There’s the standard wagon you drive to work in every day, the budget sports car you love hiring on the weekend, and that $100,000 Mercedes you wish you were rich enough to afford. That’s because the latter falls in the exclusive category of luxury cars. These cars have been designed to be the best of style, tech, performance, and materials ever put in a car.
But is that always the case?
The true definition of luxury is somewhat objective. Some people find the 600+hp in a Bentayga or sport mode selection put in Mercedes S-Class to be simply absurd. You’ll never use half of that power or ever switch to that mode, and no sober CEO would be interested in flying at 150mph through busy traffic in the morning.
But that’s the point. Luxury cars are also built to be wasteful. The only thing that really matters is that the suspension is good, the leather seats are heated with full massage, and the chauffeur doesn’t go through potholes like a drunk driver.
Still, some cars have managed to fail terribly on not just what matters, but also the gizmos that make these cars cost an entire mortgage. These 10 we’ve featured are either ugly, luxury imposters, or too overpriced for what they offer.
10 Porsche Cayenne
Porsche is not luxury. Porsche is 9-year old petrolhead madness. And the Cayenne was not, in many Porsche fans’ opinion, the greatest idea Porsche ever had.
This elevated, elongated, and boring 911 was born out of a frustrated company that was on the brink of collapse back in the 90s. Because only the rich can afford these German toys, and Porsche found out that two-thirds of their customers owned at least an SUV, the grand idea was to build a Porsche SUV that these loyal customers wouldn’t leave at the showroom.
Well, the idea worked, and here we are lusting over RSRs and GT2 RS’s on the streets because Porsche earned money. However, you wouldn’t miss that disgusting smirk from a true Porsche fan whenever a Cayenne passes by.
9 Maserati Quattroporte
Give it to Maserati and Alfa Romeo to come up with names distinctively meant to be pronounced by Italians. And as far as the Quattroporte is concerned, apart from twisting tongues while trying to pronounce that name, the car also turns several heads.
Yes, it’s a Maserati and Lionel Messi should ride it with a smug face after butchering other teams on the pitch. But this Maserati is less reliable than that Spaniard on the football pitch.
The specific issue was with its DuoSelect transmission sourced from Ferrari. Nothing about luxury states that you should be calling breakdown services every other time because of electrical faults and a load of other issues from the transmission. Those problems made the fifth generation Quattroporte one of the most hated Maseratis of all time.
8 BMW X6
Looking at the BMW X6, you’d immediately register the inspiration behind its design – nothing. And that’s exactly the problem most buyers have with this car. It inspires you to buy the X5 instead of this ugly baby Pierre Leclercq born out of an SUV and a sports sedan.
The BMW X6 only offers one thing that luxury car buyers shallowly care about. And that is performance. Otherwise, the front fascia convinces you that this is a full-size luxury SUV until you get to the back where a 5 series bottom hits you. To quell the design disappointment, BMW decided to build an M version of the X6.
An X7 would have been better. Thankfully, that was launched in 2019 with a prettier face.
7 Volkswagen Phaeton
Many would argue that anything luxury from Volkswagen should be left to Bentley. Those Brits know how to do the job better. Well, this 2002 Phaeton wasn’t a bad car. Car reviewers were impressed with it. It sat on the same platform as the Bentleys, had high-end new technology synonymous with luxury sedans, and was hand-assembled.
This car was slated to shake the luxury sedan market Mercedes and BMW had dominated. So why would some buyers hate it?
Because it had a Volkswagen badge, and it was hard to distinguish it, design-wise, from a Passat.
6 Rolls-Royce Cullinan
The anger that burns through the throats of Porsche fans when they see the Cayenne has the same burn for Rolls Royce purists who look at the Cullinan. Just like the X6, nothing inspired the design of this car. It’s plain-simple ugly.
But this is a petrolhead soap opera of true beauty lies inside. Rolls Royce managed to keep everything inside the Cullinan pure to the Rolls Royce philosophy. The ride quality is Rolls standard, the leather is uncompromised, and anyone who’s driven it or been chauffeured in it desires another ride. But that quickly goes away when you get outside the car and look at the hideous thing you’ve been proudly sitting in all this while.
5 BMW 7 Series (2002-2008)
It’s hard to imagine that Chris Bangle did not design the X6, but it turned out as it did. Because the fourth generation of the BMW 7 series was sculptured from his creative pen. Ignoring the sarcasm, this 7 series made Mercedes’ sales of the luxury sedan market between 2002 and 2008 easy.
And it’s not just the odd looks that made this car lose value in the used luxury car market. It had a notoriety of constantly flashing the check engine light to warn you that you were either about to go bankrupt or let the car kill its engine to save you some pennies. That contributed to the BMW 7 Series not being considered by some as one of the best works from Bavaria.
4 Hummer H2
The story of the Hummer H2 is a rather interesting one. Nothing about this SUV is an actual luxury. Rather, this was a hyped-up military machine, finally made for civilians. And sure enough, the H2 came flying off the showrooms.
To its credit, the H2 matched its menacing looks with proper SUV performance. But that was just about it. It had a terrible ride quality that no one dreaming of luxury would stomach, and the interior was not made up of faux-leather at the very least. Rather, it was cheap and tacky plastic.
As if this was not sign enough for Hummer to drop the luxury tag, the Hummer H3 took this madness a notch higher.
3 Aston Martin Cygnet
Whether Aston Martin truly nails the luxury in their vehicles is a discussion most gearheads can’t come into a full agreement about. Yes, this is James Bond’s car and whoever drives it should not drink a stirred Martini. But compared to the Bentley Continental which closely falls within Aston Martin’s category, a lot can still be done.
Just like it should have been done for the Cygnet.
First of all, James Bond would never have driven this. It looks like a Smart Fortwo with a badge job. Actually, it was a Scion IQ with a badge job and leather seats. In Aston Martin’s defense, this was their sarcastic take on European fleet average emission regulation that forced them to create this thing. But then, they mocked the Aston Martin name by fitting the respected 4.8L V8 from the Vantage S into a Cygnet one customer ordered.
2 Lincoln MKS
Speaking of badge jobs, even a company as respected as Lincoln pulled off one of the most detestable badge jobs in American history. The MKS was nothing close to what a Lincoln should be. That’s because it was a Ford Taurus with a Lincoln badge.
Nothing about this Taurus was exciting either. The waterfall grill specifically put off so many buyers. It did nothing to uplift the front fascia. Add that to the watered-down interior that Ford, oops, Lincoln thought would woo customers, and you’ll understand why this car sold dismally between 2009 and 2016.
1 Cadillac Escalade
A Cadillac today is much like your crush on prom night. You desperately want to be seen with her, though your chances of ever having a relationship are nil. That’s the Escalade’s story. People buy it because they’ll score critical social points. But the chances of enjoying anything luxurious with the car are nil.
Most critics actually state that the Cadillac Escalade tries too hard. The second generation in particular was nowhere near reliable, compared to the German counterparts it was so desperately trying to compete against. But still, every other FBI agent in Hollywood wants to drive one.