The average new car has a lifespan of six or eight years so it’s inevitable that automakers feel the need to fiddle with a design at the midway point. A few light tweaks to lights and bumpers can help an older car look more fashionable and fresh enough to entice existing owners to sign up all over again, and to fend off newer rivals.
But sometimes the designers don’t stop at a few lights tweaks. And occasionally the supposedly ‘improved’ car ends up looking far worse than the car it replaced. Throughout history there have been some real mid-cycle styling travesties including the Ferrari 512 M, whose nasty fixed headlights and split-rim wheels made it look 10 times uglier than the 512 TR it replaced and, of course, the MGB, which was blighted with a giant set of black plastic bumpers to meet mid-1970s U.S. crash regulations.
But in this instance, we want to focus on cars of the recent past, meaning vehicles that have been nipped and tucked since the year 2000. And we’re talking about facelifts, not replacement models, which is a whole new different can of worms. Even narrowing down the scope with that criteria still leaves plenty of choice.
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Chevy’s 2019 Camaro refresh was so badly received the company had to rush out a facelift of the facelift the following year.
The Skoda Yeti lost a good chunk of its character when it lost its round secondary headlight units.
Honda’s NSX had done well to last a dozen years with barely any fiddling, and pop-up headlamps were seriously passé by 2002, but we wish Honda had left it alone.
The Fiat Multipla was definitely less ugly after its facelift, but it was also far more boring, which is arguably even worse.
And opinion is still split here over the facelifted BMW X7’s new split-headlamp look.
Which cars do you think came off worse after a mid-life trip to the design center? Drop a comment below and let us know which are your facelift villains.