The second reason that companies make ugly cars is, I think, bad management. So companies just make ugly cars, Subaru in particular. The Subaru Baja is one of the ugliest cars ever made. I think that it is inconceivable that anyone at Subaru thought that car actually looked good. The 2009 Subaru Impreza WRX is another hideous car. In fact, while not all of them are as offensively ugly as the Baja and Impreza WRX, there are no beautiful Subarus. I belief that the only way that this is possible is if Subaru management intentionally ignored the aesthetics of their products.
Maybe they got the idea that the looks of a car don't matter from Ford. For many years, the Ford Taurus was amoung the best selling cars in America. At the same time, it was incredibly ugly. Perhaps Fords success with such dreadful looking cars gave Subaru, Pontiac, and Nissan the courage to release their own awful looking vehicles.
Come to think of it, until recently, many of Ford's cars, exlcuding the GT, would make you give them a second glance. The Explorer and Expedition, stylewise, are not much more than giant boxes. Even their new Thunderbird made me cringe when I saw it a few years back. No focus groups could have told Ford and Subaru to release such dreadful designs; mistakes that big must have come from management.
