PT Cruiser

Make
Chrysler
Segment
Wagon

Everyone is fallible, and that includes us as car reviewers. The vast majority of automotive journalists are working to advocate for car buyers, including us here at CarBuzz. However, none of us are infallible. The most embarrassing moments for the automotive media are when cars win awards that they really shouldn't. It happens occasionally, and it takes guts to admit you're wrong, like when Car & Driver held up its collective hands and made a list of errors it made over the decades. As the outlet pointed out: "It's always a risk making judgments based on the initial exposure to a car, and sometimes a vehicle's ultimate crappiness only reveals itself with the fullness of time. We're all subject to the hype for something that seems new, different, and maybe even better, and in this business, we all feel the crushing pressure to be timely, amusing, and authoritative. Being wrong is always a risk."

It is, and Car & Driver isn't the only outlet to have made mistakes. It's not even the only group to put a car up on a pedestal that, whether in hindsight or in haste, really did not deserve it. This list isn't put together out of spite, as that would be a mistake. They may be young, but we have our own yearly awards, and we are only human as well. Instead, it's a list put out as a reminder that we're all fallible, and the key to being a good reviewer, like being a good person, is the ability to change or evolve an opinion based on new information.

1. 2010 Audi A3 TDI

Green Car Journal has been around since 1992, and this one is just downright unfortunate. Green Car Journal can't be faulted for calling giving the 2010 Audi A3 TDI its Green Car of the Year award as it wasn't until 2014 that suspicions about Volkswagen tricking its way through emissions tests started to surface. The Audi A3 TDI Clean Diesel was then caught up in the Dieselgate emissions scandal, and the publication rescinded the award. In 2009, it had given the same award to the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Clean Diesel, which it also rescinded. Nobody will blame Green Car Journal for never trusting a Volkswagen Group product ever again.

2. 1987 Chrysler LeBaron Coupe and Merkur Scorpio

We believe the Northern-California-based Motoring Press Association is now defunct, but there's a wonderful newspaper clipping we found where the group was reported giving the Chrysler LeBaron Coupe its US Car of the Year award in 1987 and the Merkur Scorpio its Import Car of the Year award.

"Winners in both categories survived close votes by members of the Motoring Press Association representing independent, professional automotive writers with a worldwide audience estimated at 45 million readers," said association president Gordon Martin and according to the San Bernardino Sun newspaper. Calling the Chrysler LeBaron coupe car of the year in 1987 is bad enough, but the list of competitors to the Merkur Scorpio, a rebadged Ford Scorpio, is baffling when you consider its competition included the Acura Integra, Honda Prelude, Jaguar XJ6, and Toyota Supra.

3. 1983 MG Metro

What Car? in the UK has a real clunker in its Car of the Year Awards back catalog. The magazine gave the MG Metro the award in 1983 when it shouldn't have got a second glance. The MG badge signified the "hot" version of the already awful city car based on the Austin Mini and not to be confused with the specialist-built Metro 6R4 rally car. No. The MG Metro was a piece of garbage that appeared to have the ability to rust on a warm summer's day. They were only good for buying as scrap when the rust got them, then dropping the engine straight into a real Mini for a quick horsepower upgrade. It was a great little upgraded Mini engine in the MG Metro but a horrible, horrible car.

4. Ford Mustang II

MotorTrend awarded the god-awful Mustang II its Car of the Year award in 1974. However, to be fair, a lot of people were fooled despite the way it looked, and it sold well based on just having the Mustang name and returning to its small-car roots. However, there were red flags aplenty. It was based on Ford's Pinto platform, for a start. Then Lee Iacocca, the father of the Mustang, said, "It'll be compromised. It's not gonna slam you back in the seat. And if you put air and automatic on a (2.3-liter four-cylinder engine), you do not exactly have a bomb on your hands." With hindsight, he said, "Sometimes I think we're luckier than we are smart. Here we come up with a 20-mile-per-gallon car in the middle of a fuel crisis."

Ford's official and laughable hindsight came on the car's 40th anniversary in a press release. "Despite being among the best-selling Mustangs of the past 49 years, Mustang II has been maligned by hardcore pony-car fans as the black sheep of the family almost since it went on sale," said Ford, "Looking back now, however, it's clear that without the new direction forged by Mustang II, Ford almost certainly wouldn't be celebrating 50 years of Mustang today." We say that's revisionism, and the Mustang name survived on the laurels of the first generation and despite the Mustang II.

5. Renault Alliance

At the time, Car & Driver said, "If we were some other magazine, this would be our car of the year." It made the magazine's 10Best Cars, but the "other magazine," MotorTrend, did make the Alliance the Car of the Year. The shame is in the fact it was a shallow attempt at Americanizing the Renault 9 by the French company and put together with a laissez-nous faire attitude in an old Nash factory somewhere in Wisconsin. In its initial review, MotorTrend also gratuitously and ill-advisedly used some French language, saying, "In addition, the reverse gear lockout is very positive, without being a hindrance when you actually need to engage marche arriere."

6. 1985 Merkur XR4Ti

We can only assume Car & Driver's reviewers were over-excited at having something European to play with in 1985 when the Merkur XR4Ti made its 10Best Cars list. Bob Lutz wanted something to compete with premium European imports, so Ford's import brand, Merkur, got an altered and rebadged Ford Sierra XR4i to try and sell. It arrived with an extra 280 pounds of weight from changes made to meet US safety standards, softer suspension that increased body roll, and the naturally aspirated and renowned Cologne V6 was replaced with a more powerful turbocharged four-cylinder Pinto engine. While it was a more powerful engine, it had a narrow power band and wasn't particularly smooth.

Car & Driver did note in its review that their press car had a limited-slip differential, which wasn't available on the production car. The magazine also recorded a 0-60-mph time of 7.0 seconds in its initial test but could only manage 7.8 seconds with a later model, which was close to MotorTrend's 7.9 seconds. That led people to suspect the early test car was a "ringer" from Ford. Unfortunately, tweaked cars sent out for review was something that happened back then.

7. 1997 Cadillac Catera

Cadillac has had its fair share of duds, but Catera was a massive whiff from Cadillac. A disaster, in fact, that led Cadillac to realize it needed to tear off that chapter in its history and build the CTS. The Catera was a rebadged variation of the Opel Omega and billed as Cadillac's answer to imported "sport luxury" cars. It came with an impressive set of standard features, but, unfortunately, the entry-level engine was a weak 3.0-liter V6. That would be bad enough for a supposedly sporty luxury car, but the V6 also had a particularly poorly designed timing belt tensioner pulley topping it off. It constantly failed with drastic results, including a recorded string of accidents. GM was forced, after ignoring it for a while, to recall the Catera. Automobile Magazine wasn't to know the looming disaster the Catara would face, but it should never have made the now-defunct publication's All-Stars list.

8. 1971 Chevrolet Vega

In the context of the dramatic shift in the US from big gas-guzzling V8s and Ford's answer being the Pinto, you could squint your eyes and sort of see why the Chevrolet Vega and its Camaro-ish styling got MotorTrend's Car of the Year award in 1971. History doesn't reflect well on the Vega, though, and it regularly makes worst car lists. The engine design, compounded by the car's overall lack of build quality, is what was the car's downfall. It wasn't long before used Vega cars came in three distinct flavors: Smoke, Rust, or Smoke And Rust.

9. 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser

The super-nostalgic retro phase American carmakers went through saw a lot of mistakes made on both sides of the fence at the same time. In this case, Chrysler delivered the crime against humanity that was the PT Cruiser, and MotorTrend gave it Car of the Year while Car & Driver put it in its 10Best cars list. Admittedly, a decent lawyer could mount a defense for both decisions on the basis that the PT Cruiser was a runaway sales success. At least, it was to start with. You could point at the financial crisis as a reason the PT Cruiser's sales suddenly slowed, but its styling had already dated faster than a teenager's friends list by the time that drop-off started. Consumer Reports also recommended the PT Cruiser, but that lasted as long as Chrysler's quality control on the car. Perhaps with a more contemporary body design and better quality control, the surprisingly practical car might have been a long-term success. However, it was simply a fad that left a lot of people with an embarrassing car in their driveway that either got traded in sooner than planned or handed down to new drivers.

10. 2002 Ford Thunderbird

The Ford Thunderbird was reborn in 2002, also as part of the super-nostalgic retro phase American carmakers were going through at the turn of the century. Unfortunately, MotorTrend was seduced by the aesthetic and gave it the Car of the Year Award. The new Ford Thunderbird was an expensive car built mainly from parts bins, particularly the one labeled "Lincoln LS." It looked sporty but was softly sprung and uninspiring to drive. Despite the concept car's enthusiastic reception and MotorTrend's endorsement, only 19,085 were built before production ceased entirely in 2002.