Here are 10 cars that totally flopped in America

The Ford Pinto, a 1970s-era compact car, began on a positive note. Ford sold hundreds of thousands of Pintos, but soon, the cars began bursting into flames when rear-ended.  

The Pinto’s layout was the reason: its fuel tank was behind the rear axle, and when hit, there were several pathways to catch fire. The number of deaths related to Pinto fires varies widely between sources. The Pinto left the market in 1980, and it never returned.  

The Fisker Karma was a beautiful, 2010s-era hybrid sports car from Fisker Automotive with a long, issue-laden history. The Karma itself had all kinds of build-quality and reliability problems, like panel gaps, fires, and explosions. 

Fisker was in bankruptcy court by 2014, and the Karma was later reborn as the “GS-6” under the new Karma Automotive. Reviewers criticised its performance and features, and in 2021, Motor Trend said: “In the end, the Karma GS-6 failed to score highly in any of our key criteria. Perhaps 2032 will be its year!”

Fisker’s founder and namesake, Henrik Fisker, returned in 2016 with Fisker, Inc. as a successor to Fisker Automotive. New Fisker released the Ocean SUV, whose fate was similar to that of the Karma sports car, and was back on the bankruptcy train in 2024.  Perhaps 2032 will be Fisker’s year! 

For decades, Americans loved to hate the Ford Mustang II: the Mustang Ford made as a response to the oil crisis of the 1970s.  

This second-generation Mustang followed the original car, which significantly outperformed Ford’s sales expectations in the first year and became a staple of classic American car culture. Ford shrunk the car for the second generation, and the move made sense — the oil embargo of the ‘70s caused fuel shortages and skyrocketing gas prices, and the typical response to economic crises is to make more economical cars.  

But the Mustang is all about big, V8, American muscle, and because of that, the Mustang II became the odd Mustang out.  

The Pontiac Aztek arrived on the American market for the 2001 model year, and over the years in America, the angular SUV became colloquially synonymous with “ugly car". Some car enthusiasts are finally coming around to the Aztek’s bizarre looks 25 years later, perhaps because we have a new four-wheeled goblin to obsess over: the Tesla Cybertruck. 

Around the time of its launch, the Aztek was a prize for winning the first season of the popular reality show “Survivor” in the year 2000 (along with a $1 million cash prize). The winner, Richard Hatch, got sentenced to 51 months in prison for not paying taxes on the winnings. 

Imagine telling people you got sentenced to four years in prison because you didn’t pay taxes on one of the most controversially styled vehicles ever made. Woof! 

The Yugo was a 1980s compact hatchback that, on the American market, was a disaster. Reviewers and drivers complained about the car’s performance, interior, reliability, and more. In 1986, the Chicago Tribune reported about a Cadillac dealer offering a special deal: Buy a Cadillac, get a Yugo for free. 

Despite being a nightmare in its time, the Yugo’s become popular among modern car enthusiasts. It’s a cult classic for how bad it is — the car industry’s version of The Room, which gained a passionate following after it was widely labeled one of the worst movies of all time.  

The Mitsubishi Mirage, which died on the American market after the 2024 model year, was an odd thing: it was one of the few holdouts for inexpensive new vehicles, but it was simultaneously viewed as slow, cheaply made, and dangerous. 

In 2023, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a crash-testing authority in America, named the Mirage as the deadliest car you could drive. The IIHS noted 205 deaths per million registered vehicles for the Mirage — 50 more deaths per million than the model that placed behind it, which was the Dodge Challenger.  There’s beauty in cheap cars, but the Mirage couldn’t escape its reputation. 

In 2022, Vietnamese company Vinfast showed off its new electric SUV: the VF8. Like other new, unproven EVs, the VF8 became a point of fascination. Would it succeed? Would it fail spectacularly, as some unproven EVs do? (Since it’s on this list, you know the answer.)  

When reviewers got hold of the car, they said basic functions didn’t work: climate control, turn signals, navigation, and many features vital to the vehicle’s performance and comfort. The consensus was that the car wasn’t ready for production. Yet there it was, being produced.  

Just a few years later, seeing a Vinfast on the road in America is like seeing a fender-bender live: It doesn’t happen often, and you feel bad for everyone involved.  

Much like the Pontiac Aztek or Chrysler PT Cruiser, Americans generally thought the Nissan Murano CrossCab — a 2010s-era crossover convertible — was exceptionally ugly. It was also exceptionally expensive. The CrossCab had a base price of $47,200 when it debuted in 2011, which is $70,000 in 2025.

The Murano CrossCab became a joke, as questionably styled products do. But now that it’s been about 15 years, the CrossCab’s styling is branching from “joke” to “camp” territory. You know what they say: What’s old is new, and what was uncool is now… cool?  Something like that. 

The modern Alfa Romeo Giulia doesn’t get the love it deserves in America, and that’s because of its disastrous early years on the market. The car started out with promise when it made its U.S. debut at the 2015 Los Angeles Auto Show, but when the car made it to the road, a big gremlin appeared: reliability. Car & Driver posted a popular story titled “After 40,000 Miles with the 2018 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, Our Heart Is Broken", noting constant trips to the dealership. In 2017, Jalopnik wrote about a Giulia breaking down in the middle of the night with 1,700 miles on the odometer. 

There haven’t been a lot of reviews mentioning horrid reliability since those early ones, and from a driving perspective, the Guilia is one of the best sports cars on the American market. The Quadrifoglio performance trim has a lightning-fast steering ratio, a seating position reminiscent of a go-kart, and stunning styling. But all those perks have to fight against the Guilia’s reputation, established by those early reliability woes. 

Hyundai entered the American market in 1986 with a $5,000 subcompact car called the Excel, and America was an uphill battle for a non-American brand. Americans were big on American brands (and still are, to a degree), and Hyundai was from a far-away place: South Korea.  

Hyundai sold hundreds of thousands of Excels in America, but reliability and quality issues tanked the brand’s reputation and led to a falloff in sales in the 1990s. It’s taken decades for Hyundai to claw back Americans’ trust. 

The company accelerated that trust timeline by offering a five-year, 60,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty, beating many other brands’ American offerings of three-year, 36,000-mile warranties. It’s hard to beat the pricing and quality across the Hyundai lineup in 2025, but some Americans will still give you a funny look when you tell them the best sport-compact deal on the market is the Hyundai Elantra N. (Even if it’s true.)