General Motors is one of the most famous names in automotive history, and the company has certainly been through a lot in its long and varied history. It has of course been through business failure,  but it has also become one of the largest brands in the world and made up to 50% of the United States automotive sales. It became a car giant and its name is recognized throughout the world.

And some of its most famous brands have produced some of the most spectacular cars. Chevrolet and Pontiac for example, two very cool names and companies, have brought us wonderful muscle and performance cars, that we know and love today and they continue to be great brands throughout the whole of the United States.

But as we all know, every company has bad eggs and General Motors is sadly no exception. The problem is, GM has built some truly awful cars in its time, and some which really have to be forgotten about. It's small wonder that the company has been through such a rough time.

What we have below is a collection of some of GM's worst cars that they have ever built. In particular, the company would have at one point liked you to think that these cars are indeed cool but in fact, they are anything but that. Some actually are, to be fair to them, quite decent cars but no exactly what we would refer to as "cool."

So hopefully you enjoy this very interesting trip down General Motors Avenue. I'm sure you will certainly recognize a few of these machines!

19 Chevrolet Malibu

Now rather the butt of several jokes from the infamous "real people not actors" commercials, the Malibu is one of Chevrolet’s most successful selling Sedans. Indeed, in modern times it’s a good car and so was the original. But from 1998-2003 it really wasn’t. It was god awful.

The styling is basic, if sleek, and was aimed at making the thing look fast which, it wasn’t.

But it was also badly built, from various plastics, and had one of the most unresponsive 4 speed gearboxes you could find. Lucky the Malibu isn’t such a lame duck these days.

18 Chevrolet Monte Carlo

A name like Monte Carlo oozes images of grandeur, speed, Grand Prix cars and glamour. The problem with the Monte Carlo though was it was aimed at NASCAR fans, and was supposed to be a "NASCAR you can take home." Well, not only is NASCAR not as glamorous as the Monaco Grand Prix, it would probably pick something slightly different to represent itself if it could do these days. Slow, basic styling, shoddy build quality and just a huge letdown. And how do you muster just 200 bhp from a V6 engine? It just does not make sense. Baffling!

17 GM EV1

Usually I like to look for some positives in these bad cars. But with the GM EV1, it really is an impossible task. For starters, you only need to look at the thing.

What on earth is going on at the back of this car I really have no idea.

It was actually a solidly built car, with good range, but its issue was it was terrible driving it in traffic, and with trying to juggle that with the efficiency to get the battery to last properly, you would go from a 75 mile range to just a 40 mile range.

16 Pontiac Aztek

The Pontiac Aztek is just everything that is wrong with styling. I’ve seen some ugly cars over the years and written about some ugly ones too. But this is surely one of the worst. It’s just a mess. As I write this I’m trying to look at the harder facts as to why this car was so bad but I can’t stop looking at its ugly face. What is wrong with it? Who thought this was a good idea? The Aztek was a badly refined crossover, built from the basis of an old minivan chassis and was awful compared to any counterpart that came from Japan. No wonder production only lasted around five years.

15 Chevrolet Vega

Looking at this car, you might not be able to say whats wrong with it. Then you look at the history of the Vega. It’s been reported a couple of times that this car may well have brought down General Motors, but thankfully it didn’t It was built by GM designers, as opposed to Chevrolet people and it was just terrible.

It was some of the worst workmanship known to man, and you could just tell nobody wanted to build this car.

Legend has it that when John DeLorean went to inspect it, it just fell apart. No really, the front bumper just dropped right off. How can a car be this lose? Do not take it over a pothole. You’ll probably lose a door.

14 Chevrolet Aveo

car and driver

Over 100 people reportedly lost their lives driving a G3 Wave (the Canadian version). And little wonder. This was classed as a "cheap" car but it really showed. Like the Vega, it would literally just fall to pieces if you gave it so much as a glance when turning your head. You can tell some cars are cheap but often, they stay together and do a job. I can only imagine if you wanted to own this car you really did not care about cars, or indeed your own personal safety. This car really should come with giant "CAUTION" stickers plastered all over it.

13 Chevrolet SSR

Okay, this thing is plain ugly. Just look at it. I thought the Aztek was ugly, but I’m not sure what is worse. That or the Chevrolet SSR that I am currently looking at.

But incredibly, this was not a bad car.

It was well received, had decent performance from a V8 engine, but only had a production run of two years before being canned. It was of course from 2004-2006 when GM was approaching financial ruin. I wouldn’t say this was a cool car. That’s why it’s here. But I have certainly looked at much worse.

12 Pontiac Grand Prix GXP

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Another case of a car with a cool name that just doesn’t do much. The original Grand Prix was a good car, so GM went back to it and tried to make it cooler. But, they didn’t. They made it seriously uncool. It’s huge V8 produced so much torque that it became a death trap, and it lasted only a year before being canned for a much better Sedan. It was also horrendously sluggish and horrible at low speeds; a tug boat could probably handle better than it. It’s a good job that it didn’t last long.

11 1995 Saturns

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Seriously, don’t ever own a 1991-1995 Saturns. These were some of the worst built cars ever from the doors of GM and it was something you just had to avoid at all costs. A steel frame with just bits of plastic built onto them, it was a flop.

The cars were reliable but severely underpowered and no match for any of their rivals from Honda or Toyota.

Honestly I feel sorry for anyone that ever bought one of these cars they’re just any petrol heads worst nightmare. It doesn’t even have good lucks to compensate.

10 Chevrolet Chevette

A020 - 1976 Chevrolet Chevette. GM: A Century of Innovation. Production Vehicles.

Somehow, thousands and thousands of Chevette’s were sold in its 11 year lifespan from the 1970s onwards. It is really hard to understand why that was the case as well. Looking towards the Brazillian division for help, they found a fully developed car that they could adapt for their own purposes, but I really wish they hadn’t done that. Like the G3 Wave these cars were also deathtraps, as well as unreliable, uneconomic and again, built terribly. It was built with good intentions in mind but Chevrolet and GM really should have tried that bit harder.

9 Pontiac Le Mans

Cool name right? I mean, who wouldn’t want to own a car named after one the most famous race circuits in the world! Well little could hide you from the fact that not only was this an awful car, but it was simply a horribly old Opel that was built in South Korea, which was then made in the US and rebadged as a Pontiac. Seriously the tooling for this car must have been an absolute mess. It also borrows too much styling from other cars and was so boring to look at its sending me to sleep right now.

8 Cadillac Cimarron

My problem with this car is I keep wanting to call it the Cadillac Cinnamon. But it is of course the Cadillac Cimarron. But the biggest problem with this car was that it was simply a rebadged Chevrolet Cavalier, and that really was not going to fool anyone.

All that really seemed to change was the grille.

Small wonder that people after a luxury car turned down the chance to own just a rebadged Cavalier. And who can blame them? It also used the same awful engine and transmission from its sister. Poor sales killed it within six years. Thankfully.

7 Chevrolet Uplander

When the Uplander was launched, GM attempted to woo in buyers by stating that the car had ‘SUV looks, minivan utility’ but how they could dare say that is beyond me. The Uplander is one of the most ungainly looking cars which I have ever seen, and nothing would possess me to buy one of them. It also had as much power as a car from the 1950’s, so was outrageously slow and it’s interior was just an absolute mess that no one should be left to deal with. Even removing the seats felt like mission impossible.

6 Hummer H2

Hummer’s are intimidating, and the H2 is no exception. Just looking at it right now puts the fear of God into me. And off-road, the H2 from 2002 onwards was a good machine. But take one of these onto the normal roads, and you’d want your money back.

It was hopeless.

It had six-liter V8 engine which produced just 300 bhp, and its fuel economy was horrific. A more powerful 415 bhp engine in later models just killed that completely, and its ugly butt is best forgotten to history. I would 100% not recommend you try and buy a Hummer H2. Ever.

5 Cadillac Fleetwood V-8-6-4

The Fleetwood seemed like a good idea at the time, but the minute you got into it you knew you’d made a mistake. The car featured cylinder deactivation, which is essentially when a car shuts down its engine either fully or partially at a stop sign or red light in order to save fuel. Unfortunately, in 1981 this system didn’t perform very well, so the V-8-6-4 just jerked and bulked and snorted around, doing untold damage and even made rather rude sounds. A lot of owners took the time to disconnect the system entirely. You should never have to do something like that.

4 Chevrolet HHR

This is another of those vehicles that makes you wonder what its designers were thinking when it was put into production. Built before GM hit rock bottom, the car was plagued with the god-awful plastic build that hurt so many cars around 2006.

It was cheap and tacky, and not cheerful. It also caused many tragedies, and was also horribly underpowered even if a later model did produce a bit more to make it respectable.

It was probably for the better that production of this car ended in 2011. GM would certainly have been glad to see the back of it.

3 Cadillac ELR

At $75,000 the ELR was certainly not a cheap car. The ELR was expensive to develop and was bold step forward for Cadillac. It does look good and was very innovative, but unfortunately no one seemed to want to buy it. The customer base just was reluctant to try any new form of technology and the company was lucky to sell just over a hundred per year. The car sadly faded out of production in 2016, which was unnoticed by many. It is a shame, as this could have been something good.

2 Pontiac Bonneville

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The Bonneville was plagued by a ludicrously high price tag and the fact it borrowed way too much styling from the likable Grand Prix (not the awful one I mentioned earlier). To try and make it sell better, Pontiac attempted to enhance the performance of the car but it just could not compete with the earlier Grand Prix and it was a huge waste of the companies time to make the car, and not even a cool name like Bonneville would help shift sales. Why pay more for a car when the one before it is much better? Luckily the GM customers could see that there was no benefit to doing that.

1 Pontiac Sunfire

Grey Pontiac Sunfire
via cargurrus

The Sunfire was another awful rehash of the Cavalier, and it drove as bad as it looked. A god-awful interior with bizarre baubles hanging around really did not help sales figures for the Sunfire, whose name alone does not bring much joy or sun.

It was also really badly built, and came in awfully drab colors that even the most boring person in the world would struggle to enjoy.

Incredibly, after the initial 1995 model the Sunfire had three refreshes. Quite clearly GM were desperate for it to sell but the demand just was not there and so it quietly vanished in 2005.

Sources: jalopnik, car and driver, car gurus