These Are The Cars Our Readers Were Happiest To See Get Canceled

Fuck this thing.

Suggested by: Give Me Tacos or Give Me Death

Dodge Caliber:

A spitefully bad car that replaced the Neon with an exercise of “let’s tick the boxes on what we think customers want.” Ugly, horrible to drive, one of the worst examples of a ‘naughts Chrysler interior (which is quite the low bar), just a dreadful vehicle.

The original Neon at least seemed to be designed by people who liked fun cars - the second gen admittedly took some of the zest away. But the Caliber was the “adults” in finance and marketing taking charge with something that was sure to hit their target demographics and save loads of money to boot.

Suggested by: FistFullofNeutral

The Subaru Tribeca. I’m not even sure what they were trying to do with it as they had several models that were better at doing whatever it was trying to do. I’m kind of surprised it even lived long enough to have a facelift done as the first gen was hideous and should’ve been shelved before production.

Suggested by: klone121

I’ll say this, I was excited when they axed the Buick Cascada. And really, any car in this same competing class (Toyota Solara). I thought it was a great thing, the world is finally rid of sleep-inducing roofless Xanax on wheels that has no business trying to turn the very essence of Scrabble into a thrill ride. We already have properly good cars for this like the Mustang, get better luxury in an A5 or E-Class convertible, and if you want a proper convertible sports car, lose two seats and gain some handling with a Miata.

But hear me out, the moment I saw silver-headed women rolling four deep on a Saturday morning through Wilshire Boulevard in one of these with big smiles on their faces, I realized I was wrong the whole time. Something about that sight reminded me that some of us don’t worry about what we’re driving, we don’t need to go fast and we don’t need fancy bells and whistles or expensive insurance premiums or status symbols to enjoy ourselves. Sometimes the only thing we need to do is let some sunlight in and enjoy what comes between A and B.

Am I glad the car is off the market? Yes, but now I hope that not having them will remind the average person that cars can help us enjoy the drive, even the most mundane of them, and we don’t have to settle for rolling white heaps of hot garbage in SUV form.

If it has to be boring, why not add back some of the excitement that we lost?

Suggested by: Lil Xanos

The Dodge Avenger is such a hatefully awful car, representing the worst parts of “Chrysler” and every name the company has been under during my lifetime, which is 5 if my count is correct.

They were a sorry follow-up to Chrysler’s admittedly compelling “Cloud Cars,” they were blindingly ugly and awful to drive. They were the Altima before the Altima had Big Altima Energy. I once got “upgraded” to one of these as a rental and I didn’t even leave the lot before going back to the desk and requesting something else. The weirdly shaped steering wheel rim was uncomfortable enough to grip, and it was made worse by sharp flash lines left from when the steering wheel was molded.

By 2014, I guess Dodge finally realized that they’re incapable of making a “normal car” and went all in on the muscle car branding gamble, which mercifully left no room for the Avenger in their product line.

Good riddance.

Suggested by: Aldairion

The Ford EcoSport. Who was the target audience for that pitiful thing? They could have just put AWD on a Fiesta and called it a day.

Suggested by: Mitsubishi Apologist

The Mustang II

I grew up in the ‘70s and sometime around early ‘78 the enthusiast magazines started publishing concept photos and spy shots of the Fox Body Mustang. The car looked like a rocketship to my 14 year old eyes.

I began to loathe the lumpy, frumpy Mustang II and counted the days for the first Fox body to show up in the Ford dealership at the edge of town.

I eventually built a half-dozen plastic models of the Mustang and Capri, including two Indy pace cars

Suggested by: Earthbound Misfit I

Easy, the monstrosity [that who should not be named], built in Mexico for GM/Pontiac and used an off shoot, misspelled name of an ancient Mexican empire. As one automotive journalist described it...

“the [that who should not be named] looks deformed and scary, something that dogs bark at and cathedrals employ to ring bells”

because it never should have existed.

Suggested by: Barada_nikto_byotch

The Chevy SSR. Unnervingly ugly, not good at anything except acting as a callout to other drivers that you make poor decisions. And in convertible form, it just looked worse.

Suggested by: tallestdwarf

PT Cruiser. It was emblematic of the design disaster that was the automotive industry’s “retro” phase. Inside it was a wasteland of garbage materials and the worst rear seats I’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting on.

Suggested by: JohnnyWasASchoolBoy

I’m gonna go with the entire Mercury brand. When it was finally shut down, they only made cynically rebadged Fords that weren’t even allowed to be luxurious because that would get too close to Lincoln’s territory.

Suggested by: Connor

Even before the VW diesel scandal broke - I could ALWAYS tell when there was a diesel VW in front of me in traffic - they always smoked and stunk. I’m glad they’ve mostly been crushed.

Suggested by: thisismyid2

Generally, the compact pickup trucks of the late 20th century, specifically, he 1983-1992 version of the Ford Ranger.

Too small to do ‘truck things’ and too much of a truck to have comfortable road manners; these neither fish-nor-fowl vehicles were bad at everything.

Suggested by: The Voice of Harold Montgomery

The Volkswagen Phaeton was an offense against the natural order of things.

Suggested by: neverspeakawordagain

Apple Car.

Suggested by: Fix It Again Tony