In just the first few paragraphs Dan Neil sets a world record for figurative language:
As long as there have been high school proms and students with no dates to attend them, parents have reassured their awkward/chubby/ mouth-breathing adolescents that it’s what is on the inside that counts. I myself was full of inner beauty, though that beauty was trapped in a sebaceous mutant with glasses as thick as lighthouse lenses.
I would counsel and console the Buick LaCrosse in similar fashion. It’s all right, honey. Don’t cry. If customers don’t see what a wonderful car you are, well, it’s their loss.
I would also go around the house discreetly covering all the mirrors.
The LaCrosse — which replaces the Century and Regal in Buick’s batting order — is a nice car trapped in some astonishingly boring sheet metal. I find myself drawn to meteorological metaphors. If dullness were thunder, the LaCrosse would send dogs running for cover under porches. If mediocrity were snow, Detroit’s Wayne County airport would have to be shut down.
How big a committee styled this thing? There is some of the Olds Alero, a lot of the Ford Taurus, the headlights off the Lexus GS300, the decklid from a Dodge Neon. The front and the back look like different cars and the sum of it has this strange, worked-over quality, like an in-flight magazine’s crossword puzzle.