It’s amazing what vehicles pass for “pretty” nowadays. Still, there are some great looking machines out there. Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo seem to know how to design heart-stopping modern beauties. I wish other carmakers could follow their example.
Below are 10 of American History’s Ugliest Cars (in no particular order):
1974 AMC Matador X Coupe
Some say it has character. I say the '74 AMC Matador Coupe better have a hell of a personality, for the looks will drive dates away in hordes. This car was so screwy to look at that it made an ideal car for James Bond bad-guy, Francisco Scaramanga (The Man with the Golden Gun). I’ve driven one … unfortunately it looks better than it drives.
2001 Pontiac Aztek
Man, this was ugly. Aimed at Generation X, it missed the mark by one long mile. In 2002, I sat looking at one I rented for about an hour, all the while trying to find a single line that was attractive with no success. It looked like a trash truck got drunk and had an affair with an AMC Pacer (number 5 on our list)! Even the wheels were ugly on the 1st generation. I hope those responsible for its design were forced to own one.
1985 YUGO GV
This car was so un-cool that it’s now almost cool to have one (if you can find a running example). It was a joke the minute it came to our shores and missed the design mark of acceptability by a wide margin. Giorgetto Giugiaro rarely messes up – but this time. It’s not just the poor reliability, poor performance and cramped interior; the YUGO was never nice to look at – period! Industrial and ap
pliance-like, its only character being the many rust spots it was prone to develop. Yuck!
1958 (Ford) Edsel Citation
The Edsel brand was to be a step above Ford and a step under Mercury. Given its design, it became an instant joke for good reason. Look one up and have a gander at the giant, bass-like mouth and the up-and-out placement of the headlights. I honestly think the designers wanted to find the ugliest design language of the day and sell it through a respectable parent company.
1975 AMC Pacer
My mother owned a red one of these … Oy! These things were based on a good idea, but the designers must have taken some hallucination-inspiring substances before putting pen to paper. Aside from it’s squat rounded shape and droopy overhangs, check out its HUGE glass. Man, it looked like a turtle (not the thing you want associated with a car!). The concave shape of the rear glass magnified the sun! It drove like garbage too, given its generous Jeep-sourced engine that was over restricted for smog compliance.