Hyundai Verna - 2 Hammer head sharks under the bonnet

There is something about the car facia that gets my goat. Sometime back  I mentioned about fiat Punto on this Blog. This time around its Hyundai which has come out with its new variant of Verna – its midsized car. Verna by the way is a very common first name for women  and I wonder why Hyundai could conjure this name for a masculine looking car? Anyway that’s not the point. Look at its front grill, it has two pieces of what appears to be shovels jutting out of its Bumper. To me it appears as though the car is carrying two hammer head sharks under its bonnet!

Hammer head sharks with their mallet-shaped head called Cephalofoil are not the most elegant looking in the shark family, their strange headgear is almost considered abnormal. Neither is the creature known for any positive attributes like strength, aggression or speed.  If the car designers were not inspired by it what could they? Generally car styling (product form)  is done with a purpose of creating an impression or generate inferences regarding other product attributes like say ruggedness or power? For example the 1994 Dodge Ram pickup’s front end was designed to resemble the cab on an 18 wheeler to suggest strength & power. 

I have no clue on the former but generally it is believed that many car makers adopt front grille  among the styling cues (developed in  their research labs) in search of a new unified Brand image &  to achieve a distinctive character that would allow its models to be easily recognized in the global markets. Examples are Subaru  & closer  home Tata motors. Last week I saw their new crossover ‘Aria’  on a TV news channel with its trademark  semi smiley grill - massive though it was. 

Speaking of Subaro, the Japanese carmaker took its design so seriously that it fired  its Design Director Andreas Zapatinas over its controversial front grille design which was based  on the propeller theme.

So is this Verna design has something to do other than what  their designers wished for? Maybe  then they can take a cue from  BMW's DesignWorks and Nissan's Design Center which are intentionally placed far away from the dogmatic limitations that guys in grey suits and ties in corporate headquarters usually impose.