the ugliest cars

For the last few years now, the automotive industry has been on a roll. Most of the new car introductions have looked great, and one by one the ugliest cars in the market have been discontinued. For 2015, there has been a true bloodbath of ugly cars. Four cars that were on last year’s list have been put to a well-deserved death: Honda Insight, Toyota FJ Cruiser, Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet, and Nissan Cube. And none of the new or redesigned models for 2015 are really ugly enough to make the list.

As such, the four ‘new additions’ at the bottom of the list are cars that have been around for one or more model years, but were edged out in previous lists by uglier (but now-discontinued) cars. The fact that the ‘average ugliness’ across the list is much less than in previous years should be seen as a commentary on the positive direction of modern auto design.

The criteria for inclusion is the same it has always been. I don’t include models that aren’t sold in the United States. I don’t include models that sell in low volume (and volume is defined completely subjectively based on how many I see on the highways in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area). I don’t include exotic, military, or special-purpose vehicles—so no super-cars, tanks, or postal trucks. I also don’t include vehicles reserved exclusively for the commercial market, such as the truly horrific Ram Promaster.

This list is entirely my personal opinion. I encourage your comments—whether they be nominations of ugly cars I may have missed, or impassioned defenses of the ones I didn’t. And if you own one of the cars on this list, well, don’t take it personally.

The List

10. Scion xB

    
    

    Scion xB
    Toyota’s Scion brand has never been great in the styling department. Indeed, the first round of Scions were a recurrent presence on many of the early ‘ugly cars’ lists. Eventually, that first round got redesigned or replaced and before too long all of the Scions had improved enough to drop off my lists entirely. They never stopped being ugly, they just stopped being ugly enough to land in the top-ten. But now, with the 2015 ugly car bloodbath, the Scion xB marks the brand’s triumphant return. It isn’t nearly as bad as the original xA and xB, or the just-discontinued xD, but that’s not saying much. Like some of the other cars on this list, the xB is just a cheap econo-box trying desperately to be edgy . . . and failing.