It’s a sad thing, but most cars don’t really have faces anymore. They have fronts, and those fronts have grilles and headlights and perhaps scoops and slots with varying degrees of fakery and functionality, but the days when nearly everything on four wheels had headlights that could be seen as eyes and grilles that could be seen as mouths with just the slightest application of imagination are largely over – unless you count squinty robots, I suppose, but I don’t.
Best of all, to me, are cars that look genuinely happy, and no car expresses exuberant joy quite as effectively as an Austin-Healey Sprite of the bugeye variety, as seen in the top graphic. Who can resist that widdle face? Not I.
Chrysler leaned into a happy(ish) face with the launch of the Neon, and I’m sure readers of a certain age recall the “Hi” campaign that launched the car (and perhaps also recall this spoof). I’ll grant that those round headlights do a good job of giving the car eyes, but the rest of the “face” is much more neutral than happy. It definitely befits “Hi [period]” more than”Hi [exclamation point].”
Now, if you want truly happy, I give you the second-gen Mazda 3. Even in its most muscular Mazdaspeed trim, this was a car that took “Zoom-Zoom” and dialed it up to “Zoom-Zoom, LOL.” A buddy of mine had a Mazdaspeed3 and bemoaned its smiling visage, but I’ve always loved it. It’s a hatchback, lighten up.
Here’s another face that has stayed with me, though more surprised than happy. Or shocked, even; Jason featured this pop-eyed, mouth-agape Lotus in his Cold Start installment aptly headlined “The First Car To Be Called A Lotus Had A Great Shocked Spider Face.” Yep, crushed it. (The description, not the spider).
As I hope you know by now, we’re not very precious about rules when we Autopian Asks you something, so feel free to talk car faces that are emotions other than happy – even downright angry, if you like. I give you the Standard Gazel, another of Torch’s Cold Start finds. Easy, now, be cool bro, no one wants trouble here …
Your turn: What Are The Happiest Car Faces? Or the saddest, or maddest – or the horniest? Have fun with it.
Top graphic image: Austin-Healey
https://crdms.images.consumerreports.org/c_lfill,w_563,q_auto,f_auto/prod/cars/chrome/white/2012GMC001a_640_01
The GMC Acadia. My grandmother calls her Chubby Cheeks.
I think the world definitely needs some happier faces on our cars. I bought an old Neon just yesterday (I am a wholesaler car buyer) and was reminded of how cute these things really were. The Miata is of course always the answer and the first modern Beetle in the 90’s was so damn adorable. Less angry bro-trucks and punk Wrangler faces and more of the above, please.
Who owns the Austin Healy Sprite name now? We need a cheaper infinitely less reliable but nonetheless endearing Miata.
Round headlights and curved bumpers help with happy faces. Caught from the right angle, old Beetles always give me that “happy puppy, come and play with me vibe.”
https://itisgood.org/auto-biography/#66VW
Has no one really mentioned the Toyota MR2 Roadster yet? The happiest car face of the 21st century?
https://preview.netcarshow.com/Toyota-MR2-2000-Front.7a4acf62.jpg
Chrome bumper 911s are pretty happy looking.
ZD8 BRZ and the facelifted 1st gen Xterra are two that I haven’t seen mentioned yet.
Jerry Seinfeld chose a bugeye Sprite for his episode with Miranda Sings.
Not happy, per se, but when you pull the front fascia off a Jeep Renegade to replace the radiator, it genuinely looks like it’s shocked to be caught naked.
Challengers as well, at least the facelift ones.
https://pin.it/7K2jScWTR