Hyundia Elantra 2011

Hyundai has definitely been on a role lately.  The Sonata came onto the seen and moved Hyundai forward to compete with the big guys.  The 2011 Elantra is another lethal weapon in their arsenal.  It is very similar in style to the Sonata but on a smaller scale. 

The head lights are very cool and very organic.  Inside the casing you have very "Audi" looking bar that squirms its way around the main head light and then around the secondary lights, this adds some pretty good design interest.  The grill area of the Elantra could be better.  It has an opening right as the hood ends, which is small, followed by a larger opening lower and is divided by thin cross bars.  This is all wrapped up with an unusual indentation surrounding the two openings.  This design feature makes the Elantra distinguishable from the Sonata, but not in a good way.

The rear of the Elantra is the highlight of the vehicle.  The tail lights are organic looking like the head lights, but for a small car it gives off a very upscale look. The character line is picked up by the tail lights and makes the car feel like it is moving while standing still.  The trunk lid follows the design of the tail lights and carries nicely from one side to the next.  The Elantra takes advantage of some nicely places lines to dress up the back end.

The profile of the Elantra has some interesting lines, the character line is strong as it comes off the tail lights and fades as it heads towards the front wheel well.  The vehicle has distinctive rounded wheel wells, this effect usually does not play well with such a distinctive character line, but the Elantra pulls it off just fine.  As the real wheel well moves front to back, it grows and becomes one of the lines that rounds the back of the car, helping the profile work nicely with the rear.  For its size, the Elantra has very nice lines.

One nice thing about the rear of the Elantra is that the trunk seam matches up with the rear quarter panel seem (outlined in yellow), keeps things nice and neat, However there is a seam under the front door that breaks the design (outlined in red).

All in all, this is a very nice design for a small car. Well done Hyundai!

2011 Hyundai Elantra

Grade: 8

Nissan Quest 2011

Mamma always said "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all".  I would love to take that advice, but it would put me out of a job.  Where to begin... lets start with the front, it sucks.  NOTE TO CAR COMPANIES:  DO NOT PUT CHROME BARS CONNECTING HEAD LIGHTS AND TAIL LIGHTS.  Anytime a car company has a hole to fill, they fill it with a chrome bar, everyone can tell its there, you can't hide it, so don't bother.  The headlights are just plain ugly, the shape is unattractive and comes to some jagged edges near the grill, and the grill, yikes, that's another beast.  It has an irregular design and is framed by the head lights, chrome bar, and bumper, it's just ugly, no other way to put it.  I really don't understand why you would build an ugly car, what a waist of time and money, and we are only on the front.  Call us, we will tell you on paper if its ugly, we could save you billions, and we would be glad to do it!!

The rear isn't much better, the tail lights seem out of place and are not the right shape for the van, you would think that a boxy frame design would lend itself to a boxy tail light design, makes sense to us.  The van looks to tall for its wheel base, it seems very top heavy.  We understand that vans have to be somewhat boxy by nature but this is to much box.  The rear window is to large for the design.  The chrome bar connecting the tail lights is STUPID!!!!  I can appreciate what Nissan tried to do with giving the Quest a wrap around window feel, but it just doesn't work.  This Quest is just odd looking.  

The profile of the Quest is a wreck. The character line of the Quest runs from the tail light to the front wheel well, fading as it moves forward.  The line under the windows is very straight until it reaches the side mirrors where it starts to head north, seems odd to have that curve on such a boxy design.  Their are so many seams on the real quarter panel it looks like a street map.  The tires and wheel wells seem very small and make the van seem very unbalanced vertically.  The Quest also suffers from the age old scar where the rear door slides, should have hidden it under the window! 

 I can see what Nissan wanted to do, it would have worked better if the designers went with the concept of this vehicle.  The concept does not have all the seams and limits the amount of odd pieces that were added to dumb down the design.  NOTE TO CAR COMPANIES:  IF YOU HAVE A GOOD CONCEPT GO WITH IT, DUMBING IT DOWN DOESN'T WORK.

Quest Concept

2011 Nissan Quest

Grade: 2 

BMW X3 2011

When the first X3 hit the market we were all glad to see the luxury brands entering the small SUV segment.  The problem was that all the luxury brands were entering the segment with thin skinned, dumbed down designs.  The original X3 was a little to small and lacked in design appeal.  The 2011 X3 has made up for all that was lacking with the previous model.  The 2011 X3 grew to a more appealing size and incorporated a lot of the beef that the X5's design featured (The X5 received a 10 from Car Grade when it came out).  The head lights of the vehicle are kind of a let down because they do not look like the rest of the fleet.  They are simple and rectangular instead of the classy curves of other BMW models.  The front of the X3 has all the other bold features that we love about BMW.  The grill is classic BMW yet fits into the design nicely.  The raised fog lights give off a very gruff look without sending the design to far to the off road side.   

The rear of the X3 is where most of the improvement took place.  The previous X3 had very quirky tail lights that where far to small for the design, making an already weak design look weaker.  The new X3 has BMW's double lit tail light system which is really cool but classy at the same time.  The new tail lights slant somewhat downward as they wrap around the back of the vehicle.  The white stripe carries from the inside edge to the outside edge without breaking which helps keep the tail light system combined as it crosses over the from the frame to the rear gate.  The stripe is thinner on one side than the other adding to the appeal.  The rest of the rear is clean and neat.  We like when car companies don't throw a lot of words and crap on the rear of the their cars.  The X3 just has BMW's trade mark logo and "X3".  The rear reflectors are built right into the design giving off a well thought out look.

  .The profile of the X3 is enhanced by a deep character line starting from the rear of the front wheel well, trailing back until it hits the tail light and then is carried by the tail light design, attention to detail, we like that!!  This gives the X3 an aggressive feel for such a small SUV.  The part we don't like is the angular rear window.  The window takes a bunch of small angles as it rounds the back of the truck.  This is similar to the previous model but is something that should have been left behind. 

It is very difficult to give small vehicles good lines because of the fact that there is not much room to pull it off, but the X3 adds small touches to give it the advantage in its segment.  This is definitely a step forward in the compact SUV segment.

2011 BMW X3

Grade: 9