Our family bought an Aztek. It was honestly one of my favorite vehicles that we ever owned. Yes, the exterior, which is all this article manages to focus on, was goofy as all hell.
On the other hand, the interior design size and the overall utility of the vehicle in it's medium sized package was amazing. You could fit tons of cargo in there or throw an air mattress in the back and go tailgate camping very comfortably. It handled less than average in the dirt, but with good winter tires, it was more than capable of dealing with northern Minnesota winters.
We drove that car until it died. I still miss it sometimes. Who cares how the tailgate looked?
I wouldn't even say that the exterior was all that goofy relative to modern crossovers. Many of them are more refined but still plenty goofy.
Incidentally, one of the excuses I hear about accepting the panel gaps on Tesla cars is "who cares, it's on the outside of the car and I don't have to look at it". One can make a similar argument here -- who cares if its odd looking on the outside if it's actually an ingenious car to use and operate.
I'd argue the Saturn Vue was it's better looking cousin and man that car was amazing. Not much to rust on it and had all the perks of the Aztec plus some.
Some git executive from Pontiac told a story of meeting an Aztek engineer at a company gathering. They explained how they were proud of their part in the car, the engineering, the design tradeoff, the schedule constraints.
Then idiot executive lambasted the engineer (in print) as an example of some deep misfunction where anybody could be proud of something that didn't sell well.
Typical executive blinders - everybody should think like me and do my job. I remember being pissed at the exec, a narrowminded clown, throwing blame, taking none himself.
It's especially gauche, given that GM executives uphold the crabbed, parochial internal GM processes that handicapped the development of the Aztek and so many other vehicles GM whiffed on.
Aztek was just ahead of its' time, like so many automotive failures. It was more or less a beta version of the small crossover SUV type that would come to dominate sales in the 2000s. Buick went on to sell the nearly identical Rendevouz profitably for years after the Aztek failed, on the same platform with more or less just a bit of styling tweaks.
1. The Aztec is midsize.
2. The first small crossovers were the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4, both of which were selling in volume before this or the Buick variant were introduced.
3. It was released at the same time as the Toyota Highlander, a competing mid-size crossover, which sold far better.
I don’t see how it was ahead of its time. Just another poorly executed GM product in my opinion.
> OEMs that prioritize design will put the chief designer near the top of the corporate hierarchy …
Tangential, but I’ve been feeling similarly with startups and tech companies: design needs to be represented at the leadership alongside engineering and product, or it simply is not viewed as an equal strategic function. If there’s a Head of Engineering and a Head of Product, there needs to be a Head of Design to complete the triad.
It needs to be represented, certainly. But not to the extent that the cart precedes the horse, as in the Jony Ive era at Apple. The appropriate mindset for design is that of a servant acting in the user's interests, not a master auteur whose decisions make or break the product.
I always felt like the Aztek looked like the prototype of every generic crossover that came after it. Not good, but not terrible either. Just...there.
Given that, I particularly appreciated this article's detailed breakdown explaining why the car's appearance and proportions didn't work from a design perspective.
And it's worth remembering most of those design elements that didn't work were the result of corporate literally changing the base out from under them. With that one change, everything else had to be adjusted into something that didn't work as well.
I enjoyed Doug Demouro's tour of the Aztek, including the molded seats in the tailgate, the branded air mattress, and the tent! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33AP0JnXSOA
I do not understand what constitutes an appealing visual design for a car. The Aztek looks great to me. I like it better than almost any other crossover SUV in terms of appearance. How do you determine what is “good” or “bad” when modern cars are such an abstract shape?
The Aztek concept at the Detroit auto show looked a little weird but perhaps charming and all the ideas of making it a Pontiac-meets-Subaru utility-based crossover vehicle seemed like a fun platform for planning small trips out to parks or campgrounds.
I picked up an 05 this past summer for a sort of back up car. It certainly is an eyeful, but it's been running well enough, I'm happy with it. Scared to take it camping though: doesn't seem well suited for off road.
(Damned if I can find the article that actually talked about how this myth got started. Something something Honda never claimed you could hose it out.)
That was the Element. I had a few friends with those and they always felt weird to me as a passenger. Not sure what it was but I never felt very comfortable.
On the other hand, the interior design size and the overall utility of the vehicle in it's medium sized package was amazing. You could fit tons of cargo in there or throw an air mattress in the back and go tailgate camping very comfortably. It handled less than average in the dirt, but with good winter tires, it was more than capable of dealing with northern Minnesota winters.
We drove that car until it died. I still miss it sometimes. Who cares how the tailgate looked?