Top 6 ugliest cars ever built

The search for the ugliest car of all time can take you into realms you would never expect, including culture, engineering and art. There is mystery, too: what can explain the thinking of the designers who created an apparition like the Chevy Lumina van?

Nevermind. Ugly as it may be, the Lumina didn't make the cut when Globe Drive's Aesthetics Panel sat down to create a list of the 10 ugliest cars of all time. There were dozens of potential candidates. I voted for the Bond Bug – a horrible English three-wheeler that resembled a cheap hot tub that had been fitted with a windshield and headlights.

Several others listed the Dodge PT Cruiser – it came close, but missed the top 10. We considered the Ford Edsel, Plymouth Prowler, and many more.

Like all art, automotive design is subjective. There are no hard and fast rules to categorically declare a car ugly. But as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said in his ruling on obscenity: "I know it when I see it."

1. PONTIAC AZTEK


The Aztek’s ugliness titles are both numerous and unfortunate. If you set out to build a car that violated every principle of aesthetics, you would find it hard to beat the Aztek: slab-sided, hunchbacked and perched on roller-skate-sized wheels, the Aztec looks like the spawn of an unholy union between a Transformers toy and a Dustbuster vacuum.




2. CITROËN AMI

France may be renowned as centre of fashion, but it is also the birthplace of the regrettable Citroën Ami. The Ami came to market in 1961, and was noted for its reverse-rake rear window, a styling feature that has been employed by only a handful of manufacturers (not surprising, given the reverse-rake window’s lose-lose combination of dubious aesthetics and hopeless aerodynamics). Although its mechanical underpinnings came from the humble yet classic 2CV, the Ami veered off into a strange territory – like the polyester leisure suit and the mullet, rectangular headlights were a style that should never have seen the light of day.

3. AMC GREMLIN


The Gremlin may well be the most badly proportioned car ever built. Seen from the side, it can resemble, depending on the light and the precise angle, a door stop, a wedge of cheese, or a badly-designed running shoe. Were AMC designers hoping that the Gremlin’s slightly elongated hood would conjure up the free-spirited Ford Mustang? If so, they failed. Instead of a wild horse, the Gremlin’s front end evokes a dog of questionable health and breeding. The Gremlin’s rear end was even worse, ending with an abrupt, strangely calculated angle that made the car look as though AMC had simply given up.

4. FIAT MULTIPLA

Unique environments often produce bizarre creatures – like the sightless fish that live in deep caves. And Berlusconi-era Italy yielded the Fiat Multipla, a vehicle defined by a series of strange bulges, as if it had been constructed from soft plastic, then pumped up with air. The Multipla’s designers mounted running lights at the base of the windshield in a bulged fascia panel, giving it the look of a rain-forest frog that had undergone an unfortunate genetic mutation. When talent-show host Simon Cowell was shown a picture of the Multipla on Top Gear, he said it had a disease.

5. NISSAN CUBE

Another vehicle from the mutant creature school of design, the Cube is notable for its multiple stylistic sins, which include an asymmetric rear window that wraps around the left side of the car, giving it the look of a halibut (a bottom-dwelling flatfish with an eye that migrates to the top of its body during development). Nissan designers went out of their way to make the Cube unique, and they succeeded: the Cube’s slumping windows look as though they were inspired by a Tolkien movie set or a bad Salvador Dali painting.

6. NISSAN JUKE

You may have hard the expression “hit by the ugly stick.” The Juke took more than one hit.