On the basis that nearly ever country requires a registration plate to be shown on the rear of the car. On the basis that said registration plate has to normally be of a legally quoted size, freely available information. I would say a styling ignoring the position and size for a rear registration plate is completely daft. Its an ego trip from the stylist ignoring the unpleasant facts of real life. Such pretty cars, while undoubtedly being pretty, often fail as cars because its a clear warning that priority of looks has been given over content. Ergo Egon's ego styled cars pfail to perform (nah ha), until they head off to another, who resolves issues and produces a good looking car that works. Less purity of line, perhaps, but greater integrity of engineering.
The Dart has got a rear number slot, but not a front one. Many cars suffered from this problem, unless you like dangly plates on bumpers or drop down brackets. It used to be that plates could be stuck on to the front of cars, often the bonnet. That is still a style failure in my book and I believe it was/is banned from a certain date forwards. My beloved Alfa Romeo Duetto suffers from a lack of obvious front bumper mount. That is the beauty boy of its era, to me - without going into specialist motor cars. Most bubbles have no front mount, but as quite a few can be classed motorcycles, they did not need one.
Conversely there are very good looking designs that make a feature out of the registration plate. They only problem here is sometimes the plate has to be to big, or legally mounted in a certain area to suit local conditions differing from the obvious location. Others have mingy little plates that do not adequately fill the area up. Strangely America seems to have this problem, though it does have the extra excitement of proclaiming home/State to take your mind off it.
I do not offer options on pretty cars of each type. Its a matter of personal taste, I merely point out the beauty, for an engineer, or engineering product, is not just in the look, but in the functionality of the product. But of course the functionality is governed by what you buy the machine for. If it is to look at, then pretty cars do not need to work anymore than a collection of the worst cars in the world.
Those cars mentioned, yep I can see it, save the Tiger. Esso and ergo, again - its word of the day -, I think the Tiger looks a bit of a mess from the back. Remove the racks, extra lights, wheel and gubbins and it is still uncomfortable. Like a Simca 1000 Rallye, its wheels are stuck out at all angles, as if its been trodden on. Truth be told it might have looked better with the body flared into the rear wings. This would have tidied up the lighting, the spare wheel problem and made room for air ducts to pull in cold air to both engine and induction, probably improving performance, but certainly making maintenance access a much simpler affair. This is probably all very heretical, but just as the Messerschmitt design works for the 3 wheeler, it doesn't for the 4 wheeler. The KR200 is the clear winning design of this concept, with the Inter not far behind, but let down by not having a round of radical redevelopment, as did the Schmitt. KR175 v Inter, now that is a very much closer fought battle.
