By now, car companies should be aware that achieving great sales isn't as simple as putting a good car on the market. Buyers often act on impulse, and cars that are popular and trending will get heaps of attention regardless of their actual quality.

Therefore, not everything that shines is gold, and not every car that manages to sell is good, with the cars included in this list standing as testimony to this. Unfortunately, the public is often too late to realize they've made a mistake, resulting in some of the worst cars ever produced boasting impressive sales numbers.

No, we aren’t talking about cars like the Lada Riva or the Fiat Multipla. Many terrible cars that should have never reached high sales numbers hail from right here in America, and here are 15 of them. Which of these would you consider to be the absolute worst?

15 2007-2010 Chevrolet Malibu

2007-2010 Chevrolet Malibu: Sold And Recalled
via ConsumerReports

Thousands of these were sold and thousands still sell, making the Malibu a profitable nameplate for Chevrolet. And yet a gearshift problem, in which a Malibu tends to amble off when put in park, has made for a massive recall. Still, the Malibu sells. Of course, the recent generation also has the highest safety ratings, so there.

14 1996-2000 Ford Explorer

1996-2000 Ford Explorer: Exploding Tires
via Wikimedia Commons

Technically, there was nothing wrong with the Explorer, and also technically, it sold like hotcakes. But its Firestone tires were known to spontaneously burst because of tread separation and so there were too many ghastly rollover accidents in the Explorer. The issue was finally resolved when much like that tread, Ford and Firestone also separated. And all tires were recalled and replaced.

13 1974 Ford Mustang II

1974 Ford Mustang II: A Mustang Me-Too
via Hagerty

This is the car that saved Ford during the '70s malaise era brought on by the oil crisis and the stricter emission laws. Sadly, this car gave the Mustang a bad name because, while it was okay enough as a passenger car, it lacked any kind of muscle. Plus, with shared underpinnings from the volatile Ford Pinto, it was bad, but sales were good.

12 1979 Chevrolet Corvette

1979 Chevrolet Corvette: Far Too “Un-Special”
via Car and Driver

Corvettes have always sold well, and for 1979, 53,000 units weren't bad. And yet, with only two engine options that gave out nothing more than 195 and 225 horses, flat out, these were almost insulting. The looks were the same as the 1978 model, plus there were no special editions. So how could this decrepit 'Vette sell the best?

RELATED: 15 All-American Cars That Proved To Be Game Changers

11 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser

2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser: Retro Isn’t Always Cool
via Pinterest

Most of us never really got the PT Cruiser, or why Chrysler wanted to have a retro-themed car for the 2000s in the first place. But with 144,000 sold in 2001 alone, Chrysler did know America well. However, it was plagued with engine issues and drivetrain problems that proved pretty expensive to repair once the warranty expired. And so by 2010, the PT Cruiser wrapped up and slunk off.

10 1974 Ford Pinto

1974 Ford Pinto: The Kaboom Car
via ClassicCars

For all those who still love the Pinto, yes, we do know that not all Pintos caught fire or exploded. But the problem was that when you try to make a car that has to be under 2,000 pounds and dollars, mediocrity becomes the norm. A simple little expense could have saved the Pinto's rep by adding in a failsafe in front of the rear-engined Pinto's gas inlet. They didn't but they still managed to sell it in millions!

9 2000 Chevrolet Monte Carlo

2000 Chevrolet Monte Carlo: The NASCAR Plug
via Autoblog

A rather shameless NASCAR entry, there was simply nothing racecar-like about the Chevrolet Monte Carlo, and certainly not in its stock form. It was plagued with a weak drivetrain that made the car handle like a brick and neither did its looks inspire anything related to speed, or even style. For some reason, we still bought more than 380,000 of these from 2000 to 2007.

8 1981 Oldsmobile Diesel Cars

1981 Oldsmobile Diesel Cars: Bad To Worse
via Wikimedia

For the Oldsmobile Diesel cars, the timing was all wrong. And yes, while the diesel Olds were bad because mostly all diesel cars of that era were, somehow people noticed it all with the Olds Diesels. The engines were bad and put together in a hurry, and the impure diesel of that time stripped off any life the engines had in them. For a while though, they did sell okay.

RELATED: 15 American Muscle Cars That Deserve To Be Put Out Of Their Misery

7 1970 AMC Gremlin

1970 AMC Gremlin: Hacksawed Wonder
via Pinterest

When you take a full-size car, chop off the rear-end with a hacksaw, paint it sporty and call it a pony car, you get the AMC Gremlin. Much like the horror-movie Gremlins that keep spawning, more than 670,000 of these were sold. And it took so many cars for people to finally recognize the massive flaw the Gremlin had, that it drove bad, guzzled fuel and rusted like nobody’s business.

6 1971-77 Chevrolet Vega

1971-77 Chevrolet Vega: Temperamental Extreme
via Pinterest

The Vega was GM’s answer to the Ford Pinto. While the latter burst into angry flames upon being rear-ended, the Vega steamed from under the hood. The cost-cutting extremes that GM went through to make the cheap but profitable Vega meant it had too-small a radiator that spelled bad trouble on a hot day. And empty spaces between the body parts meant it rusted on wet and humid days. A recipe for disaster but still two million of these sold.

5 2000 Ford Excursion

2000 Ford Excursion: A Little Too Much
via CarSpecs

Too big, too heavy, too long and too much of a guzzler – the Ford Excursion turned out to be everything an SUV should not be like. For some vague reason, 50,000 of these sold in the year 2000, though sales soon petered down once people realized that maintaining the Excursion was no walk in the park.

4 1996-2000 Plymouth Breeze

1996-2000 Plymouth Breeze: Much Ado Over Nothing
via Wikipedia

The Plymouth Breeze, along with its siblings the Dodge Stratus and the Chrysler Cirrus was the cloud cars of the time, known more for their synchronized nomenclature than for anything else. These were cheap cars that barely held on to their warranty before slowly and steadily breaking apart. Plus they drove cheap and looked cheap as well. This cheapness was both their USP and eventual downfall.

RELATED: 15 Pictures Of Abandoned Muscle Cars That Hurt Our Soul

3 1980 Chevrolet Citation

Cream Chevrolet Citation on the driveway
via Pinterest

Poorly built with many owners facing problems from day one, the Citation still managed to sell more than 800,000 cars the very first year. It seemed like the American people were gluttons for torture on the road. By 1985, sales were down to a mere 62,000, and the Citation was withdrawn as a face-saving effort by Chevrolet.

2 1975-1987 Chevrolet Chevette

1975-1987 Chevrolet Chevette
YouTube

The Chevrolet Chevette was not Corvette and not even a Chevelle. Neither, as opposed to what the name suggests, was it the love child of the Chevelle and Corvette. It was cheap, and that is why it sold. The horsepower it gave out started at 52 and never went beyond 74. Not only did this "replace" the Vega, but it was also worse than the Vega. Still sold about 3million of these!

1 1975 AMC Pacer

1975 AMC Pacer: The Fishbowl
via Flickr

Hailed as the car of the future, the AMC Pacer instead became the butt of many jokes. Had the Internet been thriving in the '70s, the AMC Pacer would have endless memes dedicated to it, mostly because it looked terrible. While the initial sale run was good (because anything that did not guzzle sold well in the '70s), buyers soon realized they looked like goldfish in a fishbowl while driving it. So they stopped.

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