To be fair, the first act of Transformers plays A LOT like a Herbie movie, and if Bumblebee had been a Beetle it would have been even more so.

The Cars universe is based on a few main principles:

The levy! But it was dry.

This is a good thing. Most people don’t need “real” SUVs and never did, but bought them because they liked the looks. Now they can have the looks with more practical car-like handling, and more importantly, fuel economy. There is less reason to hate the wastefulness of SUVs now that they are basically cars.

The light-speed starburst field emanating from the logo is also distracting and overwrought, especially in person.

Yes! Beak aside, the old shape was much better. The new design dropped the beak but ruined the shape.

It is truly hideous but amazingly this one has grown on me in a way the Acura beak never did. I don’t mind the Lexus spindle anymore.

Always hated the beak. I like the idea of the new grille but the shape is still stubbornly beaklike as well as garish, awkward and overdone. Somehow it got more hideous.

Some of those people (like our household) may have chosen an Outback specifically because we wanted a wagon and this lifted one was the only affordable wagon-like vehicle still on the market. Seriously, if you want a non-lifted wagon with any kind of space (the V60 and Golf Sportwagen were not much of a step up…

Came here for this.

My wife drove an ‘05 Prius and when we went car shopping for her this year, she was so disgusted by the new design that she ruled it out from the get-go.

This has never been an issue for me. Once you use one of these you quickly realize that the only way to select the gear is to release the whole thing, button and all. It’s hard to even keep your finger on the button while releasing the rest of the shifter.

Also, by making Park a button, then each direction you pull the shifter can only lead to one function. You don’t have to worry about how many notches it’s moved, because up is R and down is D and... well, N varies but again, you almost never need it.

1) FCA knows people hate these things and seems to be phasing them out, replacing them with the knobs or, in the case of the new Charger/Challenger, traditional-style shifters that stay where you leave them (even though they are still actually electronic).