Years ago I read somewhere that a particular car had been a dismal failure in Japan because it did not smile. Apparently, the Japanese car-buying public were taking their cue from the grille - if it curved upwards, it must be a happy car, if down, there was obviously something wrong to make it so sad.

It strikes me that modern car designers must have read the same article. Take a look at most of the models on sale these days and they have one thing in common - the cheesy grin. Don’t believe me? Take a look at these then:

The thing is, how many of these cars will be on sale in Japan? Okay, I presume the Japanese marques are, but the American? The big fuss about protectionist ploys on imports to Japan isn’t a complete fantasy, after all. So how did the powers that be decide that we all judge a car by whether it’s smiling or not?

Seems like a designer’s excuse to push through some very ugly grille designs, if you ask me…