What does an award say about a car? Well, it can say a lot of things. More often than not, you're going to expect a car that's won an award to be the proof in the pudding of a car's capabilities. I mean, why would you give a bad car an award, right?

This is true in most cases. The majority of cars that are given awards are indeed great cars, and this can be for various reasons. They could be best sellers, very popular, feature innovative and groundbreaking technology, be green or are, plain and simply, great cars.

However—and this is a big however—there are a lot of cases where these award-winning cars are simply not up to the standards that the award has led people to believe.

A big part of this problem is seen in Motor Trend's car of the year winners, which have been recognized with awards for many years. A lot of these cars that receive the award, however, tend to be, well, not so good. And that's obviously very misleading for those who purchase them.

In this list, we're going to look at award-winning cars, the awards they won and the reasons these cars didn't deserve it.

21 2002 Ford Thunderbird Motor Trend Car Of The Year 2002

We all remember the original Ford Thunderbird, and what a wonderful car that was (more on this later). Naturally, Ford attempted to revitalize the Thunderbird in 2002 with a car aimed at recreating that era's styling, but with a modern twist. For the most part, you’d say they achieved that goal, although it’s not really up to my personal tastes. Problems started to emerge, however, and the biggest one was the engine. CarComplaints.com lists numerous engine failures on this car that reveal it reportedly breaking down rather soon in its lifespan. This impacted sales, and as such, the 2002 Thunderbird was not the huge success Ford had hoped it would be. Somehow, the car won car of the year in 2002 with Motor Trend.

20 Chevrolet Vega Motor Trend Car Of The Year 1971

Somehow, a Motor Trend car of the year winner in 1971, the Vega is certainly a Chevrolet to avoid. It's just not a car you should buy if you want something easy to look after. This applied when the car was new as much as it does today. Infamously, the Vega’s front bumper fell off the moment John DeLorean went to look at it. It was designed by GM designers who really didn’t want anything to do with it; thus, the car suffered terribly. It was not a well-designed car at all despite being  a pretty one even with all of that baggage. But it wouldn’t make sense to own one with how fragile it is.

19 Ford Mustang II Motor Trend Car Of The Year 1974

Here's another car of the year winner, this time in 1974. I’ve discussed the Ford Mustang II before, but it still warrants a place on this list of Fords. The Mustang II is—as its name suggests—the second generation Ford Mustang. Now, I don’t need to tell you that this edition of the Mustang is not as good looking as the previous generation. But I do need to tell you that its performance was also pretty bad. Some versions featured a more European style V6 engine, which isn’t going to work in a big, brash muscle car. The handling was also very pig-like, not having the more deft touch of the first and later generations. The Mustang II is like the mistake in a workbook that’s scribbled out.

18 Renault Alliance Motor Trend Car Of The Year 1983

The Alliance came to the United States during a tense time for the American Auto industry. The oil crisis of 1973 followed by the energy crisis of 1979 meant the country was in a tough spot, which led them to turn to Europe for help. Renault agreed to sell its Alliance lineup in the U.S. under AMC, and as the years went on, the car won a few awards. It's partly the reason you don’t often see many Renaults in America if any, however. The Alliance was something of a lemon, and certainly nothing more than a stop gap car for many owners.

17 1999 VW New Beetle Motor Trend Import 1999

The New Beetle was an oddity. Rather than produce a car that looked like a modern version of the original Beetle, VW decided to design a new Beetle that looked like the original. At its inception in 1999, it proved to be popular and was the Import of the Year winner with Motor Trend that same year. Problems started to arise though when it was found out how poor the car's manufacturing was. Examples in the U.S. were built in Mexico, and the production standards were not quite as high as they were over in Europe. And thus, the New Beetle suffered.

16 2001 Chrysler PT 2001 Motor Trend COTY

This car somehow won Motor Trend’s coveted award in 2001. The Chrysler PT Cruiser is something I certainly wouldn’t buy. The PT was Chrysler's attempt to bring ‘hot rod’ styling from the 1920s and 1930s to the modern day, and to offer an affordable and fairly normal car. It's safe to say they didn’t do a very good job of it. A hot rod is supposed to feature insane styling, and the large intakes featured on them stand out. The PT Cruiser looks nothing like that and is incredibly vanilla and plain by comparison.

15 Chevrolet Citation Motor Trend Car Of The Year 1980

The Chevrolet Citation was bafflingly voted car of the year in 1980 by Motor Trend Magazine. Customers and fellow journalists were puzzled by this. It was one of the most unreliable Chevrolet cars; mechanically it was an absolute mess. Build quality was bad and it's in fact, one of the most recalled vehicles of all time, thanks to its awful reliability record. It's become infamous in that regard. It can at least claim that it won a more legitimate award than car of the year, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s an awful car.

14 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Green Car Journal COTY

The Volkswagen Jetta is not really a bad car. No really, it isn’t. The Jetta is a very good four-door saloon that will do the job you need it to do. It's fairly spacious and provides ample leg room for those in the back. It's also fairly inexpensive, meaning the majority can afford one. So what lets it down? Well, after being voted Green Car of the Year by Green Car Journal, it's one of the models caught up in VW’s emissions scandal. Therefore, its reputation was instantly ruined. If you bought one for green reasons, you now looked a bit silly even though it wasn’t your fault, of course.

13 Honda Ridgeline Motor Trend Truck of the Year 2006

Another Motor Trend award winner, Honda isn't a company that springs to mind when one thinks of pickup trucks; that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to have a go. They did with the Honda Ridgeline, a very capable and dependable pickup truck, with a big size and all the Honda reliability and durability that you'd expect from a Japanese company. The Ridgeline was astronomically expensive, however. Plus, the unibody construction was not good and its lack of V8 meant it was underpowered. As such, Honda suffered with the pickup truck buyers crowd.

12 Rover 216 Si WhatCar? Car of the Year 1990

The Rover 216 is certainly an unusual car to see on this list, but it was voted WhatCar? COTY over in Britain in 1990. It's not a car that the publication wants to remember awarding though because it was born in a time when most Rovers were junk. They were cheap, unreliable and just badly made; the same could even be said about MGs at the time. The 216 Si shared a platform with Honda, but the Japanese original was a much better offering than it’s British counterpart. As a result, many were confused as to how such a poor car like the Rover could actually win an award.

11 Mercedes-Benz ML320 AJAC’s Overall Car of the Year 1998

The Automobile Journalists Association of Canada gave the ML320 the overall Car of the Year award in 1998. It seemed like a sensible decision to make at the time. It was one of the first luxury crossovers to hit the market and became quite popular. It all went south rather quickly though. The car became a poster boy for all that was wrong with the Daimler and Chrysler merger thanks to a build quality that typified a turn of the century Benze’s. As such, it’s popularity decreased slowly, making it a poor choice for an award winner by the AJAC.

10 1996-2000 Chrysler Breeze Motor Trend COTY

The Breeze is an example of a car in the market that was very hot, but the car itself just wasn’t. MotorTrend granted this car one of its car of the year awards, which probably led to its perceived reception as a great car, when it wasn’t. They sold over 230k units in its rather short four-year production run, but buyers soon realized there was nothing to this car. It was a remarkably cheap car to manufacture, and all they had going for them was that it looked the part inside and out. There was no real performance and the Breeze faded into history.

9 Chrysler LeBaron Motoring Press Associations COTY

The Chrysler LeBaron has been around for many years. It's the recipient of the Motoring Press Association's COTY once. You only have to look at the thing though to realize there are instantly a few problems. For starters, it doesn’t exactly look the part. You can tell it isn’t going to handle very well based on looks alone and you'd be right, the car really does not handle well at all. It was described as ‘fun’ and ‘stylish,' but there really isn’t anything fun or stylish about it. If there's anything fun about it, it's how funny it looks.

8 1997 Chevrolet Malibu Motor Trend COTY

This car again won a Motor Trend COTY award, but the 1997 Malibu isn’t the only one of these cars to have been bad to have won an award. In fact, any Malibu produced from 1997 up to 2003 could fall into this car category, although not all of them won the award. Road and Track said the car was for Americans who hate driving yet buy only American. The 1997 car, in particular, was an absolute pig. Boring, cheap, with not much going for it—people realized how poor it actually was after they moved out of their honeymoon phase with the car.

7 1979 Chrysler Horizon CAR COTY 1979

The Chrysler Horizon won CAR’s car of the year award way back in 1979. Amusingly enough, this car now features on another one of their lists that classifies it as one of the least worthy winners of such an award. Why? Well, it was a chopped-up edition of the Chrysler Alpine, and you can see the similarities in the two when you put them side by side. It worked in a way though, as the car was rather cheap and quite spacious. That was where the good stuff ended. It was a feeble machine and the tech was not good at all, making it a bit of a flop.

6 1982 Renault 9 CAR COTY 1982

Renault was Citroen’s chief rival for years when it came to producing cars, rivalling its avant-garde approach to design. But in a bid to get the jump on Citroen, Renault came up with the not so elegant Renault 9. They asked customers what they wanted, and those customers—via focus groups—came back saying they didn’t want innovation or flair. That's exactly what they got in the form of the Renault 9. The car had three facelifts in nine years in order to make it look better, but the Renault 9 was just a massive dud.

5 1990 Citroen XM CAR COTY 1990

Some of Citroen’s pre-1990 cars were staggeringly good. They have quirky styling, a sense of refinement, luxury and they're good to drive. The XM was a car full of great ideas, but its reception was somewhat mixed. It wasn’t the most popular car with the wider European community. It was incredibly good looking and quirky, but Citroen was starting to lose their way when it came to their ever popular quirkiness. Nowadays, Citroen isn't the company they once were, with most of their cars being rather boring—although the same could be said for most car companies.

4 2002 Peugeot 307 CAR COTY 2002

You can guarantee that anyone driving a fairly modern Peugeot is not going to have the most riveting car driving experience. The same can be said for the Peugeot 307. The 307 was a rather bland successor to the already unremarkable 306, and it didn’t exactly set the world on fire. The chassis was rather soft—too soft really—and the interior left a little bit to be desired. It was cheap and had all the class and style of…well, we don’t know, but it didn’t have any of those things really. The biggest problem with it? It was plain boring.

3 2008 Fiat 500 CAR COTY 2008

There is something that can be said of modern reborn cars that have died out. They are awful, and the Fiat 500 is one such example. The 500 suffers from one big problem: reliability. The car struggles in that it seems to have inherited the horrible reliability issues that befall many of its fellow cars over their many years of production. Transmission issues were rife in early models of the car, and some still report this to be a problem in 2018. Various engine issues were reported as well, creating a less than desirable rebirth for one of the company's best-loved models.

2 2001 Alfa Romeo 147

What went wrong with the Alfa Romeo 147? Well, a few things. Chiefly, it looked nothing like the romantic image that Alfa was trying to put out there. It just looked…well, average. The company was trying its utmost to attempt what can only be described as a conservative approach. They tried to rekindle some of the romantic appearances that older Alfas captured. The 147 failed miserably on that front though, despite beating the Toyota Prius in various rankings initially. Only one of these two have caught on, however, and it isn’t the Alfa.