Picture a great-looking car in your mind. What angle do you see? Front view? Side? Maybe a three-quarter angle from the left corner? They’re all good, and certainly the views that designers focus on most to make what will be – fingers crossed – an attractive automobile. But that is not to diminish the importance of the rear end, which is how many more motorists will spend much more time admiring your car.
At the barest minimum, the rear end must inoffensively resolve the shapes flowing from the front of the car and neatly close off the shape. Although difficult to recall any one specifically, I know I’ve seen countless of rear ends that are just fine, completely as expected, no-chances-taken designs, which are perfectly OK. But when a design really goes for it, boy, does it stand out. I’m thinking of the Volvo 850’s skyscraper taillights, the Dodge Charger’s “racetrack” treatment, the Riviera’s boat tail in the topshot – you get it.
I asked the gang for their own takes:
“Yes, I’m biased, Chrysler Valiant Charger.” – Everyone’s favorite Aussie and Pal Of David, Laurence Rogers. Bias or not, that’s a great rear end. Fourteen rectangles, impressive.
“Testarossa,” says Mark Tucker, adding …
“Also gotta give a nod to my favorite tailfins ever, the 1960 DeSoto.” Fine choices!
“I’m nominating the FD RX-7 without the usual rear spoiler. Those lines just speak to me,” sayeth Antti Kautonen. And I agree – indeed, the FD goes beyond nice butt into great ass territory.
And here’s Stephen Walter Gossin, upon whom I can always count to go long with an AA answer, ’cause he’s a pal:
Gen 2 Sebring Convertible. You rarely see these anymore in traffic, and when you do, you’re greeted with styling that initially appears to be commonplace, but then you realize that it isn’t anymore. The design of these cars always reminded of more expensive Jaguars and other high-end Euro marques, but in a far more accessible price range. These were very handsome cars and were actually built on the Sebring/Stratus Sedan platform, meaning they had quite a long wheelbase and overall length for a 2-door vehicle. The amount of real estate from the trailing/rear edges of the doors all the way back to the rear bumper is glorious and massive. I’ve always had a soft spot for them, even as their number dwindle in this current era.
Your turn:
Which Cars Have The Best Butts?
Top graphic image: GM
Alfa Romeo Brera
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alfa_Romeo_Brera_Rear_20070321.jpg
Surely the Volvo P1800ES belongs on the list.
Seriously, no one has said Maserati Khasmin? Does no one like tail lights mounted directly to a glass panel?
https://www.maserati.com/us/en/brand/maserati-classic-cars/gran-turismo/khamsin
Mk1 Opel Manta
3rd gen Honda Prelude’s rear is beautiful
For modern “normie” production cars, I always liked the edgy, sculptural rear of the 2nd Gen Lincoln MKZ. I was glad they left it alone when the 2017 facelift happened.
I’ve always loved the one-year-only tail light thing going on with the 1972 Chrysler Newport. Big bold lights that invoke the look of a tie-fighter in the same year that work on Episode IV began. Balance is bigazz chrome and matching lower valance/trunk lid. No frills, gets the job done. https://photos.classiccars.com/cc-temp/listing/175/3432/40785691-1972-chrysler-newport-thumb.jpg
Hard to beat that boat-tail Riviera in the photo that asks the question.
Chrysler Airflow
Another vote for the Chrysler Turbine Car. The bumper treatment on that car is amazing. It wraps the entire perimeter around the taillights.
MRoadster! The first quad exhaust from BMW
All great choices! There are more classics that I can count that fit into this category, but for something newer I also think the 93-2002 Firebird / Trans Am had a great looking rear 3/4 view, with some great “hips”.
AMC Marlin. The back end is soo much better than the rest.
’63 split-window Corvette
Boat tail Alfa Spyder.
Literally no one will agree with me on this. In fact, most will disagree…
I like the back end of the 1998 Ford Scorpio. I think it’s just the big expanse of nothing but gently curved metal. For the record, I would not under any circumstances want to own one, I just always liked the rear aspect. IIRC most contemporary reviewers loathed it.
1959 Chevrolet, but especially the El Camino (which I suppose isn’t a car, but still)
I always loved the integrated taillight in bumper look of the 1973-74 El Camino too.
I always liked the 1960 impala. The little rocket lights and the huge laid down fins.
The Ferrari F40. A big fucking screen mesh,four lights and that exhaust..
Jeep Wagoneer series 1. 1963-1990ish
You think a boat-tail Riviera has one of the best butts? Eeeek. Distinctive, perhaps, but hardly beautiful. Part of the problem was that the designers intended the boat-tail Riviera to go onto GM’s smaller intermediate A-body platform, but management didn’t think it was premium enough and didn’t want to change up the platform philosophy, and so the boat-tail was instead stretched across GM’s newly enlarged for ’71 B/E-body.
As for best butt, the British nobility may have flat butts and no hips, but that does not extend to their noble cars. I’ve got to hand it to a pair of cars that were both developed under FoMoCo, but that were nevertheless decidedly British: the Jaguar “X150” XK (2007-2015) and Aston Martin “VH II-platform” Vantage (2005-2018). There’s not a bad line on either the Vantage or the XK, especially at the rear, and the fact that they’re both liftbacks just makes them that much more practical.
Note: These cars aren’t structurally related, although they do share a bonded-and-riveted aluminum construction philosophy initially developed by Ford in the early 90s and the Aston Martin 4.3-liter and 4.7-liter V8s are heavily modified variants of the gen. 2 Jaguar AJ-V8 that was in the XK between 2007 and 2009.
Any Series I-III Jaguar XJ. Those hips, that taper, the subtly barrel-roofed trunklid, the funky angles of the trunk cut lines as they dip down to the rear bumper, creating a much lower liftover height than was common even when the model was 20+ years old in the late ’80s. Preference goes to the Series I for its more elegant all-chrome bumpers, or to the Series III for its distinctively shaped, Pininfarina-massaged tri-color taillights.
59 Eldorado or 59 Biscayne
BRING BACK THE TAIL FINS YOU COWARDS!!!
I can’t believe we made it this far into the comments with no one saying 1932 Auburn Boattail Speedster.
Those babies definitely got back.
I was getting the URL for an image as you posted that. Less exotic and less expensive at the time than a coach built European contemporary like a Talbot-Lago, but every bit as beautiful.
’68-’69 Buick GS