While some have nailed the bullseye spectacularly, not all luxury cars are a pleasure to own, drive, or park. There are many worth owning and a few best left to the enthusiasts, or better yet left to pastures. More than just a soft ride, luxury cars are a symbol of what it means to be on top of the world. The rich aroma of leather-clad lounge chairs adorning the cabin of our spacious saloon comforts us on cold and rainy nights with a proper chime to remind us to buckle up as heated seats warm our soul and windshield wipers whisk our tears away to the soothing sounds of a 200 speaker stereo system.

On the inside, we drive a luxury car to give us the executive ushering from point A to point B that we rightly deserve. It gives us confidence, comfort, and a bunch of great, yet problematic, convenience features. On the outside, it tells the world, “Hey! I’m a successful person! I can afford to place my pants in the ostrich leather lap of heated or cooled and possibly massaged luxury.” It’s been a struggle for automakers of such fine rides to somehow produce a lower priced car that still feels like a premium machine to reach more drivers. Who doesn’t want to drive a Mercedes or a Bentley? Some manufacturers have managed to build some fairly great cars for their entry level autos, while others have taken perhaps a few unsuccessful swings at that pitch. There are a number of great reasons to overlook some of these models, but much like there is someone for everyone, there’s a driver for every car.

If your goal is to be caressed by the hand-stitched emu leather while executing the delivery of 500hp to the ground to win over strangers and impress friends, some of these 25 plush rides might miss the mark, while others will hit that mark with laser-guided precision and then leave your wallet as a pile of dust where your financial future once was. Here are 25 luxury cars no one should drive (not even for free).

25 1990 Bentley Mulsanne

via Auto-Database

According to nadaguides, these legendary machines should only set you back about $23,500, which is far from the MSRP of $133,200 ($260,400 converted for 2018). It’s not uncommon to find 1990s Bentleys selling at bargain prices for one of the most exclusive brands in the automotive industry; it is uncommon to see them actually driving. Bentleys are expensive machines requiring light use and heavy maintenance. The challenge is finding parts that may not exist for a car few people know how to maintain. Difficulty sourcing parts alone makes these once kings of the road a definite no-go. While it may be impressive to say you have a Bentley, you’ll usually have to invite friends over to your garage to see it.

24 1972 Lincoln Continental Mark IV

via Vanguard Motor Sales

Though one of the longest slabs of metal on the list, the Lincoln Continental Mk IV is not the heaviest, coming in at a scant 4,993 pounds. The design embodies the height of an era symbolized by oversized land yachts with padded seats and enough timber to build a fort lining the cabin. The interior of this early ‘70s luxury coupe feels like the inspiration for Clark Griswald’s Family Truckster. 460 cubic inches of muscle swallowing petrol at 10-12mpg lurches this tank from 0-60 in a whip-like 10.8 seconds. (Jalopnik) Though this is one of the few on the list that are affordable to repair, why would you?

23 Lexus SC430

via Top Speed

Toyota has produced some great cars under the Lexus brand. Their entry into the luxury market brought a much needed battle in reliability within the segment dominated by less than reliable European brands. The SC430 is admittedly a fine looking car that means to imply it has a few sporty bones in its body. Where the SC430 falls short is that it’s a luxury cruiser masquerading as a convertible sports car by calling itself a GT. If you suffer from being torn between being a rockstar and an investment banker, but you’re actually just basic, this is the car for you.

22 1988 Cadillac Seville

via blogspot

The 1988 Cadillac Seville marks a time when Cadillac was struggling to reposition themselves in a world now dominated by more reliable, practical, and fuel efficient imports both from Japan and Europe. The ’88 Seville was built on the Chevrolet Celebrity platform while GM was still pulling parts from one bin for Buick, Chevrolet, and Cadillac. This produced what ultimately should have been several levels of trim of one car, but were a countless number of cars across three brands. The Seville was a good idea just short of hitting the mark in every iteration since its birth. This generation strove to be much more homogeneous and passed the mark, landing somewhere on “unmemorable.”

21 Cadillac Allante

via Hemmings Motor News

The Allante is more than a car. It’s a convertible car. It’s a status symbol that says, “I can afford the best, but I chose an Allante anyway.” Cadillac offered up this convertible coupe hoping to stir some life into a decade of lackluster interest. The Allante (incidentally a made-up word) sold well when it hit the market, but it’s best to keep it parked in a garage because they were notorious for leaky tops and soaked interiors. Cadillac tried to administer CPR to the Allante a few times, but they were unsuccessful in turning the car’s image around.

20 Chrysler TC by Maserati

via Jalopnik

If you ask a Maserati owner what a TC is, they most assuredly will tell you it’s a Chrysler. If you as a TC owner what a TC is, it’s unequivocally a Maserati. The car was a great success for neither Chrysler nor Maserati. With a Maserati valve cover and some decorative logos, customers were assured they were forking over their hard earned cash for a Domestic Italian car. Makes sense, right? Well, as it turns out, the only thing this car really inherited from Maserati was its reliability. Not what we would call a shining moment in automotive history.

19 Ford Edsel

via hagerty

You had to know this was going to make the cut. The Edsel was not among Ford’s greatest plays. Only around for two years, the Edsel was lauded as the car that could do it all by Ford’s marketing team, who did a great job of drumming up excitement for their incredible revolutionary automobile. The reality of the Edsel left consumers wondering why it was expensive, why it suffered from poor quality issues, and why it was so unapologetically peculiar. With America slipping into a recession, an overpriced and poorly built luxury barge from Ford with a grille only a mother could love would still be poorly timed at any time.

18 1998-2003 Volvo S80

via bestcarmag

Volvo has a reputation for making safe cars. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, no one would have accused Volvo of making flattering looking cars. All of that would change as Volvo began making a legitimate play in the luxury market. At the top of the heap is the Volvo S80. Loaded to the gills with technology and miles of wire, the S80 will propel you down the road in the perfect blend of safety and comfort until anything goes wrong. Then you’ll be taking your top-of-the-line Volvo to the shop where that bargain you thought you had was no more. Any time a car is packed with new technology, there’s always a concern for how that car will hold up over time.

17 2006 Maserati Quattroporte

via seriouswheels

Maseratis are beautiful cars. They look beautiful and they sound beautiful. Extraordinary in many ways. There are some ways that your exceptional Italian Stallion may lead to a life of sadness. If owning a luxury sedan motivated by a Ferrari power plant doesn’t excite you, take a look at the used market for these gems. The Maserati is incredibly affordable to purchase and impossibly expensive to own. The Quattroporte fit a certain segment of the market and served their needs well when they rolled out those first 50,000 miles under warranty. Today, those execs are cruising around in a warrantied late model Maserati and have washed their hands of these money pits, passing the shovel on to the next owner at a deep discount.

16 Jaguar XJ8

via Honest John Classics

Jaguars are beautiful cars. Some handle amazingly well. Some are incredibly fast. None are reliable. You don’t drive a Jaguar because it’s practical. You don’t drive it because it’s the fastest, the best handling, or even the most beautiful. You drive it because you are driven by a passion for that leaping kitty on your hood. It’s a state of being, owning a Jaguar. It consumes you one step at a time. First, you buy a little model of your XJ8, then you buy a Jaguar watch and fleece pullover, and next thing you know you’re buying a transmission, four sensors, and you aren’t even sure that will stop the odd noise you keep hearing, but at least you’ll have fourth gear again… and debt.

15 Cadillac Escalade

via Motor Trend

Cadillac has made some iconic cars in their time. It’s best to remember those times when Cadillac meant more than a trim package on a GMC Yukon. To Cadillac’s credit, they have made some kind of effort over the years to differentiate the two models while elevating the Escalade line. The early examples left Cadillac’s big boy in the shadow of GMC’s intentionally designed Yukon Denali. Scoring just under two stars on consumeraffairs.com for Customer Satisfaction, the Cadillac Escalade doesn’t seem to bring owners the joys of owning one of America’s most prestigious brands that they had expected. Reliability issues can be a problem with any luxury brand if the cost to keep it running exceeds the owner’s love of the car.

14 1992-1998 Cadillac Cimarron

via Hemmings Motor News

The only way to travel is Cadillac Style. To many, driving a Cadillac is a symbol of one’s authority, respect, power, girth, and according to an ‘80s Cadillac ad, “blatant opulence.” It is common to see a stripped down luxury car designed for the entry-level market with reduced features and amenities built to a lower the price point for the common man. From 1992-1998, Cadillac decided to take the opposite approach and dress up the modest Chevrolet Cavalier instead of dressing down an existing Cadillac model. On the checklist of things you expect from a Cadillac (respectable power, modest handling, excessive comfort, blatant opulence), this particular crest-bearing bovine checks none of them.

13 Hummer H2

via Hemmings Motor News

In the history of off-road vehicles, there have been both magical machines with mountain conquering might and others of questionable identity. The Hummer H1 falls under the former while the Hummer H2, the latter. What citizens needed was something that looks slightly like the H1, but comfortable, easy to drive, luxurious, ostentatious, almost fits in a parking spot, conforms to safety standards, has video monitors in the headrests, makes an attempt to be stylish, shamelessly labeled on every square inch, and if there’s still room, maybe it’ll be off-road capable. Ultimately a dressed up Tahoe with oversized tires and a 6.0L V8, the H2 treatment brings this behemoth to a gross weight of 8,600 pounds according to Edmunds. 10mpg. Ten.

12 Lexus ES250

via wheelsage

Lexus launched into being with the premise of bringing to the market a vehicle with the grandeur of a European luxury automobile while resting atop the reliable underpinnings of a Toyota. One of Lexus’ first offerings was the Lexus ES250, which was essentially a Toyota Camry with leather seating, a sunroof, Lexus suspension, standard 2.5L V6 (an option for the Camry), and the all-important and self-defining Lexus badging. Pumping out an unbridled 156hp, this econo-luxo-box will rocket you from 0-60 in a neck-snapping 9.2 seconds while only sipping a meager 19mpg in the city. Nothing says “close enough, I guess” quite like the Lexus ES250.

11 2003 Range Rover

via Motor1

Land Rover has been a powerful force in the high-stakes SUV world long before anyone had coined the term SUV. When Range Rover launched as the luxury counterpart to Land Rover’s pragmatic four-wheelers, they were well received in spite of reliability issues and expensive maintenance. In 2003, Range Rover was long overdue for an update and offered up the stunning redesigned Range Rover HSE. It was beautiful, capable, stylish, classy, and sadly just as unreliable as its predecessor, except now it has a ton of incredibly complex and expensive electronic systems. The redesigned suspension delivers as promised until it doesn’t and that’s when you can hear the slow burning of the kids’ college fund.

10 2004 Jaguar XK8

Jaguar XK8
via Top Speed

Jaguar has a reputation for making some of the most elegant and beautiful cars on the road and in garages. Mostly in garages. Most Jaguar models are stunning works of art that are as beautiful to look at sitting still as they are when they are in motion; which is good, because they rarely move. The XK is a smooth and gentle beast that offers up the supple ride, carefree steering experience, tactile confidence, and yet a pillow seems to separate you from the rest of the world, including any unforeseen bumps in the road. You have to love a Jaguar to drive one, because the maintenance costs alone will begin to tarnish your opinion of these kitties.

9 2002 Mercedes-Benz ML55 AMG

Mercedes-Benz ML55 AMG
via wheelsage

This was the world’s fastest production SUV (in its time). 349HP. All-wheel drive. These ML55 AMG SUVs are incredibly enticing. So much so, I owned one. The 5.5L AMG engine is a glorious experience. I’ll give it that. The true challenge of owning a 2002 ML55 is that so few of them were built, that the AMG specific parts are not only often challenging to find, but also incredibly expensive. The tires size for the incredibly wide AMG wheels are no longer manufactured, so prepare to custom order a set of tires or buy a new set of wheels when your rubber runs out. You’ll be besties with your mechanic in no time and his kid can go to private school. Everyone wins.

8 1978 Cadillac Seville

via fleetofcads

Cadillac makes another showing on the list with the 1978 Seville. This was Cadillac’s honest attempt to somehow dial back their decades-long tradition of creating monstrosities of metal designed to consume asphalt and natural resources by the acre in the face of a national gas crisis. Manufacturers from Japan were flooding the market with small and economical cars and Cadillac was struggling to find a place in this new market where fuel efficiency was important and power was no longer a priority. With only 120 ponies to push this 4,490 pound mid-sized sedan, expect to go from 0-60 eventually. This generation lasted only four model years and was popular among senior citizens.

7 1999-2005 Mercedes S Class W220

via speedofixer

The pinnacle of the Mercedes-Benz stable is the venerable S-Class. Comprised of the finest engineering, bells, whistles, and electrical do-dads (no matter how experimental) MB has to offer, truly it is an engaging experience to pilot one down the highway. The downside to owning yesterday’s car of tomorrow today is the cost of maintaining the overly complicated systems that at one time made the car feel like a million bucks, but now only costs a million bucks to repair. When purchasing parts for a car that had a sticker price of $83,900 (2005 S500 autoblog.com), buckle up when the parts counter presents the bill. Plagued with reliability issues, an aging S Class makes for an expensive car to own.

6 1979 Aston Martin Lagonda

via bestcarmag

Owning an Aston Martin is a feat that requires a blend of confidence, moxie, and affluence. There’s no cheap way to drive any Aston Martin. The Lagonda isn’t an Aston Martin. It’s the Lagonda. Imagine a car so grand that the manufacturer supplanted the car’s name for their own on the car altogether. The Lagonda is quirky and unique. Its space-age interior was so far ahead of its time, there are few that can fix them when something fails. At a 1979 MSRP of $106,000 (hemmings.com), it set you back $385,990 in today’s dollars. As another yesterday’s car of tomorrow today, expect to spend more time hunting down parts and machine shops to fabricate them than driving your exquisitely weird four-wheeled doorstop.