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  1. Five ugly cars needing their facelifts
  2. Ford Scorpio, Good body, bad face
  3. BMW 7 Series, Flame surfacing not so hot
  4. Saab 9-5, A chrome spectacle
  5. Fiat Multipla, From pretty odd to oddly pretty
  6. Subaru Impreza, Addicted to surgery

BMW 7 Series, Flame surfacing not so hot

Few cars are as Marmite as the 2001 BMW 7 Series, the Bavarian flagship that unleashed the full fury of chief designer Chris Bangle's 'flame surfacing'. A true adjective generator, most of them negative, the car was nothing if not opinion dividing. Well, that's not quite true: it was unanimously regarded an ugly beast. Some, however, found beauty in its incoherence; others thought it a crime that BMW would create such a controversial look for a segment so conservative. Still, it was arguably better to gamble on a relatively low seller than, say, Bavarian bread and butter like the 3 Series.

Detractors still claim that BMW would be even healthier today had it not been for Bangle's oddball kinks and creases (and the almost useless iDrive that the Seven debuted too). We'll never really know, but BMW did partially admit defeat when it 'softened' the Seven with a 2005 facelift. The two most offensive features - the gawky headlights and the 'Bangle Butt' boot lid - were nipped and tucked to make them easier on the eye, the latter by way of new taillights. The result was slightly more handsome but significantly more boring. And now there's the new Seven: RIP flame surfacing. Defeated at last.

Mark Nichol