Weird looking cars currently on sale

Tuesday, 25 July 2017

Toyota C-HR proves weird styling is alive and well. It's not alone in the new-car market.

The Toyota C-HR certainly is weird looking. But then weirdness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. There have been many strtange-looking cars over the years and some of them have even been quite successful.

Today, however, we are taking a look at 'current weird' - cars currently in production that look more striking than things that live on the ocean floor.

Part beach buggy, part-supermini, part-SUV - all on its own in terms of style. That's the Nissan Juke.

Nissan Juke

Wilfully weird, the Juke took Nissan's then-current design language and exploded it in all sorts of wild directions. Not all of them good.

Love it or hate it, you certainly notice it - and enough people have loved it to make it a relatively common sight on New Zealand roads (although many are used-imports). The biggest tragedy of the Juke is that after Nissan took enough brave pills to make it, it abandoned that design language entirely for other cars, leaving the Juke looking like the weird cousin at a family reunion that no-one has actually met before.

BMW i3

Toyota Prius (left) and Mirai (right) together: proof that weirdness is contagious.

While 'weird looking' is something a subjective thing, even those who absolutely love BMW's insanely roomy electric car have to admit it is one weird looking little electron sucker.

But the aggressive nose, two-tone colour scheme and that bit on the rear door that looks like the designer had a seizure when he got to it, all actually hide a conventional overall shape that's needed for packaging, to get medium-car room into a small-car footprint. But then that was the idea with the i3: practical, blatantly futuristic and, above all else, completely different from anything else on the road.

Citroen has been very thorough with the Cactus: it's weird and confusing both inside and out.

Toyota Mirai/Prius

Wow. What happened here?

Twizy does make sense: it's a more car-centric version of the quad bikes loved by French urbanites. Still weird.

When it launched the hydrogen-powered Mirai Toyota slathered it in weirdly swooping lines, bulbous flanks and cartoonish intakes, none of which seemed to serve any purpose other than to confuse and irritate people. And then it decided to do the same to its most boring car too - the Prius. With its womble-like pointy nose, and blatantly weird lights front and rear, Toyota made the latest Prius aggressively strange. Maybe it's kind of cool after all.

Citroen C4 Cactus

With its squinty multi-layered headlights and odd bubble-wrap sides, the Cactus is unashamedly and proudly weird.

Finish it off with those strangely pointy roof rails and a range of contrasting colour choices and the Cactus is the current embodiment of everything avant-garde that French cars used to be. And yes, that includes the DS range. But unlike most of the other cars on this list, the Cactus keeps the weird up inside as well, with a retro interior that is comfortable, confusing and fun. Not a combination you usually look for in a car, but it works.

Renault Twizy

While not officially on sale in NZ, Twizy is under consideration and Renault NZ does have one here. Besides, it's just too blatantly weird to leave out.

It's not really a car in the true sense of the word either: the Twizy is more of a semi-covered electric quad-bike that looks incredibly happy with itself and its weirdness. Happily the Twizy is as much fun to drive as it clearly seems to think it is and people can't help smiling when they see or drive one. That's the kind of weird we like.