Ugly Car Thread

[daddyplaysbass]

Post up your ugliest car suggestions. I'll start with two --

The 1957-1960 Edsel is rightly ridiculed, but the same people who brought us the Edsel had some even uglier designs up their sleeves, such as this 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser:

If that wasn't bad enough, there the 1958 Lincoln:

Had a "59. 4-door hardtop like that Merc. Rose and Ivory two-ton, like sitting on a couch in it

 

[RLM69]

You want to see an ugly car? Open up Steppenwolf's "For Ladies Only" album.

 

[haggardfan1]

1983 Chrysler La Baron
View attachment 1397385

Beautiful metallic pea!

"When I grow up, I'm gonna be a Wagon Queen Family Truckster"

 

[Crafty Fox]

This is a Trabant 1.1
Guess the year this East German Limousine was first introduced?

Yes, this Trabant model was labeled as a limousine.
The year this car was introduced was......answer under pic.
View attachment 1397825
....1990.

Weren't the Trabbies 2 stroke?

 

[stormsedge]

My Dad gifted me with a second hand white Dodge Omni, circa 1995.
I drove it from Austin to Prince George, BC.
It was great!
Alas, I cannot recall it’s fate.

We let ours go at 99k miles before going to Japan. The rascal pulled 49mpg on the highway.

 

[whateverwhenever]

What on earth were Chevy's "style" boffins thinking when they dreamed up the early 1990s Caprice?

View attachment 1397583

What the *#%? The wagon is sleek, purposeful and beautiful. Just like it's relatives Buick Roadmaster Estate and Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser. From 1994 to 1996 you could get one with 5.7 liter LT1 engine producing 260 HP. Perfect sleeper in traffic lights and really comfy. I had 1994 RM for 6 years and still miss it.

 

[notmyusualuserid]

What the *#%? The wagon is sleek, purposeful and beautiful. Just like it's relatives Buick Roadmaster Estate and Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser. From 1994 to 1996 you could get one with 5.7 liter LT1 engine producing 260 HP. Perfect sleeper in traffic lights and really comfy. I had 1994 RM for 6 years and still miss it.

The shelf at the front isn't doing a lot for the styling...

 

[Sparky2]

Weren't the Trabbies 2 stroke?

All the earliest Trabants, from 1957 to 1989, had two stroke engines.
Two cyclinders, which is amazing.

In the very last year of production (1990 to 1991) it came with a standard VW engine.

You had to fill it with gasoline and two-stroke oil, just like our old dirt bikes back in the day.

No fuel gauge, so you checked the fuel level via a dip-stick.

 

[whateverwhenever]

The Buick RM was prettier. I had one like this except without the ridiculous fake wood

 

[bumnote]

I doubt many Americans know Canada used to sell Soviet made Lada's.
At least Canadians didn't have to wait 10 years after 'buying' one to actually receiving it.

 

[39martind18]

I have no idea what this is/was or who made it...or why.
It looks like a prop from an Eddie Murphy in fat suit movie.
View attachment 1397519

Looks like my mother-in-law on wheels!

 

[Chiogtr4x]

AMC had the market cornered on ugly cars, every AMC…

Excepting one! Javelin/AMX

 

[effzee]

I want to scream every time I see one of these BMW iX series cars. The huge grilles are bad enough, easily the ugliest BMW grilles ever, but take note, this is an ELECTRIC car and that big ugly grille isn't even real, it's a STICKER!

And yeah, that BMW-only parking sign is the chef's kiss of tastelessness

 

[haggardfan1]

The Buick RM was prettier. I had one like this except without the ridiculous fake wood
View attachment 1398867

I worked with a guy who drove a 1992 Roadmaster four door. One time he needed to replace a leaking water pump, and asked if we could do it at my apartment because I had not only covered parking, but the necessary tools.

He turned out to be not much of a wrench turner, so I ended up basically doing it for him.
The engine compartment was so roomy, that I was able to stand on the ground inside, between the radiator/shroud and the block, to work on that land yacht.

 

[39martind18]

Excepting one! Javelin/AMX

In the 2010s, Nissan cornered the market on ugly SUVs- witness the Juke and Cube- both revolting eyesores!

 

[Preacher]

My Dad gifted me with a second hand white Dodge Omni, circa 1995.
I drove it from Austin to Prince George, BC.
It was great!
Alas, I cannot recall it’s fate.

One of the kids in my youth group had one, he was having some issues and needed to replace a part and I offered to help.
I told him to buy a Chilton manual when he picked up the part. When he shows up he doesn't have the manual but does have the part. We spent two hours trying to get a bolt out and finally I told him to go buy the manual.

Turns out you have to take the front wheel off, thread an extension and a socket through a hole in the fire wall to access that bolt.

Worse car to work on ever!

 

[imwjl]

The 1967 Mohs Ostentatienne Opera Sedan

You’re going to have to trust me on this one, Decorum prevents me from including a photo

Do the search

But you have been warned

Thought still a kid and then young adult, I had some personal experience and connections with those and the two Madison Mohs families I understood to be different family trees. When I worked for a startup it was tied to (came out of) a kind of crazy effort a younger Mohs made.

Bruce Mohs was always looking for investors and his efforts were near by. My dad being into cars and entrepreneurial was courted and took me with to check out both the Ostentatienne Opera Sedan and the later SafariKar.

Their roots in the International Harvester Travelalls were obvious. I remember Bruce Mohs impressive sales spiel, my dad inspecting details, and on the drives home criticism of some details. The nitrogen filled tires I recall were big whitewalls popular with antique restorers. You could see the IH elements and I remember my dad pointing out while tough, the IH Travelalls were not sophisticated or performers like the flagship GM and Ford drivetrain and chassis stuff at the time.

The first time I remember seeing the Ostentatienne Opera Sedan my mother's car was a 1966 Mercury wagon. I thought it would be pretty neat if she had a super safe and advanced car you walked into and were surrounded by shag carpeting vs the hot on summer days vinyl seats the Mercury had.

My family's well being went from rather modest or poor to my dad doing well before his early death in that same timeframe of the Mohs cars. When they were going to buy their first special order nice new car I thought it would be cool if they got something like the Mohs or all sorts of things instead of the Buick Estate Wagon my dad correctly argued was a best family choice, and indeed a good car in its times.

Mohs (automobile) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Confession: I'd also hoped that '66 Mercury wagon could have been replaced with a Boss 302, Z-28 Camaro, and mod looking sin bin type conversion van.

I don't know which IH engines they had but also recall my dad with a soft spot for IH and AMC specifically saying the GM and Ford big blocks and automatic transmissions were better and critical of the I-beam axles the IH had when others had independent suspensions.

 

[clydethecat]

Those 50's and 60's American car styles are fantastic. Gaudy land yachts dripping with/ chrome, love 'em. Sure speaks to how we wanted to view ours back then. The 70's and 80's were pretty misguided in automotive design, producing boring POS generally. Wonder what that says,..

American cars never did it for me, love the looks of vintage iron but they don't take the corners well. I don't think anyone's mentioned SAABs, we had a bunch. There were some strange color combos that could only be called ugly. I had one of these for awhile, in real life it's a color you could only call Baby S**t Brown.

View attachment 1398653

Saabs aren't so much offensively ugly as endearingly quirky. At least they're not bland. I feel the same way about Citroens, which were weird and wacky, but had their own strange charm.

What bugs me about the late '50s to early '60s American cars is that they were trying to make them beautiful, but they're so fussy and awkward and overly ornate. Trying too hard. It doesn't work for me. The '55 Chevy is my idea of a good-looking '50s US car.

 

[Sparky2]

The Buick RM was prettier. I had one like this except without the ridiculous fake wood
View attachment 1398867

MAN, I love the Buick Roadmaster Wagon.

I wanted one in the white finish, but the first wife was having none of it.

 

[teletimetx]

The early 90s Saturn: I’m a corporate dirt bag, baby!