What’s the ugliest car ever made? It’s all subjective, of course. But more than 2,000 specialty car collectors were recently asked to select the choices for the dubious honor. And the winner (loser?), at least according to one national poll, is the AMC Pacer.
Hagerty Insurance, located in Traverse City, Mich., conducted the survey. It tallied nearly 2,500 votes and the Pacer, a small hatchback that was introduced in 1975, was one of three AMC vehicles on the list.
The Pacer only lasted until 1980, but it’s not alone among AMC vehicles receiving ugly awards.
The AMC Gremlin and Matador station wagon also made the ugliest list.
According to the survey, one respondent said:
“AMC’s only conceivable excuse for this stylistic horror would be if their design crew was tripping on massive quantities of acid … and even then, it wouldn’t be a good excuse.”
The Serbian-built Yugo, a small two-door hatchback, was voted the second ugliest car.
“The Yugo was a car that fell apart while you drove,” commented one of the survey respondents.
McKeel Hagerty, the insurance company CEO, told Business Week magazine the idea for the survey came about when he noticed the value of “nerd cars” has risen.
The most modern vehicle to make the all-ugly list is the maligned Pontiac Aztek, which bombed in the marketplace before its death in 2005.
Other vehicles selected to the top-10 all-ugly list included: Chevrolet Chevette, Ford Edsel, Chevrolet Corvair, Ford Pinto, and Chevrolet Vega.
Article Last Updated: January 25, 2010.
I don't think the Pacer is ugly, it's retro. You have no idea how popular retro was when it was new. Now Geo has some UGLY suckers! They literally fall apart when sitting still.
Here are some REALLY ugly cars: Geo Tracker, Nissan Cube, Scion xB, Toyota Prius, Ford Windstream (something like that), Toyota Camary, and Honda Oddesy.