I was drawn toward this pair I saw recently near my office, and had to take some pictures. They have so much in common, don’t they? Was the Veloster inspired by the early-’90s Civic hatchback? Or is it just a coincidence that the Veloster looks like an amped-up, sci-fi alien monster version of the Civic?
On the one hand, the Veloster is obviously 2 decades newer — it’s taller, heavier, stuffed with technology not dreamed of in 1992, has a surprisingly tiny greenhouse, and the giant grille that seems to be a requirement today. The styling seems to be trying oh-so-much-harder to get noticed. But on the other hand, it strikes me how similar they are. Twenty years later, the design of a stylish, inexpensive sporty coupe/hatchback is surprisingly, well, similar. Ovoid shapes, check. Biomorphic taillights, check. Upswept rear beltline, check. Swept-back, flush headlights, check. It really shows that design evolution has slowed when two cars that are two decades apart can be so alike, doesn’t it? As for me, I really like both designs.
Bleah. Thanks for ruining my digestion.
For 50 years Honda specialized in doing everything right; suddenly they decided to compensate for all that rightness with one huge nauseous blast of perfect wrongness.
BTW, the Veloster is a Hyundai.
Whatever one may say about Honda today, I don’t think you can hold them responsible for the Veloster!
I thought the one at the right was the wagon edition of the Renault Megane coupe.
Other than the fact that they are both white and hatchbacks, they have nothing to do with each other. The Honda is sleek and sporty; the Veloster is a bloatmobile that appears to be suffering from indigestion.
They’re both white……end of similarities
Wow – you could make three of those Civics with all that bumpy body cladding on the Veloster.
The rear window looks positively Aztek-inspired.
The Veloster makes this generation Civic hatch, which I never was a huge fan of, look quite attractive.
Funny how folks take the Acura beak or the Lexus grill and proclaim the whole car ugly. But that Velostre is ugly all over and yet people actually like it, “it’s different” is the reason. I just don’t get it.
Well, it’s the difference between a basically innocuous car marred with one really jarring element and a cohesive design that happens to be very odd. As with some of Richard Teague’s ’70s AMC designs (the Pacer and ’74 Matador, particularly), the Veloster may be polarizing, but you can’t say it’s not true to its peculiar design convictions.
What I don’t get about the Veloster is that they make a setup for RHD markets that has the odd door on the left side. Meaning that they could’ve had conventional two- and four-door (not counting the hatch) versions for exactly the same cost, engineering and production effort.
Sure, but if it were more orthodox-looking, it would have been dismissed as a me-too response to the Volkswagen Scirocco (which it still sort of is) and probably ignored as such.
Cool shot. While I admit the Veloster looks a bit “overcooked”, I like its basic setup. If they offered a “deflared” base version I think it’d look great.
However, I do not get the love or nostalgia for this Civic. Anyone ridden in a 20+ year old Honda Civic, or any compact that old, lately? Even the 2001-2005 Civic is a torture chamber compared to new compacts. They might be lithe and tossable, but they have the structural integrity of wet cardboard, and sound like riding inside of an echo chamber, and you’d better enjoy riding shoulder to shoulder if another adult is in the car.
No thanks. I’ll take comfort, 40 MPGs, safety and progress over low beltlines and rose-tinted nostalgia any day.
I was going to post something similar, if Hyundai were to scale back the styling excess like they did on the newest Sonata, the Veloster wouldn’t look quite so odd. The white paint on this car does it no favors. I’ve seen them in darker colors only, and it doesn’t appear quite as ungainly.
This exemplifies what’s happened to headlights over two decades of design evolution; they’re getting pulled back onto the front fenders, like the way we stupid kids used to play “Chinese/Japanese/Siamese.”
The Honda was just bland and boring. The Veloster is UGGGLY!! I’ve said many times that newer cars needed some style. This is NOT the kind of style I meant. The only Honda I ever actually really liked was the mid ’70s Civic. From there they just started getting more and more bland and boring and generic. The ’83-’87 CRX was a pretty fun looking car, but very flimsy.
I like the ’90s Honda Civic over the 10s Hyundai Veloster.
I owned a 92 Civic hatchback, a near twin to the car pictured here.
For those who think this Civic looks “bland”…..Honda got feedback from customers and/or insurance companies about how difficult it was (as well as costly) to repair accident damage to previous generations of Civic. The company responded by designing more sections/parts of the car as single pieces. Example? In 1991 the headlight/turn signal/side marker were 3 pieces, in 1992 they combined them into 1 unit. The interior got a “similar treatment”.
As for the Veloster, I wonder what percentage of buyers bought it for the novel 3rd door and how many for the “looks”.
BTW, I think it’s too bad Honda and/or Toyota no longer build cars out of the ordinary like the Veloster.
I really genuinely think the Veloster is easily the ugliest car of all time.
I think comparing it to the Civic is frankly blasphemous(and I don’t even like Honda! lol), the Civic’s stylish design still was every bit as practical as a dull appliance car, this… this… THING with a gigantic italicized Honda badge(not that I dare accuse Hunday of plagiarism….) has the same design sensibilities as a 1971 Mach 1 Mustang, right down to the ridiculous glass panel over the cargo area. I guess the designers figured ” who needs visibility, backup cameras are going to be mandated anyway!”.
Well, the Civic is sure prettier!
The Veloster looks like the Civic pre-liposuction. 🙂
From my point of view, the Honda is not a hatchback, but a shooting brake. I miss vertical liftgates.
That veloster is horible. As much as I admire the clean lines of the civic; I despisr these new goofy-angular designs on cars now-a-days. Just because you can bend metal in weird angles doesn’t mean you should.
I prefer either of these two more recent offerings by Honda to the cars above
You must be British or European, for the hatch version is N/A in North America. Rear visibility in that looks poor; the high rear/low front styling fad, which hides all extremities from the driver, shows no sign of abating.
As JP said, current styling looks arbitrary & tortured, almost mad. Modern sculpture belongs in museum galleries, not the highways.
Couldn’t get the two photos on the one post…….. although purple is about my least preferred colour in the current CRZ
I have driven and rode in this version of the Honda civic and previous ones too. Even in the back seat it was a tight fit but I didn’t mind the ride. Cramped but the large glass made it feel open.
I’m 6′ tall and I don’t like cramped spaces yet I have only panicked twice. Once after accepting the salesman’s challenge to get into the back seat of the Veloster at the auto show. When I was in and the door closed he shut the hatch in behind me right on top of my head. The other time I was insulating my attic and squeezed my way into the space above the 12×12 extension on the back of the house dragging bales of insulation behind me. It was a small 15″x36″ hole cut in the sloping roof between. Once the bale was slit it expanded filling the entire space blocking the only exit and the led work light I brought in with me. I will go back in the attic again if I have to but I have no reason to ever get in the back of a Veloster.
I always found this generation Civic hatchback to be attractive, and I especially like the fact that the glass goes up like a normal hatchback but the metal piece below it comes down as a tailgate.
The Veloster – my wife liked the look of it, so she bought a turbo version in auto. We kept it for a year before flicking it. It was bloated, so had no performance to speak of and she really had a problem with the A pillar / mirror area, she couldn’t see out of the thing at an intersection. She drives 200 km a day to get to work and back and was complaining about the fuel it used. I checked, the fuel tank is jerry can size from memory 45 litres.
I don’t know what the leather came off, I suspect it came out of the ground.
I’m glad it is gone …
WHAT were they thinking with that dopey useless 3rd door? Just doing anything for the sake of being different reeks of desperation. Id be a very ‘different’ looking guy if i got another butthole surgicaly implanted on my forehead but I doubt Id have a fock of ladys clamoring.
I cant for the life of me figure out why they dont just put the 2.0T engine in the Elantra coupe and hatch as a 2 pronged aproach. Simple economics dictate those would cover the sub-Genesis sporty car needs perfectly without some uniquely awkward bodystyle.
Elantra coupe was too bland, but the Veloster is too weird. They needed to strike a balance in the middle.
Liked the look of the Forte Koup, one of the reasons why we bought one, though the driving experience is quite generic. Pass that 2.0T “across the aisle” to Kia and drop it in, tweak the chassis, and you might have something.
Those Civic hatches were nicely styled little cars, to be sure. Previous generation Civic hatches were too, all the way back to the “flat back” version of the early 80’s. Downhill after this one though–the hatch design of the generation that followed these (6th gen) was a bit awkward, the 7th gen hatch was just ugly (looked like a tiny van) and it was dropped in the US after that.
Veloster is easily the worst design since the Aztek. The only redeeming quality it has is that the rear door window actually rolls down instead of being “fixed”.
Thought I was the only one out there that thought the Veloster was an abomination. It makes my 05 ION look like a 61 Continental in comparison.
veloster is the DATSUN B210 of our era!