Top 5 Most Dull Cars on the Road

Update: I changed my mind about the Sienna. I think the XLE and Limited models are nice enough to keep it off the list. I need to go over my list again to come up with a suitable replacement.

A nice looking car doesn’t have to be expensive. Take the affordable Honda Civic. It’s a small, sporty, sharp looking car. You can tell that Honda’s designers wanted to give it a bit of personality. A bit of pizazz. Honda understands that even those with smaller budgets care about style. I think the Civic is better looking than some cars costing twice as much.

At the other end of the pendulum is Toyota who makes some of the ugliest, dullest most bland cars on the road. Sure they are reliable and well-made but they have about as much style as a refrigerator propped up by 4 tires.

I started making a mental list of the dullest cars I’ve seen lately and, not surprisingly, Toyota ran the table taking the first five spots in Top 5 Most Dull Cars on the Road competition.

One of the newest cars in the Toyota lineup is the Yaris. This hideous little beast looks like it gained it’s inspiration from an insect. It’s chubby nose and bug eyes add to it’s wackiness. The demographic for the Yaris is people who must have a new car but only have 12 grand to spend. It just screams “cheap” when not yelling “dull”.

The Toyota Yaris

I hesitated to add the Toyota Sienna to the list because the higher end XLE and Limited models are not bad looking. But someone opened up a can of bland with the CE and LE models. How can this happen? It’s all in the choice of wheels, rims and trim which look decent on the XLE and downright homely on the CE. The Sienna demographic is people who are proud to drive minivans. Those that value a little more driver involvement and better handling buy the Honda Odyssey.

The Toyota Sienna

One of the founders of Google who is worth over $12 billion drives a Toyota Prius. That fact alone earns the Prius a spot on the list. I still can’t get over how dull this car is. It’s as if Toyota engineers started with a Pontiac Aztez and filed away at all the rough edges until they were left with a design that’s on par with the first pinewood derby I carved when I was 10 years old. I know the Prius is all about saving the environment, good gas mileage and all that, but does it have to come in such a dull package? Who are the fools that put their name on a waiting list or pay five grand over sticker on eBay for this eyesore?

The Toyota Prius

The Toyota Avalon is the flagship of the Toyota line. I’ve read reviews that compare it a Lexus ES for thousands less. So I propose the following tag line: “The Toyota Avalon: When the Lexus ES isn’t dull enough”. The Avalon is the Buick Roadmaster of our generation. It’s the car with zero street cred that only an insurance agent could find appealing. It’s not easy to spend $35,000 on pure dullness but the Avalon delivers in spades.

The Toyota Avalon

I saved the Toyota Camry for last because it’s proof that over 400,000 Americans have no taste in cars making it the best selling dull car in the US. If you have Grandparents that read Consumer Reports there’s a 75% chance they drive a Camry. It’s the perfect “just get me from point A to point B vehicle”. And they breed like rabbits. I know several families where one Camry wasn’t dull enough so they bought another one to keep it company. People that buy the Camry must wear blindfolds until they are in the car as this is one of the ugliest, dullest, most mundane cars on the road.

The Toyota Camry