13 Vintage Cars That Millennials Think Are Ugly
The wise man (or woman) behind the saying that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder must have been wiser than Tyrion Lannister. Many vintage and classic cars that were epitomes of beauty in the eyes of our ancestors do not impress millennials today. We’re not always wrong, though. Sometimes we’re right, and sometimes we’re not.
We’re right about the Ford Edsel being ugly, and we’re probably wrong about the AMC Pacer. The truth is many of us think certain vintage cars are “beautiful” because we try to see them through the eyes of the Silent Generation and Generation X.
We imagine what the world was like at the time and try to reconcile the prevailing culture back then with the modern definition of cool — or ugliness. If beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, the same must be true about ugliness. We bet millennials think these 13 vintage cars suck.
AMC Pacer
The Pacer was born in 1975 with a “jellybean” shape and large windows that AMC must have thought was the coolest design ever. Well, we don’t think so, but we get it. The Pacer’s bulbous shape was the idea of AMC’s chief stylist, Dick Teague.
The man deserves credit for figuring out how to create a compact car with the interior space of a much larger car.
The unique shape allowed a longer passenger door that facilitated easier access to the rear seats. All that sounds great, but even the people of that time weren’t particularly thrilled with the car’s wide, rounded body. Millennials can’t possibly dig the excessive use of glass, either.
Ford Pinto
The Pinto is one of the most infamous cars in history. By piggybacking its fuel tank, the Pinto was a high risk of fire in a rear collision. It was all about saving money for Ford. With the tank behind the rear axle, Ford could more cheaply achieve its design goals of creating a lightweight, affordable compact car.
However, “dangerous” isn’t the only thing millennials think about the Pinto. The car looks awkward with its short rear and long front and is a little too basic. The boxy design may have been in vogue back then, but millennials don’t see the allure.
Pontiac Aztek
Plenty of people rushed to Aztek’s defense when the controversy over its unconventional styling polarized discussion tables everywhere. These people were pretty sure the future would be kinder to the Aztek. It was just too futuristic for its time, they said.
Fast forward two decades later, the Aztek still looks awkward. We bet millennials still struggle to understand the plastic body claddings, headlights arrangement, mismatched lines, high rear end, and overall overly complex design. It couldn’t even decide if it was an SUV or a minivan.
Yugo GV
We hear thousands of people bought this car when it first hit the US market in 1985. We hear dealers lined up for a piece of the Yugo pie because it sold like hotcakes. It reportedly sold close to 36,000 in 1986 and 48,812 the following year.
However, the Yugo GV wasn’t having a good time on the market because it was particularly handsome. It was having a good time because it was the cheapest new car in America, costing thousands of dollars cheaper than rivals of the same class.
So, when it eventually turned out that little Yugo had a hornet nest of reliability and quality issues, the romance stopped as abruptly as it started. Suddenly, little Yugo became a choice material for comedians who made fun of its boxy looks and cheap build.
Chevrolet Chevette
The Chevette and Yugo GV supposedly competed for the entry-level subcompact class in the 1980s. We said “supposedly” because there was never a competition. Yugo entered the market like a fox in a henhouse, disrupting and cornering a good chunk of it with its rock-bottom price tag.
The Chevette would’ve stood a better chance against the Yugo if it looked any better. It didn’t. It wasn’t until the Yugo romance with America turned sour that people suddenly remembered the Chevette as the next best thing in the affordable car market. Some might argue that the Chevette was an economy car prioritizing function over style.
Fiat Multipla
When it comes to the Multipla, even Gen Xers agree with millennials that the car is downright ugly. Fish face, they called it. The Multipla lived up to its name by featuring multiple faces with two-tiered headlights. The unusual design successfully expanded the interior, but the extra space wasn’t worth it.
The bulbous front fascia, with headlights mounted high on the hood, was and still is the oddest thing many millennials ever saw in a car. The wide body “multiplied” cabin space but left it with awkward proportions. On top of all that, the Multipla favored a boxy shape, leaving it to struggle unsuccessfully for cohesion.
Triumph TR7
We get that Lamborghini popularized the wedge shape with the phenomenal Countach in the early 1970s, setting a standard for future supercars and even some sports cars like the Triumph TR7. Both cars debuted in the same year, but Triumph bastardized the Countach’s revolutionary wedge design language.
It got so busy mimicking the Italian’s low, flat front that it forgot the beltline area. It flunked the rear design entirely. We understand people of that era probably thought it was the coolest thing they ever saw, but we bet millennials think it shouldn’t have followed the Countach into the world of pop-up headlights.
Ford Edsel
The Edsel project, including research, design, tooling, and production, cost Ford approximately $250 million to bring to the market. Ford unloaded all that cash because it had lofty expectations of the Edsel. Unfortunately, the Edsel went down in history as the automotive industry’s most famous flop. Why? Because it was ugly. That and the economic downturn of the late 1950s.
As a matter of fact, the recession was hardly Edsel’s problem. Chevrolet’s Bel Air had a swell time in the 1950s, and so did the Ford Thunderbird and Volkswagen Beetle. Edsel’s real enemy was her odd front grille that got called all sorts of nicknames, including “horse collar,” “toilet seat,” and “oversized smile.”
Renault Alliance
Whether or not people in the 1980s thought this car looked nice is inconsequential. “Boxy” and “angular” should never be in the same sentence when it comes to automotive design. We understand Folks in the 1980s probably didn’t see it as ugly since the boxy shape was typical of that era.
However, we’ll be surprised if they didn’t notice the Alliance lacked the flair of some competitors. Did it make up for its styling shortcomings with decent performance? No, it didn’t. Its 4-cylinder engines produced 56 and 58-hp.
Subaru Brat
Who names their child a brat? That’d be Subaru. The Brat’s design was as unusual as its name. BRAT is short for “Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter,” which was Subaru’s way of telling the US that the ute offers a truck’s utility in an off-road package. Frankly, Chevrolet’s El Camino is a better-looking car/truck compared to Subaru’s BRAT.
It even had a pair of rear-facing jump seats in the exposed bed that left you confused and wondering how the Brat identifies. We guess the plastic fender flares were supposed to give it a rugged look, but it just made the car/truck look cheap.
Morris Marina
In case you’re meeting the Morris Marina for the first time today, it was a compact family car from the 1970s and ’80s made by a division of British Leyland called Austin-Morris. They designed the Marina to compete with market darlings like the Ford Cortina. It replaced a much older, vintage predecessor called Morris Minor.
Anyway, the Marina was obviously a modern continuation of the Minor’s legacy, but it wasn’t any prettier for its time than the Minor was in the 1940s. If anything, we think the Marina is an ugly car. It didn’t take long for the design to start looking outdated in the late 1970s.
Plymouth Fury (1970s Models)
Plymouth produced the Fury from 1958 (for the 1959 model year) until 1978. We can see through the eyes of the Silent Generation that the early models must have looked beautiful and even highly desirable.
In fact, millennials think the Fury is a beautiful car, but not after the 1972 model year. In an obvious attempt to look more modern, the Fury only looked bulkier and less appealing.
There’s no doubt that Plymouth’s decision to shift towards a more squared-off, boxy design in the 1970s robbed the Fury of its natural gracefulness. The car looked properly outdated by the end of that decade.
Austin Allegro
We love what Retropower did with the Allegro. Retropower’s “Project Lucky Strike” is a restomod project based on the Austin Allegro.
We love their build, but even Retropower admitted that the Allegro was a “dumpy, oddly proportioned embodiment of striking workers crouched around flaming braziers; pointless inter-company squabbling and ill-advised penny pinching; deeply suspect styling decisions and shoddy, at times unconscionable, build quality.”
In case you’re meeting the Austin Allegro for the first time today, it was another compact family car introduced in the early 1970s by Austin-Morris. The Allegro replaced the more popular Austin 1100 and 1300. It’s not just millennials who think this car could look better. The people of its time mocked its square shape, flat grille, “quartic” steering wheel, imbalanced proportions, and overall squat profile.
