Many cars fail because they are bad, have weak engines, or suffer from mechanical issues. Some cars get the short end of the stick because of a major flaw in their build quality, like the Dodge Aspen or the Plymouth Volare, which proved to be rust buckets. Then there are cars like the Ford Explorer in the '90s, fitted with Firestone tires that tended to blast and cause the vehicle to crash and roll. You get the idea.
But what about the cars that are built just fine, seem to have a decent engine, and don’t have any major problems that could cause them to be dubbed lemons? Well, unless they're simply produced in the wrong place at the wrong time, to answer this question, you just have to step back and look at it. Like really, open those peepers and stare. Because, even if you put the best of engine and luxury features in a car, if it's downright hideous, it's more than likely to fail. And that's exactly what happened to these 15 abysmal-looking cars.
15 1989-1992 Nissan S-Cargo: Missing Only A Slime Trail
The Nissan S-Cargo was supposed to be a retro commercial van, except that not in the entire history of automobiles, in America or otherwise, do we remember a car that looked like a snail, and was eponymous with the creature. S-Cargo, escargot, get it? It may have appealed to the French with their peculiar appetite for slimy things on their plate, but in the US, it was a big slimy fail.
14 1984-1991 Yugo GV: You Don't Go
Sadly for one of the owners of the very strange and very, very light Yugo GV, a gusty evening was enough for her to swerve off the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan and result in a fatality. Also, the Yugo GV, despite the 10-year/100,000-mile warranty, needed a timing belt change every 40,000 miles that no one remembered to do. Plus, did you ever look at it?
13 1989-1996 Chevrolet Lumina APV: Dustbuster
While many felt that the Chevy Lumina PAV (and the Pontiac Trans Sport) look pretty close to a Dustbuster, we think the Chevrolet Lumina looks like they started out making a jet, and decided to make a car instead. We cannot seem to find another explanation for that sloping windshield that goes on forever.
12 2000-2010 Chrysler PT Cruiser Convertible: It's A "PT" They Made It
Sometimes, some things are so ugly, they are actually cool. A bit of the infamy that the PT Cruiser Convertible had, helped it sell a very respectable 1.5 million in its decade-old lifetime. But other than the 1.5 million people who like the car and bought it, for the other billions of people around the world, it remains a reviled and ugly car to date, whose sales never truly made sense.
11 1947-1949 Davis Divan: The Upside-Down Tub On Three Wheels
Take a bathtub and turn it upside down. Now attach some sort of a drivetrain and transmission to the bottom, and fit in three wheels if four don’t fit. Carve out a seat, attach the steering to the wheels, and you have one of the 13 Davis Divans so made. There could not be a car better suited to rolling over, ever.
10 2001-2003 Renault Avantime: The Cubist Van
So Renault seems to be taken with Picasso’s cubist phase, because why else would they make an MPV-SUV crossover and then hack at the back with an ax, repeatedly? For most of its short and unaccomplished life, the Renault Avantime often got shudders, double-takes, and jaw-drops as the first and foremost reaction, before it slunk away to ignominy.
9 1970-1978 AMC Gremlin: Satan’s Spawn?
There’s a big similarity between the AMC Gremlin and the 1984 Gremlins movie. Both began their life as something so ugly, they were cute, but that was before their owners realized the truth about them. Made by hacking off all the good looks and stability of the AMC Hornet, the Gremlin needed to be exorcized in eight years.
8 1999-2002 Corbin Sparrow: Looked Like A Boot, Was Given One
There have been EVs before Tesla and there will be EVs after Tesla as well. One of the before-cars was the Corbin Sparrow that was a motorcycle, designed to look like a boot-shaped jelly bean on wheels. And yet it's named after a perfectly proportioned bird. Strange…
7 1996-1999 GM EV1: A Bar Of Soap On Wheels
No, it’s not as if the EV1 was slippery to drive because many called it the best electric vehicle ever, considering not many existed at the time. People were excited about it on paper, but not many liked that strange dome-like design. The technology was new, and promises made were broken, and instead of making the first EV, GM killed it.
6 2004-2006 Chevy SSR: Factory-Built Retro Hot Rod
If the Chrysler PT Cruiser could sell 1.5 million units despite that horrendously ugly design, we are at a loss to explain the Chevrolet SSR’s massive fail. Yes, it was ugly, and yes, it was pricey. No, it wasn’t much of a pickup or a hot rod. It's just that, if the PT Cruiser could, why couldn’t the Chevy SSR?
5 2000-2005 Pontiac Aztek: The Pontiac-Killer
Call it a car mushed on top of another, or call it a demonic possession of an SUV by a sedan; we just call it eye-watering ugly. When they revealed this car at the Detroit auto show, the audience gasped, audibly. Even more tragic was the fact that it was a good crossover, just that no one got over those multiple nostrils. It's also sometimes blamed as the car that singlehandedly killed Pontiac.
4 1998-2010 Fiat Multipla: A Mutated Insect
This is not the Fiat 600 Multipla, a microvan that the world instantly adored then and still goes aww over till now. This is a mutated version of a thing on four wheels that looks like a little bug on top of a slightly longer bug. And we don’t like bugs; not unless they are made by Volkswagen.
3 2012-2013 Coda Electric: Too Ugly To Be An EV
Okay, technically, the Coda Electric wasn’t ugly. It’s just that it was so incredibly boring. And when you compare it to its EV competition, like the Tesla Roadster and the Fisker Karma, the Coda looked like a dud. Dated styling and a mediocre battery made it fizzle out pretty quickly.
2 1995-1997 Suzuki X-90: A Very Confused Little Car
In a weird automotive equivalent of incest, the Suzuki X-90 was birthed after Suzuki decided to look too much within itself for inspiration. A microcar that has pickup dreams, with a spoiler - it was a simply on a whole new level of strange.
1 1975-1979 AMC Pacer: A Fishbowl On Wheels
Ever wondered what a fish must be feeling like in a fishbowl? Try riding in the back seat of the AMC Pacer. Too much glass and plastic made this one strange, strange car.