It’s hard to ignore the fact that many cars on the road today look strikingly similar. This often raises the question: why don’t car designers take bold risks and break away from the conventional?
The answer lies in the delicate balance between innovation and public appeal. While some cars stand as remarkable feats of engineering, others… well, they make you wonder if the designers were playing a practical joke.
Here’s a closer look at ten of the most infamous offenders in automotive design history. Brace yourself you might need a sick bag for this ride.
1. Triumph Mayflower (1949–1953)
Picture this: a Rolls-Royce and a shoebox walk into a bar. Nine months later, out pops the Triumph Mayflower.
This car was meant to embody “miniature luxury,” but instead, it looked like a shrunken Phantom distorted by a funhouse mirror. James May once called it “the ugliest car ever built,” and frankly, that might be an understatement.
2. Nash Metropolitan (1954–1962)
Marketed as a car for “affluent urban gals,” the Nash Metropolitan ended up being the automotive equivalent of a disappointing blind date: unreliable, slow, and overwhelmingly unattractive.
One critic perfectly summed it up as “the worst of both worlds,” blending the dubious glamour of Nash styling with the charm of a British mechanical failure.
3. Renault Dauphine (North American Version) (1956–1967)
Here’s a car so painfully sluggish that it could lose a drag race to a lawnmower. The North American version of the Renault Dauphine took a glacial 32 seconds to reach 60 mph roughly the same amount of time it took most buyers to regret their decision.
Time magazine famously dubbed it “the most ineffective bit of French engineering since the Maginot Line.” That critique still stings.
4. Trabant (1957–1990)
East Germany’s response to a question no one was asking: “What if we built a car from recycled trash?” Sporting a two-stroke engine that spewed smoke like a factory chimney and an interior that could only be described as “communist chic,” the Trabant was less a vehicle and more a rolling emblem of hopelessness.
It’s been famously called “a hollow lie of a car constructed of recycled worthlessness.” Mic drop, indeed.
5. Pontiac Aztek (2001–2005)
The Pontiac Aztek is the perfect answer to the question, “What would a car designed in total darkness look like?”
With its bizarre clash of angles and unforgivably poor proportions, it resembled a Lego project gone horribly wrong. Even Walter White’s iconic role in Breaking Bad couldn’t make this car remotely cool.
6. SsangYong Rodius (2004–2013)
The SsangYong Rodius appears to be the result of a failed Photoshop experiment, where a minivan was pieced together without any thought to aesthetics.
It was so visually jarring that Top Gear described it as “the ugliest car in production today.” Driving one must’ve felt like being behind the wheel of a poorly shaped shoe.
7. Renault Avantime (2002–2003)
Do you recall when someone thought combining a “luxury MPV-coupe” was a brilliant idea? No? Well, Renault certainly does and they’ll probably regret it forever.
The Avantime offered about as much practicality as a wet paper bag and sold just as poorly think of it as the automotive equivalent of a broken umbrella during a monsoon.
8. Chevrolet Corvair (1960–1969)
This sleek but dangerously flawed rear-engine sedan became infamous thanks to Ralph Nader’s book Unsafe at Any Speed. Owners frequently described it with phrases like, “spins out like a top” and “please save me.”
Driving the Corvair meant every corner was an adventure—though not the kind anyone wanted to experience.
9. Aston Martin Cygnet (2011–2013)
Aston Martin’s attempt at creating an eco-friendly city car resulted in the Cygnet, but let’s not sugarcoat it: this was essentially a Toyota iQ wearing an Aston badge with a premium price tag.
It’s the automotive equivalent of putting a bow tie on a squirrel and trying to pass it off as formalwear.
10. Lincoln Blackwood (2002)
Imagine taking a pickup truck, removing all its practicality, adding carpet to the bed, and pricing it like a high-end luxury coupe.
That’s the Lincoln Blackwood in a nutshell—a vehicle so comically useless that it almost felt like a satire. The only thing it hauled effectively? A heap of buyer’s remorse.
Every one of these vehicles stands as a cautionary tale, proving that successful car design isn’t just about appearances. It’s about delivering functionality, practicality, and, ideally, avoiding public ridicule on the motorway.