The new Impreza - it's real

[_xxx_]

It must be the latter, you develop cars (like you said), I am sure your opinion is a better representative of the the public than me.

Well the sales numbers around here speak more clearly than I do, they sold like two and a half cars in Germany last year.

It's not a design I particularly like but to say it's butt-fugly is like saying F1 cars are butt-fugly. Wait... F1 cars aren't ugly, right?

We're discussing a subjective topic, right? Even if you're a car developer?

It's not 100% subjective, there are certain trends, market demands and usability guidelines you need to follow.

And yes, F1 cars are ugly too, as well as some of our own models - take the W202 C-Class I own, it's one of the ugliest cars ever IMO.

And I'm definitely not saying that european cars generally look better than japanese, I very much like the design of quite several Hondas and Mazdas for example.

 

[22psi]

YUCK!!!!!!

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

It's not 100% subjective, there are certain trends, market demands and usability guidelines you need to follow.

Somehow, using adjectives like "butt-fugly" doesn't really evoke a sense that market trend and taste analysis was a factor when you posted. Good try, though.

FWIW, all negative reactions to major changes in a car's design are due to the fact that everybody comes to expect something, and those preconceived expectations aren't met. The reactions are emotionally charged and all rhetoric transforms into pure and distilled hyperbole (seems to be a given when customers carry so much emotional attachment to ideas). You yourself compared it to hatchbacks from an era where curved window outlines and wraparound head/tail-lights were nonexistent. It seems rather plainly obvious to me that a design like this will just disappear in the crowd with all the other "hot hatches," and everything people might say about it now will be forgotten.

In a *mostly* objective sense, it's not entirely a bad thing to have the utility of a hatch with along with all the other niceties of a WRX/STi. Of course, that's a sentiment that no one will ever have.