We all know how the front of a car looks like a face. Headlights for eyes, the bonnet providing eyebrows and forehead, the grille making the mouth and the badge being the nose. Our human brains have evolved over thousands of years to be highly efficient pattern recognition devices. Primarily for threat and friend awareness this mechanism can have unusual side-effects such as ascribing faces to cars or seeing animals and shapes in the clouds overhead. The Man on the Moon is another such inference our brain makes for us.

Some cars generate more of an impact on us than others. Their faces can be cute, docile, suave, fierce or angry; in fact the entire glut of human emotions can play out over these steel masks.

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In 2008 Truls Thorstensen (EFS Consulting Vienna), Karl Grammer (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Urban Ethology) and other researchers at the University of Vienna conducted a scientific trial to quantify the effect of us anthropomorphising car faces a phenomenon known as pareidolia. It concluded that 90% of us do see faces and attribute human traits to them. This has wide implications for car buyers and also for how people respond to their fellow road users. Read more.

Its not only human faces but also humanoid faces. Take this fantastical Cyclops for example.

Hanomag 2/10 PS Kommissbrot

How does 71mpg grab you? Well, this unusual German car could manage that with ease during its late 1920s heyday. It was nicknamed Kommisbrot because of its cheap costs and resemblance to loaves of bread eaten by the military.

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Plymouth Prowler

I would not want to see this coming up behind me in my rear view mirror. This sleek, shark like car means business with its gaping mouth. Its an unusal bit of styling too with the Indy-esque open front wheels arrangement.

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Austin Healey Frogeye Sprite Mk1

This little lady is so cute and happy. Makes you smile just to look at her. Almost 50,000 of these adorable roadsters were made since their debut in the 1950s. Not a lot of people know that the car had no boot lid. Your luggage and shopping could only be accessed by tilting the seas forwards and reaching into the boot compartment.

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Chrysler GEM Peapod

Getting cuter? The top half of this electric vehicle down to the indicator housings looks mean but as soon as you look below that you are met with this toothless grin reminiscent of a sweet, lolloping dog pleased to see its owner.

Designed by Peter Arnell who wanted charm and happiness to be the image portrayed by his invention, this car is unlikely to be the victim of a road rage incident.

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Skoda 420 Popular Convertible

With an expression like this, the well groomed moustache, alert eyes and stiff upper lip the 420 is a well-seasoned army general.

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Maserati 200Si

Looking stunned is the name of the game. If the Maserati had eyebrows theyd be sky high. It also has more than a hint about it of a frog surfacing from a pond.

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Ford Taunus

The Taunus is one of the few cars that look more than a little myopic. Not quite the jam jar bottom lenses but a good solid pair of spectacles. This model was exclusively sold in Germany, its name being that of their eponymous mountain range.

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Hurst Hemi Dodge Challenger

Making an impact with its fierce eyes thanks to its frowning eyebrows. The Challenger is one of Americas most loved marques; this 2008 model is a worthy successor.

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Delage D8 Le Mans

This French luxury and racing car manufacturer survived 30 years from 1905. This huge grilled, wide-eyed tarmac guzzler manages to look friendly and purposeful simultaneously.

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And finally, coming as no surprise...

VW Beetle

One of the most iconic cars of the 20th Century was the much loved and also much (mechanically) derided Beetle. Looking youthful and game for anything the Beetle has one of the most incorrigible expressions ever.

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Why not try out our earlier car posts