What Makes Your Car Ugly? Pontiac Aztek Edition

Featured Selection from Autogotistical Carpinions

This particular post has taken a lot of thought on my part, because I wanted to do more than just say "Hey, this car is ugly." I now live on the same block as an Aztek so I am given to dwell upon its status as an icon in the automotive industry more often than I'm comfortable with. I believe I can now say I have found the donors which have lent their genealogical makeup to this vehicle, and I can tell you that none of it is pretty.


To begin with, The Aztek was a crossover. In this case that means it isn't quite a minivan. Although it can be painful to look at, the hood line is generally longer, and they scraped off some of the back to "sportify" the rear and keep the "wagon" label from attaching too firmly (this way it rather slides off). On the plus side (some may prefer using the word size instead of side), this vehicle offers a similarly commanding view of the road which has made SUVs so popular in the U.S.A. In my opinion, the Aztek begat the beginning of the end for Pontiac's styling trend taken up in the nineties, whereby they thought that they could make anything look good by adding lower body-side cladding. It worked for many of Pontiac's models, but could not help the Aztek.

The Aztek was supposed to carry on Pontiac's "outdoorsy theme" inspired by the Trans Sport Montana, which was also not very well inspired. The original Trans Sport would have been a revolution in family transportation, which I think was the only reason that Pontiac used the same name for their minivan, as it bore no other resemblance to the concept. Too bad for that. We really lost out folks, but that's nothing new where corporations are concerned.

Back to the topic at hand. Where did the Aztek really come from then? They started with the idea of appealing to folks who really needed a minivan, but couldn't own up to it. But how could they characterize these folks? What features could they add to an existing vehicle to tap a new demographic? It would need to embody independence, flexibility, and use design principles perfected in the previous 20 years. What other cars could they draw from for these elements?

You really didn't need to read this far.

Really. You will be sorry if you go any further.

Don't say I didn't warn you.


The Chevette/T1000 family of cars had been sitting idle for a few pleasant years, and were chomping at the bit to be loosed upon the world once again, so Pontiac made it taller, wider, and updated the interior to match the best in modern adventure vehicles, but kept the same basic shape. There had been previous exeriments with turning standard Chevettes into exciting vehicles, but they were usually panned due to poor placement of bottle openers under the hood.

So we have the basic outline of the vehicle, but what could Pontiac do to keep the masses from exclaiming that they had just seen the Chevette reborn? They had to find a way to disguise it so that nobody would realize what it really was. Unfortunately they drew inspiration from a shining example of movie-making: National Lampoon's Vacation. I'm sure we'll never know the true reasons for doing this, but I'm certainly looking forward to the next car they try to sell with the same styling cues as the Griswold's wagon.

Wait. I think somebody already did. Does this look familiar? I think it might. If you look closely you can see the redundant set of tail lights that accent a very similar rear facia featured on the Lincoln Navigator. How odd!!

Now that we have exposed the Aztek's questionable lineage, I will tell you what was good about it. It could double as a tent! How many cars can do that? There was a boy racer version planned as an Anniversary Edition (a la Fiero), but it didn't convey enough of the Chevette's natural charisma, so it was left in the round file.

Blogged with the Flock Browser