I was walking along today and saw a new Magna, so I thought about the whole situation and decided to have a long overdue rant about why Oliver Boulay is a fraud. For those who don't know, Oliver Boulay is the french designer brought in by Mitsubishi to give it a 'global face', as is the new trend in Japan.
In Australia, Mitsubishi's mainstay product is the FWD Magna, a large-ish sedan, rather handsome, and competed well with Toyota's Camry. The AWD Magna VRX was a bit horn, too. Anyway Mitsubishi wanted a global face so dear Mr. Boulay got scribbling away and came up with one (on a napkin by the way, real professional, Oliver). Anyway over in down under Mitsu Aus had a design all lined up to refresh the Magna and bring it in line.
So what does Boulay do? Comes along, designs his own and unleashes it on the Aussie public. It's ugly, no matter which way you spin it. The base models look ridiculous, the front lights are only matched by the ES300 for sheer size, and its still got the old back end. What the hell? This is a seriously confused car, and its sales have plummeted because of it. And now Boulay has come out and said "It was meant to be controversial" No, you sad little liar, it wasn't. Chris Bangles designs are controversial, yours are lazy. You probably just wanted to feel like you have an actual job so you raped the looks of what was an otherwise OK looking car. I hate Oliver Boulay so much.