One Man's Trash Is Another Man's ... AMC Gremlin

I'm proud to announce that I've won a very special sort of prize. Only a very small percent of the population could be as lucky! What is it????

Well ... hold on to your hats. I've been the owner of three - yes, three - of the ugliest cars in history. The thrill! I mean, I knew they were ugly. Yes, I did! Only, I didn't know others would come to consider their ugliness a sort of a ... status symbol, or something. To be ugly enough to become a cultural icon - well, that's something special.

According to Yahoo Finance, Hagerty Insurance, the largest provider of insurance to classic-car collectors, recently polled its policyholders, asking them to name the 10 ugliest cars of all time. Cars so ugly, they may actually be worth collecting. Here's what they said:


1. The AMC Pacer. "Zero to sixty in four-and-a-half hours. 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." I resent this. The Pacer was my third car, and it was EXCELLENT for stuffing to the gills when I went to college. I loved my Pacer. It was a pretty blue, and I washed it every weekend, and it only broke down occasionally. I ended up selling it to buy a ticket to Australia, to chase an ex-boyfriend. So, hey, it was kind of worth it.

2. Chevolet Chevette. Voter's comment: "It was so underpowered, you had to shift down with the AC on to climb the slightest hill. Everything was too small inside, and the dash looked like a 12-year-old designed it. Owned it a year and laughed when I sold it!"

3. Ford Edsel. Voter's comment: "Gas-guzzling, three-ton behemoth with a toilet seat grill and inexplicably tacky push-button transmission shifting. The standard by which all other automotive brand failures have been judged (and ridiculed) for 50 years."

4. AMC Matador. Voter's comment: "The Matador coupe had those bug-ugly front lights and the strange rear-end design treatment. It's hard to imagine a car that large having so little interior space. A total waste of steel (and glass, and plastic, and rubber...)."

5. Chevrolet Corvair. This is the car that gave Ralph Nadar a cause! Voter's comment: "They were all death traps. If you got rear-ended, they burst into flames. If you got into a sideways slide, the tires blew off the rims and they rolled over."

6. AMC Gremin. Voter's comment: "The most hideously ill-proportioned car of all time." But the Gremlin was okay. Another $200 gift from the parents. This is the car that had to last for years, through the end of college and into my first job in another part of the country. Bright yellow. Yeah, baby.

7. Chevrolet Vega. Voter's comment: "A car that began to rust on the showroom floor brought a whole new meaning to the term 'Planned Obsolescence.'" Now you're talking. This was my very first car, bought for me by my parents for a big $200. It was a shiny red hatchback. It did burn a little oil, I have to admit, and then, eventually, the engine melted. But, up until then, it was all good.

8. Pontiac Aztec. Voter's comment: "The only car that can make a Pacer wagon look good."

9. Ford Pinto. Voter's comment: "Underpowered, cheap plastic, bodies prone to rust...oh, yeah, they blow up, too."

10. Yugo. Voter's comment: "You couldn't get scrap-metal money even if it was running."