Why The Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet Is The World's Ugliest Car

CT scribe Ollie Kew is an incredibly knowledgeable chap - usually. But, while the Mitsuoka Orochi is definitely “unconventional”, it’s hardly the “most unforgivably hideous and poorly designed car of all time” - as he so boldly claimed last week. Close - admittedly - but not quite. That crown belongs to the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet - “the world's first

all-wheel drive crossover convertible”.

Launched in 2011 to a cacophony of flabbergasted jaws hitting the proverbial deck, the US-only CrossCabriolet (CC) is based on Nissan’s entirely unremarkable five-door Murano. Nissan’s bigwigs must’ve been smoking something pretty strong when they cooked up the idea of beheading one of their most popular crossovers, especially so given the fact it has no obvious demographic.

Evidence suggests they may already be starting to regret the decision to put it into production. Maybe their dealer’s gone AWOL. This is an official, Nissan-supplied photograph of the CC from the carmaker’s press office. See that baby-blue speck in the background? Nothing screams “we’re proud of our product!” more vehemently than trying to distract people with rows of manicured flora.

Get closer, if you dare, and you’ll find an awkward, unbalanced, fussy - not to mention pointless - design that barely merits the sum total of its parts. The front is best described by Jalopnik’s Matt Hardigree, he says it has “loafer-shaped headlights,” and “a grille that looks like the angry smile of poorly rendered alien villain”.

The further back you go, the worse it gets. While in profile the normal Murano is no more offensive than Huw Edwards - with a fabric soft-top and doors that are a massive eight inches longer than standard - the CC just looks wrong.

Like the Orochi - the CC is neither practical, nor useful. Supercars should be good to look at, but first and foremost, they should be good to drive - and I bet the Orochi is better to drive than the CC is to look at. Convertibles of this type are all about relaxed, top-down cruising - and it’s especially hard to enjoy a casual cruise if everyone’s laughing at you.