Aside from the rear end, the new Civic looks just like a Corolla! Same exact body shape! (At least by those pictures).
By the way, 01loadedLE, good job on spelling "turban" correctly. No joke- every person I have seen writing the word "turban" in the last 6 months has spelled it "turbine". I always laugh imagining someone walking around with a jet engine on top of their head.
Huh? I don't see it at all.
This is all about opinion. You're entitled to yours, but to me this is a MUCH better looking car than its predecessor, and the current Corolla.
I like the shoulder ridge running the lenght of the car. The concave tail-end looks more crisp and sporty, without being pretentious. Maybe shades of the BMW 3 Series? Hey, if you're going to copy, BMW ain't a bad place to start. The bulbous rear-end of the new Corolla is one its MANY stylnig miscues.
The profile is more rakish and striking, with more of a long-hood-short-deck classic look. It also doesn't look like it's standing on its tippy-toes, stretched vertically like the wobbly-looking Corolla does.
I might go so far as to call it handsome. The Corolla . . . ain't.
My order of preference, in terms of looks:
1) Previous Jetta
2) Mazda 3
3) new Jetta
4) new civic
5) Ford Focus
6) old civic
7) current Corolla.
With the exception of maybe the Scion xA and tC and the new Avalon, Toyotas are plagued by a me-too styling philosophy. You can see "marketing research" all over them. For almost every segment--Corolla, Camry, 4 Runner, Tundra, Tacoma--I can think of a bunch of things I hate about their styling, and find much better looking counterparts elsewhere (Mazda 3, Mazda 6, Explorer, F150, Chevy Colorado, respectively).
Having said that, I think I'd still buy the Corolla if I had to do it all over again, for all the other obvious reasons.