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