Beauty is subjective. It hits differently depending on where you stand, what year it is, and whether you’ve had enough coffee. But some machines transcend mere transport. They stick with you. Here are the standouts, ranked not by specs, but by the soul in the sheet metal.
The American Dream & Beyond
Buick: Riviera (1963)
It carries itself like a heavy-weight. Which makes sense. Originally, this was destined for Cadillac. Or maybe a resurrected LaSalle. Fate had other plans. It became a Buick anyway. A beautiful mistake, perhaps, or just inevitable.
Cadillac: 1959 Eldorado Biarritz (1958)
Fins higher than skyscrapers. Tail lights like rockets. Inside, power windows, power locks, power everything. This car screamed confidence. GM’s peak bravado. America’s own mirror, polished to a blinding shine. Did it have too much chrome? Probably. Do you care? No.
Chrysler: Town & Country Newport (19050)
Today, Chrysler whispers. Back then? It shouted. Luxury image intact, innovations galore. The wood panels were real, not faux. The hood was long, necessary to house the straight-eight, and it turned a mechanical constraint into an aesthetic virtue. Stature isn’t just height. It’s presence.
Chevrolet: Corvette Stingray (196)
Bill Mitchell saw a problem: racing was banned by GM. He saw an opportunity. Secret development. Showroom magnet. The 1963 Stingray didn’t just look good. It saved the ‘Vette from oblivion. A life raft with fins.
Dodge: Charger R/T (198)
Muscle, but make it chic. Richard Sia’s design cuts deep. Coke-bottle waist, hidden lights, fastback slope that defies wind. It’s a legend, yes, but look at the lines first. Finesse wrapped in horsepower.
Lincoln: Mark II (195)
Let’s clear this up. It’s not strictly a Lincoln. It’s the Continental Mark II. But Lincoln claimed the lineage. We’re accepting it. The grille crisscrosses boldly. The hood expands outward like a beast stretching. Cadillac has its shadow; this car stepped out of it.
Oldsmobile: Toronado (166)
Huge. Truly massive. But size isn’t the trick here. It’s the proportion. Pillarless elegance. Spare details that don’t clutter. Front-drive architecture hiding underneath a skin of pure sophistication. Big cars are rare. Beautiful ones rarer still.
Pontiac: GTO Judge (69)
Brooding menace. The Judge variant took the GTO’s bones and stripped the skin black. Spoiler, heavy suspension, subtle stripes that sting if you look away. Classy? Violent? Yes.
The European Masters
Citroën: DS (195)
American design ruled the fifties, mostly with plastic fins. Not France. The DS was sculpted by Italians, tested in winds. It looked like it floated. The steering whirred like a machine from another century. Levitation was the aesthetic.
Ferrari: 250 GTO (59)
Simple at a glance? Deceptive. Look closer. The fuselage wings. The haunched rear haunches. Air extractors slashed deep into the metal. Complexity layered upon exquisite simplicity. It is what it is. The king.
Jaguar: E-Type (61)
Six decades on, and breath is still stolen. E-Type Series I. The most beautiful car ever made? A dangerous title. One that Malcolm Sayer shaped and Bob Blake hammered into metal. It begs the question: what have cars been since then? A long, winding road.
Lotus: Elan (62)
“If it looks right, it works right.” A cliché, sure. But the first Elan nailed it. Form follows function, so precisely that Mazda’s MX-5 looked to it for inspiration. Still does, in spirit.
Maserati: A6G CS Berlinetta ( 53)**
Race car DNA. Pininfarina bodied it to perfection. Delicate lines betray a 2-liter six-cylinder screaming to the side exhausts. Exquisite doesn’t begin to cover it.
Porsche: 911 ( 3)**
Delicacy. That’s the word. In an era where every new model is a brick wall of carbon footprint, the early 911 remains slender. Pleasing from any angle. Timeless because it refuses to get big.
Rolls-Royce: Boat Tail (20 )
Sensuous dignity. Three customers got their own coachbuilt monstrosities—masterpieces, really. Nautical details that shouldn’t work but do. It costs more than most countries’ GDP. But does it have grace? Undeniably.
Mercedes-Benz: 30 SL ( 4)**
The doors are famous. Fair. But look higher. Wheel blister arches. The grille’s fine mesh. The proportions are long, low, and arresting. The gullwing was the headline, but the bodywork was the story.
The Rising Stars & Niche Kings
Cord: 8 (1937)
Front-wheel drive allowed the floor to drop. Running boards became obsolete. Hidden headlamps. A boxy prow that looked like the future. Unreliable as hell, which killed it commercially. Others copied the look. The shape survived the engine’s failure.
Ford: GT4 (196)
40 inches off the ground? Hardly. But its stature? Titanic. Le Mans wins defined its purpose, but the silhouette defined supercar direction. Like the Miura, it changed the geometry of desire.
Infiniti: Q60 (20 6)
Infiniti hasn’t always graced beauty charts. The Q60 is the exception. Bold, confident muscles shown with delicacy. A stand-out in a lineup of safe bets.
Land Rover: Range Rover (197 )
Functional beauty. The original prototype and the finished product show ground-breaking flair. Utility wrapped in boxy elegance. It set the standard for luxury off-roading before anyone knew the term existed.
Lexus: LF-A (20 1)
Absurdly dramatic for Toyota. A V-10 that screams like a banshee. Perhaps the least “Lexus” model ever. Dull is the opposite of this machine.
Lotus: (See above, covered Elan). Wait, did I miss one? No. The list is tight.
MG: MGA (1955)
Prettiest badge carrier? Likely. It sold America on the small roadster concept. No wonder. Simple. Pure. British charm in chrome and red.
Mini: Cooper S (2001)
The remake works. Unmistakably the spirit of 195, but modern proportions. As it ages, it looks better. Triumph over time? Maybe just good design.
Mitsubishi: 000GT (19 )
Junior Ferrari? Close. Mitsubishi wanted to shed an image. This helped. Forgotten unfairly today, it remains one of the nineties’ best Japanese shapes.
Morgan: Wheeler (202)
Vintage engineering meets three wheels. Allure of the alternative. Functional beauty in a tub. Quirky is an understatement.
Peugeot: 0 Cabriolet (1970)
Desirable? Beguilingly so. The rest of the 0 line was dowdy. The cabriolet shone. Traffic-stopping power in 190. Still holds up.
Renault: Caravelle (195)
Modest power. Dainty lines. An enduring look. Pleasing to this day. Proof that you don’t need torque to be handsome.
Subaru: 30 (195)
Usually, we talk practicality. Or boxy speed. The best-looking Subaru was also its first. Small, odd, charming.
The Korean & Japanese Shifts
Honda: 3 (19 6)
Shouldn’t count. It was a prototype. But it was Honda’s first. Impishly pretty. Weighed 10kg with a tiny 5cc engine. Probably needed that weight savings. A special exception for sheer charm.
Hyundai: Sonata (*203)
Beauty and Hyundai? Uneasy partners. “Handsome” works better for this one. Flowing lines from any angle. A quiet revolution in perception.
Kia: EV6 GT (20 )
Jokes about Kia ownership are dead. Buried. Competing with BMW? Occasionally beating it? Visuals helped. The EV6 GT is a crossover triumph. Apologies for choosing a modern model? None given.
Nissan: 90 GT1 (9)
Racer aesthetics. Tony Southgate and Ian Calluman designed this Brit-led project with Yutaka Hagiwa. Sensuous curves express speed. Only one road-legal version was made. A ghost in the design world.
Seat: 50 Sport Spider (96)
Seat made modest cars. This was impractical. And a surprise. A good-looking one. Breaking character can look great.
Skoda: Felicia (19 )
Communist-era handsomeness? Heresy. The Felicia had delicate details, worthy of France or Italy. Defying its politics with pure form.
Suzuki: Cappuccino (191 )
Kei cars have rules. Tight ones. Suzuki built a sports car anyway. Credible. Nice. A sizzle in a package size of coffee cup.
Tesla: Model S (20 2)
Clean. Sensuous. Twelve years later, the lines remain largely unchanged. Why change perfection? It changed the electric car game. Range. Drive. Looks. All three. Rare combo.
The verdict? Taste evolves. But these shapes endure. Why do we keep returning to the E-Type, the GTO, the Miura? Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s just the metal working the right angles.
