The counterpoint to this is the "Aston Martin" Ford [1a and 1b] which I think most people would agree looks much better than the Ford design it replaced [2]. It literally steals the design cues from a $100k+ sports car and adapts them to an economy car and it seems to work quite well as a design (admittedly a bit of design plagiarism).
edit: oops, the link says it's a Ford Fusion.