10 Car Facelifts To Get You Hired Or Fired

Imagine the board meeting. The designer is sitting there, listening as some self-important product planner says "Well, the car looks okay, but it's getting on a bit now... we need to zazz it up a little."

In an ideal world, our roll-necked friend would tell the guy in the grey suit to piss off. But in reality, most cars need a bit of a freshen up. A collagen injection and bigger guns...

Sometimes, it works well. Others, not so much. Here's our low down of the five best and five worst facelifts:

Top 5 Best Facelifts

1. Jaguar XF

The original Jaaaaaaaag XF wasn't too bad to start with, but a wave of Ian Callum's magic pen has transformed it to the model currently on sale. Y'see, the original was compromised by production costs. We've no idea why, since they can obviously handle it now. If you pick a 5 Series over this, you're officially a boring arse.

2. Peugeot RCZ

How do you make an Audi TT look about as interesting as holiday snaps from inner-city Ingolstadt? Throw in a French curve here and there, give it architectural aluminium arches, and a rump-like rear window. Then spoil it with the face of a basking shark. Luckily, Peugeot has seen the error of its ways, and has facelifted the car to something a little more pert.

3. Lotus Elise

The Elise is a car to cause a stir in the pants of petrolheads everywhere. The Series 1 is still an awesome bit of kit, but 2000 saw the sharper, angrier, more alien Series 2 arrive. Less beach buggy, more moon buggy. They even started throwing bombproof Toyota engines in there to replace the ageing Rover K(rakatoa)-Series.

4. Subaru Impreza

"Kill it with fire!" we all cried in 2000, when Subaru released the bug-eyed Impreza. And they did only two years later, with a facelift to help you keep your lunch down. Well, until 2005, when they ruined it again. And who really gives a damn about the current one? We miss McRae and Burnsie.

5. BMW 5-Series

The E39-generation 5-Series is still well-regarded now, but its mid-cycle nip/tuck in 2000 was a masterstroke. What they did was release a Sport version, which made pretty much every version in the range look a bit like the M5. Sucks if you owned an M5, but ace for the bloke with the small willy in the boggo 520i.

Top 5 worst facelifts

1. Fiat Grande Punto

"It's like a Maserati Quattroporte" said everybody when the Fiat Grande Punto was launched. It wasn't really, but the Giugiaro hatch looked damn fine. Sadly, Fiat quickly ruined it, taking it from Quadrophenia Leslie Ash to trout-pout Leslie Ash. Amusingly, they've recently changed it back. Sadly, Leslie Ash can't.

2. Mini Clubman

Who, outside of Mini enthusiast circles, remembers the Clubman today? Exactly. The classic Mini is revered, and the Clubman has been forgotten. Take all that was cute about the original car and gave it the front end from an Austin Maxi. Like the Fiat above, British Leyland saw sense and changed it back in 1980.

3. Saab 9-5

What Saab needed as it spiralled down the abyss was a slick new product line. What it got in 2006 was a 9-5 wearing chrome horn-rimmed glasses. We're not saying the facelift killed Saab, but making it look like an elderly woman probably didn't help.

4. Hyundai Coupe

All the way back in 1996, the Hyundai Coupe was a Korean car that - shock, horror - you might actually want. Until 1999 anyway, when the designer's son, inspired by a toy frog, was accidentally allowed to alter the planned facelift with a box of crayons. At least, we think that's what happened.

5. Volkswagen CC

The VW Passat CC is probably one of the company's best looking cars of the last few decades. Sleek and solid, like a cut-price Merc CLS. So why did VW recently balls it up by making it look a bit like a regular Passat? Sorry, but dropping the Passat name from the CC doesn't work if you make it look even more like one. Not ugly, just dull.