This is a good answer. Hundai comes to mind as a brand that puts overly slick bodies on underpowered cars. It looks silly. And yes there is the Genesis, but that car is not cheap.

What would be fun is if manufacturers took more liberties with design. I loved my Scion xB because it was "ugly beautiful" and also very functional. I really like the new Civic: aggressive yet understated. More of this would be really nice.

A Scion minivan could easily be the VW microbus of our generation.