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Mini Cooper zooms to the top of ugly-automobile list

Ugly-car list includes Mini Coopers, PT Cruisers and new VW bug.

Date published: 6/15/2003

THERE ARE some really ugly cars on the roads these days. Every time I drive down the highway I vow to write this column, but I always seem to put those bad-dream vehicles out of my mind by the time I get home.

Now the nightmares are getting more frequent.

Americans--especially young men--have always prided themselves on their individual means of transportation. Before automobiles, a fellow always rode his sleekest horse to the church social to impress the girls or drove the fanciest surrey he could find when he went courting.

Cars offered an even greater opportunity for a guy to express his individuality. After all, you can't paint a horse bright red or jack up its rear end.

By the 1960s, women had gotten into the act and there was nothing sexier than a blonde cruising down the highway in a cherry-red Mustang convertible.

For more than 100 years, cars have been much more than tools to get people from one place to another. They have been opportunities for individuals to make public statements about themselves.

So what are the people who drive these new Mini Coopers trying to say?

Granted, I don't have the best taste in the world, but as far as I'm concerned, this has got to be the ugliest automobile to roam the highways since the Edsel.

The thing looks like a hearse for Lilliputians, a station wagon to carry the Seven Dwarfs' instruments when they go on a rock tour, a partially stepped-on tin can.

The first time I saw a Mini Cooper I thought it was a renovated 1950s Fiat, one that had been saved from the junkyard seconds before the hydraulic smasher had completely squished it.

Then again, I considered the possibility that this little dilly might be a malnourished 1956 Ford station wagon that some Junkyard Wars guy had whittled down with a blowtorch.

No, upon closer inspection I discovered that it was a real car, one that somebody had actually paid money for.

My first look at the Mini Cooper forced me to completely revamp my ugly-car list. The Mini would replace the PT Cruiser as my choice for the biggest eyesore on the road.

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Date published: 6/15/2003