The Horror Of Great Recession Era Car Interiors

What you see here is the flagship of the Buick sedan line, back when the brand still sold sedans. The full size Lucerne replaced the Park Avenue and was supposed to showcase Buick’s luxury know how. Instead, designers at the time thought light colored tan, brown shiny plastic chrome and fake wood trim meant luxury. As someone who sold these at the time, I can tell you that to a keen eyed observer, none of this was convincing to anyone. At least the Lucerne was big and comfortable.

How can an interior on a top trim level come across as cheap and lifeless at the same time? That’s what the interior of the Cadillac STS gives off. Mind you, you’re looking at the Platinum trim, meaning top of the line. While the wood looks like something that came from Autozone or was ordered from Amazon, it was real olive ash burl wood trim. Like the rest of the interior though, nothing about it looks premium. And what is going on with weirdly wide and blank space between the CD player and the dvd navigation system disc inserts?

The HHR was Chevy’s attempt to capture the same retro-styled wagon audience Chrysler did with the PT Cruiser. In fact, both the HHR and PT Cruiser had the same designer, Brian Nesbitt. While the exterior came across as thought out with its retro lines, the interior was horrible. There’s so much wrong with it. From the thin steering wheel that looks like it could be cut with bolt cutters to the window switches not only being behind the gear shift, but also at the lowest point on the dash designers gave up way too soon.

The 7th gen Malibu got widespread praise for its design. It was definitely a glow up compared to previous generations. Looking back on the interior though and its hard to see where or what people were praising. Sure it had a twin cockpit design, but the materials and color choices used — especially on lower trims like the Malibu Hybrid pictured — just came across as extremely cheap.

Can you believe the interior of the Town & Country won Ward’s interior of the year award in 2008? The award mostly had to do with the unique seating and storage features the van had, like Stow n’ Go and Swivel n’ Go. It couldn’t have been for materials. I know for a fact that the bright trim and steering wheel would start to peel and disintegrate in just a couple of years.

The third generation Sebring is almost a poster child of Chrysler’s situation at the time. All one had to do was take a look at the interior. Plastic of varying colors, angles, hardness and sheens is everywhere. Its hard to believe that the Sebring pulled many styling cues from the Airflite concept from a few years before.

The LC generation of the Dodge Challenger continued Chrysler’s tradition of bringing concept cars to production virtually unchanged. Unfortunately those classic muscle car lines gave way to a drab, plasticky interior. Even high performance trims like the SRT8 seen here looked low budget.

The Recession era Durango of the late 2000s was a refreshed version that had been around since 2003. It came with slight interior changes, mainly the addition of the center infotainment screen. Other than that, there was nothing appealing about it. Hard plastic was everywhere, especially on the passenger side which was probably the most boring and unappealing part of the dash.

The fifth-gen Mustang was another car with retro inspired styling and a shit interior. Just look at this. This is the interior a car that costs over $45,000 ($67,056.57 in 2024 money) at the time. And yet if you were to take away the red trim and the cobra logo on the steering wheel, there’s no difference between the GT500 and a base model V6 powered Mustang.

The Explorer was all new for 2006. Ford spent big money on everything under the skin. Unfortunately it doesn’t look as if much was spent on the interior. From the giant expanse of nothing on the passenger side to the waterfall of black plastic in the center to gauges that look to be set too far back, this looks like a miserable place to spend time.

GM entered the midsize truck arena in 2003 with the GMC Canyon/Chevy Colorado/Isuzu i-Series pickups. All came with the same sad looking, generic interiors. Honestly, the interior comes across like something you’d see in a car insurance commercial: nondescript that doesn’t look as if it comes from any one manufacturer.

This generation of Accord was remembered as the bloated one. It was the biggest the sedan had ever been and was a completely different car than the one sold in Japan.This resulted in the car being classified as a large car for the first time, which paid off in interior room. Interior materials were ok. You either got drab gray or fake wood trim. The biggest problem was the number of buttons on the center stack that some found overkill or just downright confusing.

The first generation of Honda’s family moving crossover, the interior was like other Honda products of the time: decently put together, but drab, boring and full of buttons.

Hyundai was on its upward trajectory at this time, introducing products like the Azera pictured here. While it was a premium offering, the interior was full of fake plastic and wood that was trying too hard to come off as premium.

Jeep’s entry into the compact crossover field was the ill conceived Compass. Riding on a platform shared with Mitsubishi, the interior was low rent. If a surface looked cheap, it felt worse.