One of the joys of automotive criticism is that everyone's got a different opinion. A car can be great or a car can be terrible, depending on who you're asking. But every so often, all of us auto journos get our heads together and decide that one particular car is unanimously wonderful. And then we are wrong.
Take the Chrysler LeBaron. It looks like a red piece of cheese and handles like one, too. That doesn't mean it doesn't have its defenders, though, like reader TimeTraveler, who declared that the LeBaron was "fun" and "stylish." Heck, it even won the Motoring Press Association's Car of the Year award:
Which is all very fascinating, considering the Honda CRX came out at the same time and is still universally beloved. As for the LeBaron, it's mostly used as a punchline by the band Cake.
Plenty of other cars win awards, like Motor Trend's prestigious (?) Car of the Year award, which counts such illustrious members as the Chrysler 300M (which we now know as terrible), the 1997 Chevrolet Malibu (which we now know as terrible), and the Cadillac CTS (actually pretty good) among its members. And while we can laugh now at some pretty awful choices and I don't mean to pick on poor old MT, the glossy mag actually does put work into determining their COTY, but they don't always have the benefit of 15 years of hindsight behind them.
So what car do you think won too many awards in hindsight? Let us know in the comments below!
Photo credit: Alden Jewell