Worst Car Designs Ever, Part 4: Final Finalists, 1970s to Present

The latest selections include my own favorite disasters, as well as some reader suggestions. We've limited choices to cars that at least had reasonably competent drivetrains and chassis designs, but were let down by packaging and visual presentation; that is, bad industrial design. And to head off those questions about why no Pontiac Aztek and no Hummer H2, I've decided that SUVs and trucks are not cars.  One would think that the advent of computer-aided design tools during this period would have improved the overall level of design so that there would be few egregious offenders.  But competition was fierce; runners-up are listed for some finalists.

Ford Mustang II Cobra, 1974-78

It's hard to remember that the Pinto-based Mustang II won the Motor Trend Car of the Year award for 1974; Ford's timing was good if its choice of base chassis was not, as the car came right after the first Fuel Crisis.  At least one reason this car was such a disappointment was that Mercury dealers got the German-built Capri with a more competent chassis and cleaner body design.  The "Cobra" Mustang II was a cynical attempt to trade on the glory of the Shelby Mustangs from 1965-70, though it offered no special performance or handling features. Possibly the decals, fake vents and Tupperware spoilers made you feel you were going faster. To measure how far the mighty had fallen, you might want to have a look at the 1962 Mustang prototype, "Ford's Forgotten Mustang I", in these posts for August 26, 2015.

Runners-up, Bricklin SV-1 (1974-76) & Triumph TR-7 (1975-81)

Mosler Consulier, 1985-93

Apparently Warren Mosler's transit from Wall Street financier to sports car builder did not involve a stop at anyone's industrial design studio. His lightweight, street-legal racer was intended (one avoids the word "designed') to be competitive in the SCCA, and it was definitely that.  The body, however, was relentlessly hideous, with slab sides, tacked-on bumpers, an abruptly vertical windshield, and openings for lights and vents which looked like they'd been hacked into the study model (if there was one) with a pocket knife. Probably the first carbon fiber bodied car sold to the public.  Race driver John Fitch had one; his verdict, "ugly, but fast as hell", has stood the test of time. 

Nissan Autech Stelvio Zagato, 1989-90

If you looked at the name first, you're likely wondering how Nissan and Zagato wound up together. On the other hand, if you looked at the photo first, you're asking, "What is that thing in front?  Did somebody leave the hood up and then whack it with a hammer?"  The short answers are that during the last days of the Japanese economic boom of the 1980s, Nissan hatched a program with Zagato to build limited runs of Nissan-powered exotica, and what appears to be a badly bent hood is actually two huge tunnels housing the rear-view mirrors.  Other Zagato Nissan prototypes were better looking than this Stelvio (we'll cover them in a future essay), but that's a fairly low bar to clear.  Note the odd wheel design with a single asymmetrical NACA duct, possibly intended to enhance the avant garde sense of off-center weirdness.  Note also the wide horizontal ledge running from the base of the mirror tunnel to the rear of the car, where it wraps under the tail lights. Perhaps this shelf, like the mirror tunnels, was intended as a place for birds to nest while the cars were gathering dust in dealer's back lots (the Japanese are, after all, nature lovers).  Amazingly, among the Zagato concept cars only the Stelvio was cleared by Nissan for production.  Not so amazingly, of the 200 cars planned, only 104 found buyers.

Runner-up:  Alfa-Romeo ES-30 Zagato, a good enough car, and a significant enough trend-setter, to deserve its own essay.  See below….

Alfa Romeo ES-30 Zagato, 1989-94

 

The ES-30 series, whose basic form was created by Robert Opron, who had designed the more organic and curvy GS, SM and CX while at Citroen, was produced in two models, the SZ coupe above (1989-91) and the RZ roadster below (1992-94).  The cars were the first truly new sports / GT cars to emerge from Alfa since the Montreal in 1970.  Emerging at the same time as Zagato's Nissan Stelvio, the ES-30 seemed, unlike unlike earlier Alfas, to be designed with the goal of stopping the eye rather than seducing it.  Like that Stelvio, the ES-30 adopted the strategy of exaggerating one or two features with cartoonish emphasis.  In this case, the wedge profile and short front and rear overhangs were emphasized with nearly vertical, flat front and rear faces. These matched the almost vertical flat sides.  From the rear, the cars looked nearly as high as they were wide… At the time some thought the designers had done a disservice to a great chassis, as the ES-30 had power and balance thanks to Alfa's 3.0 liter V6 married to the transaxle layout which first appeared in the GTV-6.  As the 70s wedge trend was finally giving way to ellipsoidal curves in the late 80s, many had hoped for something more along the lines of the last great Alfa Zagato front-engine road racer, the TZ-2 from 1965 (below).  But the ES-30 sold over 1,300 copies counting SZ and RZ together, while Alfa had only sold around a dozen TZ-2s, a low number even for a focused road racer.  Sometimes there is no accounting for public taste...

Morgan Aero 8, 2001-2010

Apparently designed without any awareness of the notion that form and detail should reinforce each other , the Aero 8 emerged from the factory with its headlights staring at each other across a concave gulf as though the car had tried to wrap itself around a tree.  Once you got past the fairly modern chassis with its BMW V8, the car was a mashup of miscues born of the attempt to marry 1930s swoop to 21st century technology.  The mid-1930s classics the Aero 8 attempted to evoke never had fenders with flush vertical sides, or ruler-straight sill lines.  They did sometimes have doors with external hinges, but nowadays, especially on anything this expensive, external hinges are just bad detailing.  The cross-eyed look stayed until 2007.

Runners-up: BMW Z-4 (E-85 series, 2002-08) and Nissan Cube (3rd series, 2008-present).

Like the Zagato Stelvio, Anders Warming's Z-4 makes a fetish of details which most designers try to hide, though here they are shut lines for doors, emphasized with concave "flame surfacing". The diagonal slash across the front fender bisects the BMW logo and continues the windshield angle, apparently to call attention to the upward curving line of what looks like a hinged unitized fender / hood assembly (like early Sprites which also have this curving line) but is not. The US-mandated center safety light is accentuated with a gawky bump in the trunk surface, with what looks like a combo spoiler / handle.  

The Nissan Cube is notable for having, for no discernible reason, different right and left side elevations.  On Nissan projects like the Cube and the earlier S-Cargo, the cartoonish quality they'd achieved inadvertently on the Stelvio became the whole point. A sight gag on four wheels, it would've suited Homer Simpson and family as a daily driver.

BMW i3, 2014 to present

Richard Kim's design for the i3 pushed the revival fad for black-out graphics to a new level; he used graphics not to enhance form, but to subvert it.  Note the way the black shapes crawling up the front bumper make the silver shapes look unsupported.   The famous twin-kidney grille is just graphics with a bright metal frame; it's blank and admits no air.  Similarly, graphic black-outs are used to erode the deep sill line, either in an attempt to make the car look low and sleek (not so much luck there) or to increase the impression of ground clearance.  This photo helped me understand the reasoning behind the spasmodic drop in the rear window sill line; it allows leftover space for side vision if you leave the dealer price sticker in the window.  Otherwise, your neighbors will never suspect that you actually paid $43,000 for this thing.

Runner-up:  Several readers strongly dislike the 2016 Toyota Prius, apparently because it finds new ways to torture innocent lighting fixtures into threatening shapes…

Photo credits:
Nissan Autech Stelvio:  japanesenostalgiccar.com
Toyota Prius:  Toyota USA, reproduced on pumptalk.ca
All others:  wikimedia