10 Worst Selling Cars of All Time5

By Chris Littler, Feb 28, 2011 in Pop Culture

It’s hard to believe it’s been over a hundred years since the first Ford Model T rolled off the assembly line. In that time, we’ve certainly made some great achievements in the world of automotives. We’ve figured out how to turn a black carriage-esque piece of puttering equipment into a series of sleek, clean-running, space-age automobiles. We’ve learned how to make some of the fastest cars as well as some of the most powerful. And not only do our modern cars keep running under incredible strain, they happen to protect our bodies from the million other drivers out there who seem intent on doing us in. On the whole, it seems like we’ve done a pretty good job, making cars. Go us!

Still, every once in a while a real stinker slips through the cracks. Once in a blue moon, a car is put on the market that is nothing less than a hazard to humanity. Ugly, inefficient, and sometimes even deadly, these cars are consumer repellent and can be fatal to the company that manufactures them.

So how do these cars get past the blueprint stage? We’re putting our money on “pure hubris.” As these things tend to go, the only way not to repeat the mistakes of the past are to learn from them. So read on, future car-designers of America, and take notes.

1. Skoda

Before Volkswagon bought out Skoda in the eighties, the Czech automobile company was considered the laughing stock of the automotive world – and for good reason too. As a car company, Skoda was ridiculously behind on every front by the time Volkswagon came knocking. Their cars were still being designed like they’d been plucked out of the sixties, with rear-engined models (the Skoda 105/120) and the kind of extras only a bland schoolmarm from a communist country would find appealing. It was too little too late for the Skoda, which is probably why not many people have ever heard of it.

2. Yugo

Founded in 1953 by a Serbian arms dealer, the Zastava Yuho Automobli company (Yugo, for short) has always had a bit of bad luck getting their cars to catch on. They sold well enough in their home country but weren’t so lucky in the United States. They were brought over to the Americas by entrepreneur Malcom Bricklin, who really thought Americans would eat up a low cost car that had no discernable style or class. Boy was he wrong. Sure, the car caught on steadily but never reached the numbers the company expected – possibly because the Big 3 just didn’t want them in the mix. Yugo tried desperately to save face with the Cabriolet, but the attempt fell apart with communism’s collapse. Bad timing, communism! The Yugo has since become the thing of rotten legend. It was voted the “Worst Car of the Millennium” by Car Talk.

3. Lada

If it’s starting to feel like we’re beating up on foreign countries, we’re really not trying to. They just keep making stinker cars. The boxy little Lada sold okay for its market in the eighties, but by no means has been as successful in the decades following. Owned by AvtoVAZ, a Russian car manufacturer, the Lada is a Fiat-based economy car, much in the same vein as the Yugo. It’s extremely cheap, which is why it’s extremely common to see Lada taxis, police cars, and other public service vehicles. But who wants to go for a joy ride in the same car as their local parking enforcement officer? Nobody cuts you a break on a speeding ticket just because they appreciate your sense of efficiency and practicality.

4. Daewoo Matiz

Not only is the Daewoo Matiz a poor-selling vehicle, it’s also likely to kill you. The car got a massive strike-through on its crash test because it failed to protect the passenger-side adult. Hey, that’s where we seat our loved ones! The Matiz is also well known for being the subject of an industrial copyright battle between GM, who markets the Matiz as the Chevrolet Spark, and Chery (the Chinese auto company), who made a very similar car called the QQ. Apparently, giant car companies don’t take kindly to being ripped off, even if the thing that’s being ripped off might not be worth it after all.

5. Fiat Cinquecento

If you ever end up going on a date that you want to end at the driveway, show up in a Fiat Cinquecento. This ugly little shoebox of a car has got great drag, which makes it a killer rally car, but it doesn’t have much else going for it. It’s certainly a loser in the style department, which is surprising to us. The Polish are usually so well known for being a stylish bunch, aren’t they? Ha! The Cinquecento was the first Fiat model to be manufactured entirely in Poland, which makes it as Polish as a… what do the Polish have? Sausages? You’re making this impossible, Poland.

6. 1981-1982 DeLorean DMC-12

Hey, it’s the time machine! How can we have any unkind words for the car that captured our imaginations and introduced us to the idea of travelling through time at 88 miles per hour? Well, it’s pretty easy, in fact, because the real deal is slightly less exciting. Mostly because the real DeLorean doesn’t come equipped with a flux capacitor. In fact, the coolest thing a DeLorean has is the gull-wing doors, which open up in a slightly unconventional way. If you had a lot of money in 1981, and wanted to support Northern Ireland, then the DeLorean was your car. Luckily, it doesn’t need to work to be cool. Just claim it was driven by Michael J. Fox and charge for the picture.

READ: 12 Most Famous Cars of Film and Television – #5 DeLorean DMC-12

7 . Ford Edsel

The Edsel failed bad. So bad, that ever since it debuted, the name Edsel has become synonymous with “failure.” That’s pretty impressive. The car was first called the “E car,” for experimental car, which is a true enough name, if it was meant to be an experiment in failure. It was even promoted with a television special, The Edsel Show. More than anything, the car failed because of false advertising. While Ford claimed it was something fresh, in actuality, it was just a repurposed Lincoln-Mercury.

8. Plymouth Prowler

The Prowler was designed when Chrysler engineers were asked to create whatever the heck they wanted, as long as it could be considered a sports car. And damn did they create whatever the heck they wanted. It could be considered “sleek” by some standards, but it certainly doesn’t belong on the road. It belongs in a private collection, or housed in a time capsule, which is where one currently resides, waiting to be opened in 2048. That’s perfect, because even the crappiest cars become luxury items if there are only few of them in existence.

9. Cadillac Catera

The Cadillac Catera never really stood a chance. It was marketed as the “Caddy That Zings,” but was hampered by too many problems to ever get it’s zing on. The marketing campaign, which featured Cindy Crawford talking to a duck, didn’t showcase the car in a way that made any sense. Though duck sales did skyrocket, if only for a few weeks. Then, to make matters worse, the car itself suffered from a crippling timing belt tensioner failure, which led to a fair share of engine failures.

10. Trabant

The Trabant, with all its design flaws and yawn-worthy style, signified, to the West, the errors in centralized planning in the Europe’s communist bloc. They saw it as a symptom of why communism just didn’t work. The Trabant couldn’t stand a chance against competition outside of East Germany, with its smoky two-stroke engine and production shortages. It was meant to survive solely within the confines of a state-run system. And there it shall live on forever.

Chris Littler lives in Hollywood. He has a degree in Dramatic Writing from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, one of the most prestigious writing programs in America, which he totally plans to hang on the wall when he has a Study. Chris currently covers video games at UGO.com when he’s not performing improv at iO, and is currently writing a one-hour TV pilot with his friend Wes. Like everyone else you know, he has an album available to purchase on iTunes and has lots of things to say on his blog: chrislittler[dot]com.