While concept cars easily qualify for some of the weirdest American cars ever made, the country birthed more than a few design disasters that made it into full-scale production. That said, it's always entertaining to look at cars that were actually sold to the public despite appearances that could often boggle the mind.
Japan and Europe have sent more than their share of odd cars into production, and over the years, American manufacturers have seemingly been hard at work trying to catch up. Looking only at street-legal production cars sold to the general public, here are ten American car designs that should have never left the drawing board.
10 1946 Crosley CC
It looks like someone put an old 1940s pickup, ice cream truck, and station wagon together. The 1946 Crosley CC didn’t last long, and it’s not hard to understand why. It’s too squat in some places, too wide in others and the odd shape included a hood that looked like a toilet seat cover.
Its awful engine didn’t help it, and the fact that this began as a design without running boards makes one wonder how the trend even caught on. It’s an ugly car yet also oddly funny with that strange shape that reminds you how difficult the post-war auto industry was.
9 1982 Dodge Rampage
Attempts to make a muscle car pickup haven’t always worked out, and the Rampage is proof of that. It looks like a standard coupe of the time, maybe a bit wide, but not bad…and then the trunk transforms into a flatbed.
It’s just jarring to see the rear cut down into this bed and the performance wasn’t bad. Yet, it’s a strange look, not fitting the smaller unibody pickups and lacks the style to pull off that bed. A little redesigning could have made this a better look rather than this oddity.
8 Chevy SSR
It’s pretty much a guarantee that a pickup convertible was going to look weird. The SSR had its strengths, such as a good engine, but trying to make such a bizarre hybrid was pretty much doomed to backfire. It’s too bad as there was potential, but combining the weird retro design with a too-small flatbed meant the car couldn’t figure out an identity.
Throw in the strange headlights and rough performance and little wonder it’s easy to pick on the SSR as a flop when it couldn’t decide what to be.
7 Tucker Torpedo
It’s arguable how far the Torpedo could have gone if not for a backlash from its competitors. Yet it would probably have needed a redesign to make it more appealing to the masses. Even in a time when big cars were standard, the Tucker was quite wide and those curves a tad too sharp.
It’s the front that gets attention with the choice of a third headlight set right in the center. It throws off an otherwise okay appearance, making it like some strange monster. The Tucker still has appeal, yet that odd appearance adds to its legend.
6 AMC Gremlin
You knew this was coming. According to the legend, the Gremlin was scribbled onto a dinner napkin, and it shows. Naming a car after a creature known to tear up vehicles seemed an odd choice, and the Gremlin remains a car that lands on lists of both the ugliest and better cars of its time.
From no lid for its trunk to the oddly shaped front end, the Gremlin lived up to its name as a strange creature of a car. It has its fans and that appearance sure made it stand out, but it's also one of the odder car designs any American manufacturer came up with.
5 AMC Pacer
Weird as the Gremlin may look, the Pacer tops it. That bizarre rounded roof and rear has been compared to everything from a jellybean to a strange kid’s toy and not always in great terms.
The car boasted nearly forty percent more glass than any vehicle of its time, and while the wide panes may be appealing in some ways, it’s a huge distraction when standing still. Amazingly, it’s actually a good car, yet a lot of that appeal is in its funny design.
4 Stout Scarab
Living up to its name, the Stout Scarab is credited as the first minivan. It’s also one of the weirdest. The exterior looks like something from the pulp novels of the time, a mix of Buck Rogers and comic books, and the almost bullet-like design turned into a weird “hump” shape.
It was actually not a bad drive with state-of-the-art features like independent suspension, flexible seating, and specialized mirrors. It just had an odd shape yet one also quite appealing and the Scarab was ahead of its time in a lot of ways, just not looks.
3 Badsey Bullet
It looks like someone was trying to create a Hot Wheels car and stopped about 90% through. The front end doesn’t look bad with an aggressive racecar design, but the way it just sort of peters out by the rear is strange.
Bill Badsey put this together himself with an 82 Suzuki GS 1100 GLZ engine for a decent performance. Eight were eventually sold across the U.S. and South Africa, mostly to private dealers. You’d think something called a bullet would look a little cooler than this.
2 1948 Davis Divan
Technically, this does count as sold…just not delivered. The Davis Divan was a three-wheeled car notable for that design, the smooth jet fighter-inspired sharp exterior with pop-up headlights (a new concept for the time). It was odd yet still seemed to run well.
However, after selling advance copies to dealerships to the tune of $1.2 million, Davis suddenly reneged and never delivered them, leading to some lawsuits from both dealerships and workers. A dozen copies exist, mostly in museums, and show what could have been a fun car on the road.
1 Serbing-Vanguard CitiCar
Crafted by Florida-based Sebring-Vanguard, this bizarre automobile was an early attempt at an electric car. It’s also proof of how it took a long time for technology to catch up to the concept. They all stand out for that bizarre shape that appears to be a theme park ride with the diagonal roof and front end and squat rear.
You’d expect it to be rolling along some sort of track, yet over four thousand were made for various cities before the production ended in 1977. It was hard to take seriously, yet the small car does have some fans today.