These Are the Cars That Got the Worst Facelifts

Cars, like many things in this life, change. Sometimes they change a lot, but they also change a little, in between those bigger changes, to make them seem newer than they really are underneath. We call these “facelifts” or “mid-cycle refreshes.” Yesterday we asked you for the worst facelifts ever, cases where the nipped-and-tucked versions of cars looked worse than their original designs. Here’s what you told us.

Hands down, the 2006 Refresh of the Ram 1500. The 02-05 model was handsome, understated, and for the period, the interior was outstanding. (a lot of the things that make the current gen such a great design were true of that 03-05 model)

Then in 2006, Chrysler’s overlords apparently decided the Ram was just too nice of a vehicle, and there was no sense in spending money on nice interiors when trucks printed money no matter what. What happened next was a travesty. They changed all the interior to harder plastics, and the handsome, curvy, slim, black dashboard was replaced by extremely light gray and tan colors that looked like they were faded before being installed, and the new dashboard shape looked like it was designed by a 7 year old. With an Etch-A-Sketch. Riding down a hill in a radio flyer. The seats went from being the most comfortable truck seats to easily the least comfortable. Seriously, sit a pillow on a park bench and you have those seats.

Worse still, on the exterior, they expanded the grille size, and enlarged the headlights by doubling their height and pulling the lights up over the fenders, which was a styling choice that looked horrible on a car, it was appalling on a truck.

It was just awful.

This one got the most upvotes, and it’s not hard to see why. Actually, it still sort of is, because as Caddywompis explained much of what was awful about this mid-gen Ram refresh was visible only from the inside.

Suggested by: Caddywompis

The Six Gen Chevy Camaro,

So panned that GM had to do an emergency facelift

This barely looks any different to me than the Camaro has since 2016, but then I’m not the target audience. When you have to facelift the facelift to get the fans to calm down, though, you know you made an error.

Suggested by: Witchy Whale

On a similar tack, I think I’m the only one, but the New Edge refresh was not a great update to the SN95 Mustang, just a bunch of circa 2000's styling cues on an extremely mid-90's design, all riding on a modestly updated 70's chassis. Although, at least the New Edge Mustangs got all the good special editions that make up for it (and the Terminator Cobras actually look pretty good).

We have a winner! New Edge ’Stangs are overrated, the OG SN95 was ’90s excellence.

Suggested by: Maymar

2008 North American Ford Focus...just...no. What exactly were they thinking with this? And the less we talk about the 2 door version the better.

Ford called this a second generation here in the States when it obviously wasn’t, if you had any idea what people were getting to drive in the rest of the world. It looked way, way better than this.

Suggested by: Ehisforadam

The mid-model life facelift of the 2005 2nd gen Acura RL in 2009 was quite spectacularly bad. They had a perfectly fine, if a bit sedate, large sedan, and happily disfigured it with the infamously horrid Acura iron beak... Somehow, they ruined it even further with a final facelift in 2011, before the RL was consigned to the dustbin of history and thoroughly forgotten a year later.

That damn beak. Did you know it was called the “Power Plenum?” I wish I was making that up.

Suggested by: GTO62

A car that had two facelift in one generation. And each facelift got more boring than before...

Bugeye >>> Hawkeye >>>>>>>> Blobeye

Suggested by: SennaMP4

2017-18 to 2019-20 Elantra Sport refresh was majorly disappointing. The original design was handsomely understated and had a fair amount of differentiation from the base car that made it look sporty without looking tacky. The refresh was an overwrought design across the line, and the sport lost some of its unique design elements that previously distinguished it from the rest of the line up.

Let’s have a recent example. This Elantra is much worse than the original sixth-gen, which had actually been pretty attractive. But it’s also nothing compared to whatever the hell went wrong with the seventh-gen today. Especially the Elantra N.

Suggested by: David Flint

I always feel like they did a disservice to the Econoline when they gave it the Super Duty front end treatment.

More like Super Doody.

Suggested by: 89islander

2002 to 2003 Silverado facelift. Also most of you clearly don’t know what a facelift is.

Caddyak is right, both about this Silverado and the fact that many of you didn’t seem to understand the assignment! This was about mid-cycle refreshes or facelifts — not generational changes, when an entire car is replaced in a more comprehensive way, like with a new chassis, powertrain and/or totally redone exterior. You know, like Viper fans like to pretend about their favorite car.

Suggested by: caddyak