Styling is a highly personal and emotive issue, and one person’s dream machine could be another’s visually challenged nightmare.
But we think there are some cars which have transcended even the most subjective of tastes, and are true styling stinkers in anyone’s eyes. So with that, we present our list of the world’s fugliest cars:
1975 AMC Pacer
Straight from the what-were-they-smoking files comes the AMC Pacer. Along with everything else wrong with this styling patchwork, the driver and passenger doors are of different lengths too. It was the car Wayne and Garth drove in the movie Wayne’s World, which gave it some iconic status, but not enough to save it from a list of world’s ugliest cars.
1981 AMC Eagle Kammback 4x4
What, two AMCs in the list? Yup, and this one cannot be unseen.
Although the thinking behind this compact SUV was ahead of its time, the styling wasn’t. American Motors Corporation came up with this hideously disproportioned hodge podge of a car, which looks like the front end of a large sedan spliced onto the tail end of a small hatch, and given pumped-out fenders of an ‘offroad’ look.
1958 Ford Edsel
This was the big-winged, over-styled look of 50s American cars taken to the extreme, a wild mishmash of every styling cliche of the time. The vagina-like grille didn’t do it any favours either. And just in case there wasn’t enough styling overload, Ford embellished the Bermuda station wagon version even more with hideous wooden panels.
Not surprisingly the Edsel was a sales flop.
1998 Fiat Multipla
Call it bulldog-cute or just plain ugly, this Italian people carrier is certainly one of the weirdest shapes ever to exit an automotive production line.
The rear invites comparison with a top hat on wheels; the front, with its staircase-type bonnet line and three stacked pairs of rounded lights, has taken a severe beating with the weird stick. As John Lennon sang: Most peculiar, mama.
2001 Pontiac Aztek
Made famous by Bryan Cranston’s character Walter White in the Breaking Bad TV series, this oddball crossover with confused styling (you can’t look at the front end without thinking you’re seeing double) didn’t quite know what it wanted to be.
Although it was quite a capable SUV (it could be converted into a camper, complete with built-in air compressor for an air mattress), people just couldn’t get past that strange, cartoonish design. It ended up being the butt of countless jokes and it predictably bombed in the sales charts.
2004 Ssangyong Stavic
No such list could be complete without a Ssangyong, which provided a veritable stable of designs to make the eyes bleed. But the ugliest probably has to be the Stavic MPV.
This multi-seat family carrier (the Addams family?) is offensive for its unashamedly Mercedes-plagiarised front end, but its worst feature is the way the natural coupe-like slope of the rear roofline gets rudely interrupted by a tacked-on extended roof to increase luggage space. Truly hideous.
1968 Citroen Ami
Hard to believe this car comes from the same country that gave us Brigitte Bardot. Then again, France also gave us the hunchback of Notre Dame, who was probably the inspiration for this monstrosity.
Looking like the love child of a Ford Anglia and a tugboat, the Citroen Ami’s styling makes you wince. The French didn’t seem to mind. It was at one time that country’s most popular car and sold nearly 2 million units between 1961 and 1978.
1970 Bond Bug
This fibreglass three-wheeler has you rubbing your eyes in dismay. It looks like a funfair ride but this British-built weirdness is in fact a real car, which you could drive on real streets and have real people laughing at you.
It was produced from 1970 to 1974 and no, it had nothing to do with a certain British secret agent.
2008 Weber Faster One
Proving that scenery-blurring supercars aren’t spared from the ugly stick, this Swiss monstrosity looks like a sportscar that’s begun melting after being left in the sun too long.
Sure, it has a claimed top speed of 400km/h, but only because you’d need something this fast to escape angry mobs who gather to protest such a styling crime - not to mention its silly name.