts and people in general. we dont have to like everyone elses car.
yeah the koup is begging for a turbo. it'll happen, Hyundai is starting to drop turbos into everything. one day it'll be in there too.

I was set on getting a Honda element to be honest. Theres so much about the Element that i love. but when it came down to it, the Element was actually double the monthly payment of a Soul and still didnt have all the features of the Soul.

Posted by PorkChopExpress I bet that in a few years you will be able to pick one up at a decent price.

but again, i don't want another huge payment. I learned my lesson with the Cobalt.

Posted by team haymaker and i own a soul..........so i clearly like odd cars.

Actually I like the Soul quite a bit. Even the Nissan Cube is pretty cool.

I like the new Nissans. I'm not in the market for one, because quite frankly, I'd rather something else all together. If I were in the market for an electric car or an oddball turbo AWD car, I'd check them out.

I test drove a Soul and a Cube before we bought the Astra. No one could match the amount of money GM was knocking off of the price of the Astras at that time, so that's what we bought. We would have bought a Soul if we hadn't found the Astra. When we were shopping for a replacement for the Astra when it was starting to give us some oddball problems that kind of turned us off to the car, we shopped the Soul again. We ended up just saying to hell with it, we'll deal with the Astra when it becomes a real problem.

I can't say a whole lot about my automotive styling preferences, though. I don't mind the Aztec, and I want a VehiCross. I also think the catfish face Mazda is using right now isn't that bad at all.

I do think the Panamera looks like shit, though.

Its the Renault influence; in the Nissan-Renault Alliance, Nissan provided the platform while Renault is providing the body design; if you look at like Renault Clio or any other Renault, its the same style.

As for the names; thats all Nissan there! Remember the episode of the Simpsons where Homer meets his half brother Herb who runs a car company? He said that his secret was to give his car Japanese sounding names? Well, Nissan is going back to a current Japanese trend to name things after concepts.

yeah i forgot to mention, that "leaf" or whatever the first pic is, I think looks ridiculous

Yeah, I guess Renault hasn't made a well proportioned or attractive car in quite a while, either.

Yeah, Nissan's definitely going the way of Lincoln in the sense of 'can't make a single good looking car anymore'. The 370Z would be the exception, but I can't stand those stupid barbs on the headlights and taillights... Which is the same minor design flaw that saps the Maxima's appeal. (Or is it the Altima? Too lazy to look it up.)

Spot on comparing the Leaf to a catfish by the way.

Of course, there aren't many car companies that do make good looking cars these days. The new Toyota Camry has an ugly mug, and those new full-size Hyundais are atrocious. edit: Oh, and Mazdas. Just a few years ago, they looked great, but the big grin on their front bumper just looks like a caricature now.

I much prefer the 350Z over the 370 any day

Posted by team haymaker I much prefer the 350Z over the 370 any day

Same here. The 370Z isn't a bad looking car, but the 350Z is much more appealing. The 370Z seems to have lost it's originality. It looks a lot like a Porsche. There is nothing wrong with that, but if I wanted a car that looks like a Porsche, then I would buy a Porsche.