The Full Plastic Jeep Renegade Concept “Car”
While ridiculing many of the other cars, we’ve joked that they look like “toys” or “Fisher-Price” products. The goal was to make fun of their designs by suggesting how they “could” be viewed as objects for kids to play with. That was all for good times. This time, however, we’re not joking. This is full-out serious: The Jeep Renegade Concept vehicle looks positively and absolutely like a children’s toy. Looking at it, you just want to put your hand on it and push it across the window sill while making a “wrooom” noise.
We should be thanking whatever ‘overseer’ we believe in that this is just a concept car. At the same time, we should be praying to the same fella or lady that his never make it into production. Sure, metallic light-green is a nice color and all. But that’s it – if anything. Even worse, many people have blamed Chrysler (the makers of Jeep and this car – yup, the Chrylser that has gone downhill and is clearly not doing better as we can see) for just blatantly and outright-ly copying this car from the video game Halo. So not only is it ugly, but they didn’t even come up with it themselves! If you’re going to copy something anyway, why not make sure your tracing something S.I.C.K. like the Aston Martin One-77. Leave it up to Chrysler/Jeep though to really mess up. Just look at those puny headlights. Like a little creature just looking straight ahead, staring aimlessly, looking clueless. No conviction in that expression at all.
And check out that overly-rounded buttocks. Once again this is that type of example of a car where you wouldn’t know if you’re looking at the front or the back of it were it not for (of course) the position of the steering wheel and the color of the lights. Rounded like that is way out of style. And what are those compartments in the back? What are they holding? Looks like they’re buckets or something. What is this? A car to drive around and water plants? Is this another one of those attempts at making an enviro-mobile? No wonder! That might explain its ugliness. (Just go with this excuse, Jeepo)
Now let’s not get started on the “safety” aspect of this ride. Does it look like there is a roof option? Nope. You’ve gotta deal with it. Wanna ride it in the rain? Well, hopefully you like water. And water at high velocity at that – right in your face. In fact, forget water and rain. Take it out for a spin in any weather on any day, and with that 3-inch-tall windshield you’ll be sure to get some bugs smashed right into your face. If you’re lucky enough, you’ll get some flying insect right in your nose – and with the speed at which it will be traveling it could very well penetrate your brain membrane, rendering you dead, paralyzed, or incoherent for the rest of your life. Enjoy! Oh, and do you like it when your leg dangles freely in the open air? Well no problem! They’ve got you covered. Just put it through the half-door with the big gaping hole and you’ve got yourself a vacation.
The Extinct Daewoo Matiz
This is the case of one of those ugly babies that only a mother could love. And since a car has no mother, there is thus no one to love the Daewoo Matiz. In fact, its “mother” even disowned it several times. It has lived in more foster homes than the average ghetto thug that is responsible for your local weekend shootings. When you check the Wikipedia page on this ride, you’ll see that it was passed from parent company to parent company. Its misfortune came from day one, when the company that it was designed for, Fiat (in Italy), rejected the design. It then clawed and fought its way into the arms of other makers, but only for a bit at a time. Believe it or not, this car has amazingly made it through so many different caretakers that its design exists as the following models: Chevrolet Matiz, Chevrolet Spark, Chevrolet Joy, Pontiac Matiz G2, Pontiac Matiz, Pontiac G2, Chevrolet Exclusive, FSO Matiz, Chevrolet Taxi 7:24, Chronos UZ, and Daewoo Matiz. Yup, that’s pretty crazy. Agreed. But at least we can learn a valuable life lesson from it – it’s apparently the ugly kid that sleeps around the most.
Why the car is so ugly isn’t very hard to tell. Just looking at the front of it, what’s up with that weirdly disproportional and just “off”/lob-sided slant of the hood? I’m pretty sure that only minivans keep the same diagonal angle from top of windshield to bottom of front bumper. But then they also have that massive size to somehow “make up” for it and at least that’s just the way we’re used to seeing mini-vans. But a small, (very) compact car? It just looks awkward. Then there are those headlights. Clearly the genius designer must have thought to himself that Mercedes has round headlights and Porsche has round headlights – and they’re doing stellar, so it must be that the round headlights are it. They undoubtedly make the whole car. Well, apparently not. For one, you would need to pay attention to the rest of the design, not just the headlights. At the same time, Mercedes has two round “eyes” on each side, and Porsche’s is a bit off-angle so that it’s not flush with the hood. It’s the small details that apparently matter. For this Daewoo hottie the two round headlights just look like they’re trying to imitate a scared facial expression. What could it be scared of, you ask? Well, I think that’s pretty clear as well. Any car within 10 yards of this toy is enough to pose an incredible safety risk, and the little sucker knows it well. So he’s already bracing himself for a head-on collision. In fact, a slightly larger flying insect might put a hefty dent into that chassis. I doubt that it’s solid construction. It targets cheap markets, looks cheap, and definitely can’t have much “thickness” to the exterior sheets, even if they are indeed metal. They should be putting a quarter next to this thing in all pictures for size comparison. It’s so small and stumpy looking that a Prius would eat it for breakfast (if the Prius, or any cars, ate breakfast, that is). The one claim to fame we’ll grant the sizzling Matiz is that it was ahead of its own time by being such a tiny ride even way before the newcomers of the “green” revolution started coming along (which is pretty much just now). And ugly it was, just as hybrids and enviro-amicable cars are today. Take a good look at this one, car manufacturers of today, and consider why Daewoo went bust. Maybe take this as a warning and stop while you’re ahead. Oh shitters – you’re not ahead of anything. Never mind. You’ve got nowhere to go but up from here, so keep on “pioneering” and “inventing” as you do.
The Communist Pick-up Truck: Live from Poland
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, loyal readers and disloyal readers, randos who ended up here while exploring the inter-connectedness of the interwebs aimlessly, and pedophiles who misunderstood what this site is about: we present to you the first FuglyRides.com original production. Featured today is an unknown-brand and unknown-model communist-era pickup-style truck shot LIVE! in Poland. This sexy two-axle roller was spotted while members of the FuglyRides team were vacationing in the post-soviet satellite-state only several months ago. This all-rights-released original photography was done with our professional snap-shooting equipment, which is comprised of a larger-than-pocket-size 2.1 megapixel super-cam from 1999. And don’t you dare criticize our “amateur” equipment! Back in the day this sleek point-and-shoot machine was top-of-the-line and a serious wallet-buster at the prices back then. No question about it that we’re a professional outfit.
But take a look at this rugged vehicle. It introduces a new category into the site that features old rides. Anything that has made it from mere paper into the actual physical world is fair game. Of course it has to be fugly, but there is no shortage of that here.
Ford F-150 and Dodge Ram, move over. Despite its humble roots in the USSR and its classification as an almost-extinct species, some modern car maker will no doubt pick this up and redesign it for new, mainstream production. I mean you would be stupid not to. Take at it, Detroit! Lead the world with another “great idea” of yours. Why should it be revitalized? Well, let’s just appreciate the beauty and craft that went into this truck even so many years ago. What happened with the super-idea of having rims match the tires? Why did we start making rims in clashing colors? Tires clearly never were made in various colors, so why not just leave it matching? This surely makes no sense. Look at the uniform and calm beauty of those wheels. We wouldn’t have to worry about keeping the rims clean. Today, when the rim matches the tire, we know that the owner has been neglecting his car and failing to have his 4-year old wash the rims with a toothbrush or having his dog lick off all the dust after smearing the rims with bacon-lard. We forgot the good old days where it all didn’t matter, since everything was just plain black. Ah, do we miss the old times… (not!)
And check out the geometry of that pick-up truck. You think you’ve started a new revolution with your boxes and cubes – Scion, Ford, and Honda? Oh you have not! You blatantly copied the brilliant concept from the red-hats to the East. You should be ashamed. But at least this makes it clear why it was indeed such a “great idea” after all. And another feature to note on this Soviet car is the careful selection of colors. While the cab in front is a light yet powerful green, the back is a communist yet dull red. Oh do we wish the mud flaps in the back were a sunny yellow to round it all out. Yet we can’t have everything. But this makes you think. Did they not have enough of one color rationed during communism to finish the full car? Was the amount per color that was shipped over to the factory just enough for the respective halves of the car? Only by the time one truck was sold did another can of each color come in? Of course we can only speculate. But to give them the benefit of the doubt, we would be best to assume that the makers of this F-150-killer truck were well ahead of the times and used different colors on purpose. Only now do we see “smart manufacturers” reviving the trend, such as with the black plastic panels on the Honda Element and the white roof on the Ford Flex. At least we now know that they took their ideas from an excellent source of inspiration.
What makes this crappo-truck such a contender for new best pick-up in its class is undoubtedly the cargo space. Just take a look at that ingenious use of vertical space. I mean c’mon Ford, Dodge, Toyota, and all the other pick-up producers out there. Don’t you realize you can make those walls in the back higher and let people fit more stuff? Just imagine the possibilities. Anyone could be filling up their bed with oranges during their trip to the Sunshine State, with peaches on their way through Georgia, or ping-pong balls to deliver to bored college kids. And imagine the possibilities for landscaping companies. Can you even comprehend how many more Mexicans would fit in the back without the risk of having them fall out on turns?! Get on it people, and start exploiting that vertical space which is so endless. If you’re going to copy some of the exemplary features of this truck, make sure you copy them all!
And you ride on, little truck! Roam the streets of Poland and explore your roots. You must have been a true pimp-wagon back in your day. I’m sure that there is even more to your beauty than is visible on the outside. It’s the MPG that counts.