What Also Went Wrong at Toyota: Its Cars Got Ugly

(Feb. 4) – Seven million vehicles in, the Toyota recall is poised to be the worst in automotive history (and could well already be the worst-handled). Of course, it also just made a bad problem worse: By the end of 2009, Toyota's slumping sales had dropped more than 20 percent from the year before. And while its safety snafus may permanently diminish the Toyota brand, the damage didn't begin in the assembly line. Instead, it began in the design studio. Never style icons to begin with, Toyota cars have in recent years gotten downright unattractive.

It started in 2001, with the global debut of the Toyota Prius. With angular features that were said to reduce drag and increase long-term durability, the world's first mass-produced hybrid was a true display of function over form. But for the Prius, that didn't matter. It was an instant best seller, its target demographic responding to, rather than rebelling against, its holier-than-thou awkwardness.

But three years later, upon completion of its $40 million Tokyo City design center, Toyota took the positive feedback it thought it heard from consumers and implemented an overarching visual sensibility that sought to instill a cuter, zippier, more distinct flavor across all models. By 2008, Toyota had begun to rework its entire fleet using principles of "free-form geometrics" and "high-tech looks." All models began to have larger hood emblems, more angular front corners, new sloping roof lines, lower grilles, and protruding bumpers and lights.

At the time, global design chief Wahei Hirai said that green-conscious consumers preferred their products a little more avant-garde. What he and his fellow execs didn't get was that green-conscious consumers liked the Prius despite – not because of – its looks. In a hybrid, ugly was a badge of honor. In a standard car, it was just plain ugly.

It wasn't long before even old standards like the Camry and the Corolla were landing on worst-looking lists. New launches, like the Matrix, the Yaris, the Scion xB and the Sienna were called "aggressively styled," with a "new ugly Toyota disporportionality."

"Just as the Matrix finally started looking 'normal' to me, Toyota introduced this new 2009 version that has clearly been hit with the same ugly-stick," wrote one blogger. "It has all the blandness of its Corolla cousin, with a bunch of extra misshapen lumps and unpleasing angles added for good measure." The Yaris, meanwhile, was accused of being emblematic of "a comprehensive effort by the Japanese automaker to make all of its models ugly."

Paradoxically, other car companies have followed Toyota's lead down the road to homely. In his 2007 book "The Truth About Cars," Robert Farago accurately predicted the inevitable rise of the "hybrid aesthetic." The point is to look as far removed from the gas-guzzling, luxury vehicles of yesteryear as possible. And that, many new models do. Honda's angular Insight has replaced the rounder Civic Hybrid (which is identical to the standard Civic) as the brand's best-selling hybrid. The hotly anticipated electric Chevy Volt, meanwhile, looks positively Prius-esque. Consumers seem to agree: "No way to sugar coat it," went one reader comment on a Motor Trend review of the Volt, "the Volt is butt ugly."

If that's what the competition looks like, perhaps there's some hope left for Toyota after all.