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Darwin wasn’t kidding when he described the new GMC Terrain as “hideous.” Check out Susan Docherty’s video—no embed codes for New, transparent GM—over on the right hand side of the FastLane home page. GM’s GM for the Buick-Pontiac-GMC channel also tells us that the LaCrosse’s quad-pot powerplant will make it “lead within its competitive set as the only vehicle with a four-cylinder engine.” I don’t suppose anyone stopped to wonder why none of the LaCrosse’s competitors avoid that particular powertrain . . . There’s more, but it’s late. Have a look for yourself.
64 Comments on “Ask the Best and Brighest: Is the New GMC Terrain the Second Ugliest CUV in the History of the World, Ever?...”
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That thing’s every bit as ugly as a Jeep Commander!
Worse than a Commander if you ask me. Big eyes and big mouth plus GM’s incredible shrinking greenhouse.
The Hummer H2 and Infiniti QX56 are much worse than that. I’m not really fond of the new blinged out Navigator either.
…then again those aren’t technically CUVs.
The Aztek for the win!
I think the Aztec, Compass, and B9 Tribeca (if you count that as a CUV) were uglier.
It’s still bad though. I’m not a fan of the Thetas.
One of these days, a carmaker is going to replace all of a model’s windows with periscopes and they literally will not be able to make enough of them.
That will signal the End Times.
“Is the new GMC Terrain the ugliest CUV in the history of the world, ever?”
I don’t know. I haven’t seen every CUV in the history of the world.
But I’m sure it’s a contender for the title.
When GM got rid of Hummer it should have fired that division’s stylists instead of reassigning them.
I like the looks of the Commander (not that it is even a CUV). Boxy works for Jeep, it is has been the successful design language for the Wrangler, Jeep’s most iconic product, since inception. I’d take the looks of the Commander over the ‘looks like everything else’ Grand Cherokee anyday.
As far as the Terrain… I want to withhold judgement until I see it for myself, but from photos the biggest problem seems to be that styling cues that work well on the Yukon just don’t translate well to a small/mid-sized CUV. The Terrain is just too short, too narrow, and too low to the ground to pull off that grill and headlight combo. Those huge fender flares also just cry out to be filled with much bigger wheels.
Just when you thought nothing could take down the Aztek, Compass, or Patriot – GM come on down!
Seriously… how in the world did this even get past concept phase? Has the designer of the Aztec actually found work again? At the “new” GM?
No Robert, the title of “Ugliest CUV In The History of the World, Ever” has to go to the Pontiac Aztek.
Ok lets get this straight, this is ugly but the Pilot is OK?
Runfromcheney
Point taken. Headline amended. And no, the Honda Pilot is not OK.
So I guess I’m the only one that thinks it looks decent in a bold kinda way. So, you guys are telling me the Terrain looks uglier than a Honda Pilot?
You guys aren’t being fair to yourselves.
i’m currently in Vancouver, my first time in this part of the world. i can easily say that the Buick Rendezous is the ugliest CUV i have ever seen. i get angry every time i see one of those rolling abortions.
the only thing that bothers me with the Terrain is the wheelarches, more normal ones would make it look better. the Acadia is a good looking ride though.
My opinion doesn’t count. I thought the 2nd generation Camaro was ugly in an ugly sorta’ way.
Wow, if they ever make another Robocop (come on, the Taurus is back) that is most certainly the reincarnation of the 6000 SUX!
This thing reminds me of the Hummer H3, another small SUV/CUV that tried to look bigger than it actually was. Neither look good.
First we saw the Oldsmobile Bravada SUV and Silhouette minivan become the Buick Ranier and Buick Terrazza. Then we see the Opel Insignia/Saturn Aura and the Saturn Vue become the new Buick Regal and the new Buick something or other.
Obviously this was originally intended to be the new Hummer H4.
It looks like a Hummer humped an Envoy and this is what came out.
So this is what the ‘new’ GM thinks the market wants? Disgusting! On a side note I saw the new Outback on the road for the first time this week…I had to pull over and barf.
What kind of engine do they have under that hood? A marine diesel with a three foot stroke? I wonder if whoever designs these things ever stop to consider any other market than rappers for their offerings. As in, don’t they figure people actually going “off road”, might like to see the trail closer than a mile in front of the car? Put a boat trailer with a heavy tongue on this thing, and even the horizon line may require a bit of a reach. So, I’d vote Yeah, in the top two ugliest CUV’s ever. Especially given the designer seems to think something so utterly dysfunctional as a two story hood is a detail one should emphasize, with maximum sized lights as high up as possible, and a grill bigger than a Rolls’.
BMW X6 is the winner, the Aztec was a beauty compared to that thing.
Not even sure what “class” you’d put the X6 in, but wow! is it ugly.
The Terrain’s proportions are all over the place. The designer of the front grill and wheel wells should be waterboarded.
I must concur with V6 – whenever I see a Rendezvous I wish a bit of the old ultra-violence upon the owner. Easily the most wretched vehicle in this group.
Being a product designer, the Aztek fascinates me. I simply cannot fathom the effort that it took to get every detail of this vehicle wrong.
Odd video. Her claims re. the demographics of the purchasers of any of these cars don’t ring true to my observations. I still haven’t seen anyone, ever, driving a non-company-issued Buick who was in his/her 30’s or 40’s.
Re. Robert’s proposed award to the Terrain as the second ugliest CUV. That might be true but, I had the oil changed on my “ru” today. Walking around the lot, looking for anything interesting, I spied a brace of new Outbacks. I am not sure that the Aztek hasn’t been knocked off the throne it has held for so long, which would place the Terrain as third ugliest CUV eva!
I am talking terminally fugly…and grblown up from it’s once efficient “sport wagon” size so as to make the Tribeca redundant in the line-up…and much more uglier than ever the Flying V was. :-(
http://wrxfanatics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/2010-subaru-outback-front-side-588×413.jpg
I’m pretty sure that I designed this GMC Terrain with Legos when I was 5 years old….where’s my royalties check? And yes, the new Outback is also hideous. Looks like it got a little Venza’d. I guess that’s what happens when Toyota takes an ownership stake. Has sleek and understated styling gone completely by the wayside? So many of the new designs are just bulbous and ungainly.
The Aztec looked better than this one.
What, no SsangYong Rodius?
There’s a Terrain sold by GMC Arabia which is a rebadged Vue.
It looks like a caricature. There’s too many design traits and too little sheetmetal to display them on. Every single trait is grossly oversized. Too large headlamps, too large grill, too large wheelarches. But not enough car to make it a seamless whole. Or any sort of whole. It has no line, there’s nothing to hold the design together. It’s just an amalgamation of different pieces. Talk about ADD, it looks like they ransacked the parts-bin and slapped it all together. Like throwing stuff on the wall to see what stuck. This is car is not designed, it is merely assembled.
I dunno. I am an owner of a Ridgeline and many have claimed that this vehicle is ‘ugly’. I think it looks different but the looks have grown on me. I find some of the new models odd looking but it seems like after a while they look OK. The terrain will most likely be the same after a while. With the ridge, the vehicle is just so great to have and use, I don’t even notice how it looks any more.
Tear gas on wheels…
I think that GMC had to differentiate this from its quite handsome sister ship, the Equinox.
Mission (retch) accomplished.
I think we’ll look back on this thing as we do the Aztek. The vehicle that showed that GM has too many brands, even at 4. Why they couldn’t just introduce a ‘baby Acadia’ is beyond me.
I actually like the idea of a professional grade truck line. I just wish it meant something more than extra chrome and a different grill.
Oh My God!
Hyundai hired 2010 GMC Terrain designer as chief designer of Hyundai!
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=145473
“Phillip Zak is a now design chief of Hyundai who was design director of GM Europe, where he headed the Opel and Saab exterior studios. he led were those for the 2010 Chevrolet Equinox, 2010 GMC Terrain and 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt.”
Hyundai, Reconsider it!
Hyundai must fire Phillip Zak.
And consider their car designed by Korean deisngers or keep only Hyundai european design team.
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New Tucson designed by Hyundai european team.,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YoQTxBsEoE
Unlike Hyundai California design team, Hyundai european’s designs are good.
I like Hyundai arnejs.
http://www.carpages.co.uk/hyundai/hyundai_images/hyundai_arnejs_14_09_06.jpg
———————————
Hyundai California design team = Fugly as hell
I think hyundai must withdraw their design facility from California(US).
Here is the Hyundai California designs.
http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/crop/200705/2010-hyundai-tiburon-14_460x0w.jpg
http://mydrives.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/hyundai-nuvis-concept-1.jpg
Fugly as Hell.
I feel the same way about these as I do Michael Bolton songs. I guess I kinda like ’em all.
In fairness, the Ssayngyong is probably the least ugly of this group (appears to be a Mercedes R-Class knockoff).
However, I had planned on getting a Pilot, but has to step up to the Acura MDX, because I couldn’t bear looking at the Pilot every day in my garage. Perhaps this is a similar tactic to get buyers to step up to the SRX.
As far as fugly goes, it’s a three-way tie between this, the Nissan Armada, and the Armada’s Infiniti equivalent…
I know the Misubishi Montero was a full fledged SUV,but it is even worse than the Aztek, but with chrome.
This Terrain is not so bad, just one more in a line of big stupid redundant overlapping products.
@v7rmp7li: at least they didn’t hire the guy who did the 03 Cavalier, Canyon/Colorado,Monte Carlo,
L Series/VUE/ION refreshes,Aztek,XLR,CTS or others from GM’s early to mid 00’s reign of styling error.
This looks as elegant as a 61 Lincoln Continental in comparison to those monsters.
Definately have to put the Audi Q series SUVs on this list….uglist cars on the planet! Face only a mother can love…lol
Clear winner in the most often misspelled: the Pontiac Aztek, not Aztec.
The Terrain looks like a Pilot that received one too many botox injections.
Sajeev Mehta
You simply cannot get off the back of the Taurus.
I am seriously liking it.
Car for car, it beats the Genesis like a skinny kid gets beat by a bully in the school yard.
Get over it.
When I first saw this car a few weeks back, I was stunned. At least the Equinox looks good.
This is yet another attempt to win the MANLY buyer, which they think likes this macho look.
Jeep made the same decision with the change to its Liberty a few years back.
To many women buyers, not enough men.
As far as the 4 cylinder, I am understanding the transmission fitted to it makes it perform wonderfully.
Knowing that, is it still good enough for an SUV?
Only driving it will we know for sure.
But then again, are the 4 cylinders in the Rav4 or Honda REALLY that capable as well????
I think not.
ya the audi q’s are homely on the outside, but great on the inide. where d’ya spend modt of ur time?
as opposed to the camaro, exactly the opposite.
what is gmc for? ugly i guess.
on a similar note, i was at the jersey shore yseterday walking own the street on a beauriful day. There were cars parked tightly on the street and in lots. I noticed how boring they all looked. One lozenge after another, varying in size, mostly shades of grey, sigh.
I was a kid in the late 50’s and 60’s. Seems to me cars were more intresting then, the big caddys, lincolns, pink and yellow fords and chevys, hug tailfins plymouths and desotos, chrome, chrome, chrome. Even edsels, derided at the time for being ugly, have nothing on most vehicles today, as evidenced by todays example. We are drowning in an ocean of bland. There are no new yellow caddys. Whats up with that?
I feel kinda bad for the young kids today, lookin at rows and rows of grey cars, suv’s and minivans.
we need flashier cars.
oh, heck no! the Murano/Infiniti whatever it is twins are much worse. And that last thing in the gallery was much worse. what is that, a chery?
Isn’t this picture distorted to make the hood/ front end too long?
According to the designers, GM knows the Terrain is polarizing – you either love it or hate it. So, all opinions are valid.
I happened to see the new Equinox and Terrain side by side two days ago at a GM employee event -I was surprised how alike they looked because separately they seem different. I think the Equinox front end is the splitting reduced image of the Traverse, a perfect mini-me. So I was glad to see that the Terrain wasn’t an Acadia mini-me.
I was one of those that thought the Aztek looked great when it first came out because it was different from anything else – I don’t like boring, bland, looks like everything else. Now it sort of blends in with the rest of the designs, doesn’t it? That design was just ahead of its time.
ChristyGarwood
The Pontiac Aztek wasn’t ahead of its time. If was the result of an egregious rip in the fabric of the time – space continuum. And I’m not quite sure it’s healed since. And by “it” I mean the vehicle, the brand, GM and anyone unfortunate enough to have clapped eyes upon one.
Doesn’t matter whether it’s ugly or not.
The focus group consisting of suburban moms gave it a thumbs up.
Designer of the Aztek : Richard Raskind
Designer of the Terrain: Renee Richards
Both the same, yet very different.
That thing has a face only Bob Lutz could love.
Focus groups must have loved the Aztek too.
It seems as if car designers increasingly have a problem with their masculinity.
It started with Chris Bangle. Exhibit 1: the “Bangle butt” (since when are real men emphasizing their butts?).
Exhibit 2: the metrosexual BMW 5 with its “Dame Edna” front end and headlight treatment. Does “M Series” really stand for “Metrosexual Series?
Can a BMW special “queer eye” edition be far behind?
Exhibit 3″ Flame (or is that “flamer”?) surfacing. From the sides the newer vehicles are now awash in “flame surfacing” and lines that have no reason to be there, other than all of the other styling boys are putting them on their vehicles too. It’s just oooo so fashionable.
And then there are the oversized / overwrought grilles. Apparently the stylists feel the need for male, err, I mean “grille enhancement” to compensate for their, uh, stylistic “inadequacy.”
This Frankenmobile has a bad case of the Azteks. Somebody please kill it before it reproduces. Designers didn’t design this POS, the marketing department did.
It looks like a Chinese knock off of a Trailblazer.
The Aztec does hold the field for the ugliest CUV of all time, however the Ssangyong Rodius runs a close second solely for having the worst name.
Tommy Boy, have you ever been to a design school?
I think you’re onto something here. More and more trucks are starting to look like what some 100lb, never set foot outside a California latte bar, blowdried and manicured waif with a lisp thinks “those hairy, rugged, macho gun owners out there in the wild, wild west of suburban Texas” may want in a manly truck. Or more likely, what “image those hairy men wants to project to their surroundings.”
stuki
Exactly.
But they did it by accident when the Dodge truck saw its revival back in the very late 90’s.
They admitted that they were trying with the newest Liberty.
It wasn’t so bad, but I do miss the more rounded look.
(I am trying to touch my feminine side as often as possible)
But then went hog (ugly) wild and squared the whole line up.
Since when does large + square + box = macho?
Cadillac did a nice job with their beautiful hard lines on the CTS.
GMC is mating with Chrysler here.
>Tommy Boy, have you ever been to a design school?
Nope. Just a normal, red-blooded all American boy. The only female side that I’m much interested in getting in touch with – or touching – is my lovely wife.
I did used to draw cars. A lot of them. When I was in 6-7th grade. More like the cars of the era (late 60’s / early 70’s) – think Lamborghini Muiria (sp?) and Ferrari Daytona. No flame surfacing or Bangle-butts in my drawings.
YUCK
actually i think they may have taken the inspiration for the wheelarches from the Mitsubishi Endeavor, you can add that to the list of seriously fugly CUV’s
Talented American designers know the future is at Hyundai. Why work at dying GM.
I agree with the “macho” design comment earlier. I remember reading a blurb from the designer of the MB GLK about a new “masculine design language,” — which has a similar boxy fender-well treatment
MB GLK … ” … … With its chiselled lines, athletic contours and perfectly proportioned body, the GLK’s boxy, masculine design is 180 degrees from expected. Destined to be a true classic, it is a bolder, more striking Mercedes. One that pushes the boundaries – in every regard.
So masculine = boxy? Gosh, men don’t have a boxy shape, they just have different curves than women. It’s how the curves and shapes are emphasized that can give a car a more masculine or feminine shape. Ferraris and Porsches can look masculine even though they have curves and are not in the shape of a square box.
So GMC takes the new MB “masculine design language,” and says hey — let’s copy that and make an even more bold masculine statement by making the fender wells even bigger and boxier. Did these people ever stop to think that these boxy fenders are just stupid and plain ugly — like the fender treatment on the Jeep Compass?
If other companies like MB want to run some of their products off the ugly cliff, I see no reason why GM should follow them. People at these auto companies need to start exercising some common sense. If your instinct says this design is probably ugly — it probably is.
Hmmm
Prado:
So this is what the ‘new’ GM thinks the market wants? Disgusting! On a side note I saw the new Outback on the road for the first time this week…I had to pull over and barf.
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It is funny you say that…
I actually checked out a Subbie shop to look at the Impreza (that I swear.. reminds me of a Corolla =bad). But I had on behalf of TTAC check one of those Legacy dino-beasts. They were actually marketing the wagon against the last gen version and its last gen sedan..
And I couldn’t EVEN believe how damn big that car had gotten. I just stood there in AWE, like.. what happened to you! Where were you hiding this.. ugly — scratch that.. HIDEOUS-ness styling.
No way.. could I drive such a beast. — (Write this down.. how many people.. DONT WANT A LARGER VEHICLE to do the same job.)
Then again.. the dealer was trying to tell me how its midsized, by justifying its size against Accord / Camry. I had to leave.. cause my b.s meter was breaking..
There’s worse. But not by much. It’s wretched.
Needs a bigger grill …
The Terrain makes sense: American car-buyers have been force-fed a steady diet of oversized land tanks for a decade. This has reached the point where even “average” Americans (who are forced to stare at Acadia, Traverse, Navigator, Escalade, etc.) are reacting almost subconsciously by still choosing to not participate in the beast-ride sweepstakes, but have still been unwittingly indoctrinated into the masculine styling trend. They WANT the huge grill, they WANT the boxed out oversized wheel-wells, they WANT the blinged-out headlights… but they also want a package no bigger than a Ford Escape. Until now you kinda had to squint your eyes at a Jeep Patriot (or just close them altogether for a Chevy HHR.) Well now, enter Terrain. Joe Sixpack can feel responsible for not killing the earth, but can still feel part of the American landcruiser in-crowd via the styling touches.
p.s. The interior is actually kinda nice (for a vehicle such as this.)
The Terrain MAKES SENSE??
How much crack do you have to SNORT to figure out how messed up GMs marketing of CUVs / SUVs actually is?!
Ya got the TB and all of its copies going away.. only to be replaced by a vehicle(s) on a diff frame but equally as large.
And witness the VUE that is going away.. only to pop its ugly head up as th coming / current Equinox.. (Terrain) only longer / larger.
Terrain doesnt make any sense at all..
But then again.. GM is trying to convince people.. that the Suburban and the Lambda Lambda Lambdas are actually smaller…
The vehicle is WRONG WRONG WRONG!
And in case ya didnt know..
The doemstics no longer make a compact SUV / CUV.. mote like midsizers. For example.. Edge / Exploder and Escape.. are within 300-500lbs OF EACH OTHER.
So in the end…
This isnt needed and or wanted.
And Id also like to remind you..
GM doesnt contact you to ask you WHAT YOU might want.
Gm doesnt give a shit.. what you want or how you want it. All they care is stuffing ya big ass into this domestic POS.. all the while making ya pay TWICE for this.
Once for THEIR bailout
Twice for their shitty choices for current vehicles.