Car Throttle Looks At Six Fantastic Facelifts: Video

TopSpeed

By Jonathan Lopez

Published Oct 8, 2017

A nip and tuck never looked so good

As we get deeper and deeper into auto show season (get ready for Tokyo!), we are often reminded of that age-old industry practice known as the facelift. In order to keep older models feeling fresh and new, automakers will often apply an update wherein certain exterior design features get tweaked ever so slightly, thus creating a somewhat different appearance. These design reworks are usually pretty mild – an extra crease here, a larger intake there, you know, that sort of thing. But sometimes, a facelift works some real magic for a car, giving it just the right sort of aesthetic, the sort of style that makes you stand up and shout “Yes! That’s what it’s supposed to look like!” In the above-featured three-and-a-half-minute video, our friends over at Car Throttle highlight six such instances when a facelift was just done right.

Included in the video is the Ford Mustang, the Nissan GT-R, the BMW E46 3-Series, the Jaguar XF, the Peugeot 306, and the Mazda MX-5 2.5. Throughout, Car Throttle points out what’s different in the new model versus the old model, highlighting why it works along the way. Indeed, the art of the facelift is in subtle effectiveness, with tweaks done that result in a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Synergy is the key, boosting what works, and diminishing what doesn’t. We think Car Throttle is on to something here, and as we dive headlong into a fresh batch of revisions and updates for the upcoming model year, it pays well to take note of what a good facelift looks like.

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Read our full review on the 2018 Ford Mustang.