Fail of the Century: 42 of the worst cars from 2000 to now

What BMW succeeded in creating with the GT was... a very slightly shorter X6, with added frumpery in the styling department. Were there humans out there requesting such a thing? Possibly. Should they have been listened to? Absolutely not.

Yes, you’ve done all that hard work, you’ve signed the whole thing off, you’ve unveiled your palatial creation to the world. And that’s when you realise you’ve forgotten one tiny yet crucial detail.

You’ve forgotten to not make it look like an old Morgan that’s crashed into a Bentley Mulsanne, and then somehow melted quite a lot. So close, yet so far.

The Rodius wasn’t just ugly. It was an unprecedented assault on the world’s rods and cones: automotive design as GBH.

Sure, the Amica was cheap. Cheerful? Not so much. The list of positives was as stumpy as its wheelbase. Innovative, minimalist design? No. Pared back practicality? Also no. Peppy urban handling? Very much no.

The 2007 Clubman was a Mini for the loving British parent who didn’t want to wedge their beloved, fragile children into the cramped rear of a regular three-door... but was completely fine with those kids exiting the car directly into a stream of fast-moving traffic.

Fiat didn’t take the MX-5 and make it prettier, rortier and sharper. Instead, it gave it lumpier bodywork, wheezier turbo engines, slightly soggier handling, and a heftier price tag. The fruitier Abarth version did a little for the 124’s driving manners, but nothing for the heavy-chinned looks. Or indeed the price tag.

Trying to GT-ify an Elise proved rather like... trying to transform a whippet into an Arabian stallion. Can’t be done, at least not without violating several important laws of ethics and nature.

You couldn’t view the MkIV Clio RS in isolation. Because it was heir to a royal house that began with 1993’s Clio Williams (the Great Willy!) and grew from strength to strength under the masterly stewardship of the Clios 172, 182, 197 and 200.

When the Subaru Levorg was proudly unveiled at the 2015 Geneva show, Top Gear gently pointed out that, read backwards, its name spelled out ‘GROVEL, U R A BUS’. This made the man from Subaru very upset, and our relationship with the sorry ’Vorg struggled to recover thereafter.

The problem wasn’t the C6. The problem, without wishing to point fingers, was you. Specifically your utter failure to actually buy a Citroen C6.

Developing a supercar from scratch is tough enough, without the added complication of engineering an extra set of frontal apparatus, and the added added complication of then convincing punters they want to buy something that looks like the result of a terrible photocopying error. 

What happened when Zafira and VXR were folded together, and baked into a seven-seat, 237bhp, turbocharged, front-wheel drive, torque-steering performance MPV? Glorious Hawaiian pizza, or an execrable chilli-chocolate soufflé? Fail of the Century feels that we all know the answer to that question. Still less offensive than chilli chocolate, mind.

On the frog-eyed face of it, 2003’s C3 Pluriel was an absolute bargain. It was, according to Citroën, no fewer than five cars in one: a hatchback, a ‘sunroof saloon’, a cabrio, a spider, and a roadster pickup. Costing around 12 grand at launch, that meant you were paying a mere £2,400 per car. Quelle bonne affaire!

Five cars in one? Maybe. Any of those five cars one you’d actually want to drive? Not so much.

The Cygnet wasn’t conceived, designed and built as a true Aston Martin. It was a Toyota iQ with a chinny new grille and a bullock-worth of leather upholstery. An exercise in badge engineering with the cynical aim of lowering Aston’s average fleet emissions.

The one thing Honda forgot to include in its sporty hybrid... was any sportiness. With the petrol and electric motors giving it their all, the CR-Z mustered a mere 121bhp, and slightly less torque than a Nutribullet. Zero to 60 required around 10 seconds, and a long stretch of road.

"Some have dubbed the Vel Satis a sales flop. We beg to differ. Nearly 1,300 of us wise British souls bought Vel Satum (yes, that is the official plural). Do you know how many people ever bought a Bugatti Veyron? Four hundred and fifty. And we don’t see you calling that a failure, do we?"

Absolutely no one actually wanted to buy a money no object luxury limousine with a Volkswagen badge on the front. Sales were catastrophic. The Phaeton was quietly euthanised, the best-engineered failure in history.

The SSR’s body was a Dali-esque fever dream from almost every angle, and its performance proved as laboured as its design: despite packing a 5.3-litre V8, the weighty SSR struggled to break eight seconds for the 0–60mph run. Oh, and it cost $42,000 at launch.

If you’re gonna do something, do it with conviction. While the original Hummer H1 – the civilian version of the Gulf War-era military Humvee – was a vulgar, tasteless abomination, at least it went all-in on its vulgarity.

The chubby Pug’s handling was as doughy as its design, while the rear diffuser arrangement was utterly inexplicable: what with 300kg of roof stacked atop your tailpipes, did you really need any more downforce back there?

In 2008, Infiniti launched in the UK with a bold intention: to provide a tech-laden Japanese alternative to the German exec fare served up by BMW, Audi and Mercedes. Trouble was, as Infiniti had perhaps failed to spot, British buyers already had a tech-laden Japanese alternative to the German exec fare, etc, etc... in the shape of Lexus.

The Youabian Puma was a vehicle. It was 20 feet long and eight feet across. It weighed 3.5 tonnes and had a folding hard-top. Somewhere in its midst resided the remains of a Volvo C70.

McLaren badge, yes, but like no McLaren you’ve ever seen. Like no car you’ve ever seen. You try to scream, no sound comes out. What is this? A dream? A nightmare? No such luck. This is real. This is the McLaren X-1.

Just look at it. Feast your hungry eyes upon its crisp, classical lines. The bejewelled headlights, the snub nose, the just-so proportions. And now imagine just how flaccidly the Alfa Spider must have driven to achieve the status of bona fide #fail. Imagining it? Not quite you’re not. Bit more, bit more, scooch to the left... there you go. Rubbish, it was.

"Hope I’m not speaking out of turn here – isn’t this new Sebring terrible by most objective measures?"

Not that we’re calling the Avenger a catastrophic sales flop, but put it this way. By 2008 – a mere year after Avengers went on sale in the UK – Dodge dealers were offering British customers a two-for-the-price-of-one deal. Literally, genuinely, no strings attached: if you bought one Avenger, they’d throw in a second Avenger for free. Avengers assemble!

The 500L – a Panda-based mini-MPV thing evoking the original 500 much as Caesar’s Palace in Vegas evokes Rome’s Pantheon – was bad enough. But it was the 500L MPW that really took the biscotti.

The reason for the Unibox's #epicfail status was... those transparent lower body panels. Great for bringing light into the Unibox’s cuboid cabin, but also great for giving passersby, and fellow motorists, an untrammelled view of its occupants’ nether regions. As a society, we’re just not ready for that level of sharing.

The KJ’s interior and engines were pensionable even at launch, while its lumpy ride quality made it near-impossible to tell whether you were driving on a Colorado boulder trail or marble smooth highway.

In a decade on sale, a mere 4,500 Ghiblis found British homes, with Maserati's combined UK sales hovering around 1,000 annually. Which is y'know, more than 300. But still not a lot.

Was the Ghibli solely to blame for this shortfall? No. Were its fortunes aided by early cars' so-so diesel engine, so-so ride, so-so steering and – on smaller wheels at least – so-so visuals? Also no.

Maybach. The name was as unevocative as the design. None of the Phantom’s art deco grandeur here, the big ‘Bach instead nailing the interesting trick of looking both brash yet forgettable at the same time. Daimler could have saved a whole lot of effort by simply charging customers £370,000 for the privilege of having ‘money don’t buy taste’ tattooed across their foreheads.

As any racing driver will attest, you must go beyond the limit to learn where the limit is. So discovering that the sight of a five metre long, 740bhp limo-cum-whoopee-cushion causes mild panic attacks in most right-thinking humans, well, that’s valuable consumer research right there for Mercedes.

It wasn’t just more awkward than its related hatch. It was more awkward than pretty much everything else on the road.

Arriving in 2012, apparently unaware things had moved on in the city car game since the late Eighties, the Mirage married a bleak interior to a driving experience that was, if anything, even gloomier.

Blending two popular flavours doesn’t necessarily yield the tasty results you’d expect. Sometimes it results in a concoction as unpalatable as… well, as unpalatable as this two-tonne headless hippo.

It was beyond bland. Boring. Duller than the All-Dullingham Dullest Ditchwater of the Year contest. Forgettable in every way.

Based on the Daihatsu Move kei car, the Kenari was, for its size, quite practical, on account of boasting the precise proportions, and indeed dimensions, of an actual shoebox. It wouldn’t cost you much in fuel, not least because all your family and friends would politely turn down the offer of a lift.

As the world’s best selling EV for several years (just... how?) the G-Wiz arguably did more to set back the electric car cause than every brilliant, desirable petrol car combined. Who needs enemies when you’ve got friends like these?

The utter shoddiness of the CityRover was no question the splintering hole in Rover’s bow – the company folded in 2005, just two years after the introduction of this joyless little wart.

If you’re naming a car after a foodstuff, celery’s not high on the list, is it? What did Suzuki reject? Broccolio? Swedio? Turnipio? Nothing against celery, a mirepoix base wouldn’t be the same without it, but it’s not the most glamorous of foodstuff, is it? Versatile, yes, but fundamentally a bit bland and watery. Well, at least you can’t accuse Suzuki of false advertising...

On the upside, it may have caused momentary confusion to a few scissor-wielding car crims. On the downside, literally everything else.

While the Adam Rocks Air (in addition to sounding like the Old Testament version of scissors-paper-stone) promised three cars for the price of one, it in fact offered one not very good car for the price of a lot.