Automotive Facelifts - For Better or Worse

[RandomCarGuy17]

The blue helps a bit with its looks, but those headlights are still ruining it for me. It makes the front end look squished.

The facelift (for 2011MY I believe) became too similar to the lesser trim WRX to the point where plenty of people could disguise their WRXs as STIs. It certainly improved the looks of the lower trim WRX, but the STI felt less unique. The pre-facelift "narrow body" WRX looked terrible when it came out.

Can concur on this from my end, I remember that I would see WRXs and mistake them for STis until seeing the badge. Though on another note, I like the facelifted STi more than the pre-facelift as I just thought it looked mean.

 

[Centroid]

The facelift fixed the Visa's worst feature imho, its face.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

Okay, here's a French car that I think looked worse with its facelift, the Citroen Xsara.

The late 90s VTS here for instance looks pretty nice and clean.

and then the update came around in the early 2000s to ruin the front with the enlarged grill and vertical headlights. The styling choices on the front once again make it looks squished, like the front end was designed for a bigger car than it is. Plus I think the painted trim makes the side look a bit plain.

 

[05XR8]

Look like they updated it to combat this:

 

[VXR]

The Xsara facelift predates the C-Class sports hatch, I think.

 

[05XR8]

The Xsara facelift predates the C-Class sports hatch, I think.

Appears to be 2000 for the Citroen and 2001 for the Mercedes-Benz. Citroen would have known the Mercedes was coming to market and prepared accordingly.

 

[Liquid]

I'm really not a fan of crossovers and the 4x4ification of every car platform but with that said, the Bentley Bentayga looked much better pre-facelift in my opinion.

Before:

After:

 

[05XR8]

Yeah, that only works for the Coupe. Plus, they’ve cut into the body with the hatch the way Audi have done with its Q7 clamshell hatch. Maybe it’s more efficient, but look like a butt implant.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

It occured to me that I haven't talked about the other gens of the Camaro. I mentioned the 4th gen, but not the 5th and 6th gens. So, I'll fix that now.

5th Generation in my opinion got facelifted for the worse.

The initial design looked wonderful imo, a nice homage to the 1969 Camaro's design cues.

Then later on around 2014, Chevy decided to update the appearance, which kinda dulled it. I mean, it still isn't a bad looking car, it's just now a bit more bland.

----

Also the 6th Gen Camaro got updated for the worse.

It started out looking good, a bit blandish as I thought it didn't look too different from the facelifted 5th gen. But still it looked fine.

Then Chevy decided to give it a facelift a little later in order to make it look more exciting and I hated it. It went from looking a bit dull to being ugly.

and I'm guessing a lot of people hated it too as GM did an emergency refresh by moving the bowtie and painting the bumper guard thing. It improved it for sure. Still not my favorite gen Camaro in terms of styling though.

I will say I like the taillights on the facelift though. They're kinda nice.

 

[05XR8]

Instead of it looking like a Camaro, it morphed into looking like all the other Chevys.

 

[ScottPuss20]

It occured to me that I haven't talked about the other gens of the Camaro. I mentioned the 4th gen, but not the 5th and 6th gens. So, I'll fix that now.

5th Generation in my opinion got facelifted for the worse.

The initial design looked wonderful imo, a nice homage to the 1969 Camaro's design cues.
View attachment 1427959

This is the best looking Camaro by far. If I'm not mistaken this is Mike Simcoe's original design and it still holds up. Shame how it was softened considerably, whereas the Mustang has gone the other direction. Chevy has lost the plot.

 

[Tornado]

The 6th Gen never should have looked the way it did in the first place. That they eventually facelifted it to something that wasn't as hopelessly derivative of a design that was already ten years old (or more, depending on how copycat you think it was already of the S197 Mustang or GTO concept) when the generation debuted, despite being so constrained by the goofy hard points of the original, should be celebrated in my opinion.


In particular it's a much better looking car than the facelifted fifth generation with its dorky Prelude taillights.

 

[EngieDiesel]

Then Chevy decided to give it a facelift a little later in order to make it look more exciting and I hated it. It went from looking a bit dull to being ugly.
View attachment 1427962

and I'm guessing a lot of people hated it too as GM did an emergency refresh by moving the bowtie and painting the bumper guard thing. It improved it for sure. Still not my favorite gen Camaro in terms of styling though.
View attachment 1427963

Pretty much looks like they were trying to implement a "corporate" front end that would match the design of the trucks, but then realized too late that by doing so it looks like a pastiche of all the European and Asian brands that had been doing the same thing for several years already, trying make the whole front end look like a gigantic grille so the focus would be on an oversized front badge (which this didn't have).

That plus a lot of Americans still associate unpainted black plastic on the bumpers to equate with poverty-spec models, which is something you don't want with your potentially $40,000+ sports car.