My eye for design is that of a six grader armed with a box of “extra bright” Crayola markers but I CANNOT ignore the automotive industries innovation aneurysm after innovation aneurysm.

Picture A: redesigned 2013 Ford Fusion. Originally unveiled to the American public as ugly in 2005 though an instant success as they were rapidly swooped up by every Taurus owner who had been looking for a reason to upgrade since 1996.

Picture B: 2011 Aston Martin V8 Vantage. Introduced in 2005 and still carries many distinct design cues as today’s model. The Vantage is finely crafted by the Brits for cheeky, slightly over-weight gentleman like Jeremy Clarkson to own and for the rest of us to grumble about not being able to afford. Regardless, a beautiful car.

REALLY — who went out to lunch on this one? We’ve come to expect this kind of behavior from Kia but typically not the Ford guys. Clearly what happened is some design chief got behind the eight ball, wrangled up all the university design student interns, gave them six cases of Red Bull, five seasons of Top Gear and said ‘I’ll be back Monday to see what you got.”