6 Special Edition cars which look worse than the originals

In order to push sales, and in some cases, inject some exclusivity in otherwise common cars, manufacturers launch special or limited editions. Whether or not these versions deserve to be called so, is something that was talked about in our previous article ‘Special Edition cars – Are they really special?’ Now, we look at six such special edition versions that look worse than their regular versions, essentially the ones they are based on.

Maruti Suzuki Swift RS

Pure wannabe, this car is. Please point out if there has been a worse use of the ‘RS’ moniker, because as far as we know, there hasn’t been. Nowhere related to RS (Rally Sport, Racing Sport, or Rennsport), the Maruti Swift RS was a good looking car undermined by wannabe stickers and painted wheel covers. Yes, painted wheel covers!

The bumper extensions could have worked and the overall theme won’t have looked as bad if MSIL was kind enough to offer some (even as an option) performance updates, and alloy wheels. But painting the wheel covers black wasn’t something worthy of any kind of appreciation.

Maruti Swift Dzire Regal

It’s okay if MSIL continues to offer ‘special’ editions of its cars, but the RS was in a way a disservice to the very nice product the Swift is. But the good part about the RS was that a few tweaks later the car could be converted into an actual looker.

Sadly, the Swift Dzire Regal is one step in the wrong direction. The company tried to make the car look more premium, but sadly, that did not work. The blue shade might could have worked, but the silver accents certainly did not. Thankfully the feature list wasn’t as disappointing.

Chevrolet Beat and Sail Manchester United Special Editions

Chevrolet is Manchester United’s ‘Principal Partner’, which enables them to make special ‘ManU’ edition of their cars. Last year, the company made two such special editions, of the Beat and the Sail hatchbacks.

While the bright red paintjob and the presence of the MUFC logo looked nice, but the staid styling of the Sail and the wrong choice of graphics meant the opportunity to create an actual special edition was lost! While the Beat was still okay to look at, the Sail looked a bit too odd.

Mahindra XUV 500 Sportz

Yes, that is a five double ‘oh’, and ‘sports’ ending with a ‘z’. But it was the presence of distasteful graphics that spoiled it all for the XUV. Even in the regular guise, the XUV is not subtle, but those stickers and red accents all around didn’t help the vehicle’s case, either.

And thankfully, Mahindra didn’t launch the Cheetah edition of the XUV500. Cheetahs are best left in the wild, and here’s why.

Mitsubishi Pajero Sport

Mitsubishi has a great heritage, and Pajero Sport – being the brand’s only offering in India – has rather large shoes to fill. A couple of years ago Mitsubishi had launched its Pajero SFX in a very good-looking dual colour scheme, which suited the old school SUV well. Last year, the brand did the same to its Pajero Sport, but the results weren’t as satisfying.

While other aspects of being a special edition were fulfilled, the new design is more fluid in comparison to the older Pajero, and thus a two-tone combination is less likely to work on it. And that’s what happened. In the said dual colour combination, the vehicle looks incomplete, and not special, by any means.