10 Facelifts That Made Cars Look Worse

Sometimes, a mid-life facelift can be a saving grace for a car. They can give a new lease of life to a previously tidy design, or rescue something utterly mediocre to being ‘yeah, not bad’.

However, sometimes, things are better left untouched. Not every facelift is a good one, and there are plenty of stinkers on record in the history of the motor car. Here, we’re picking out 10 facelifts we think made a car worse.

Fiat Multipla

Starting off strong, here. The original Fiat Multipla was weird, and by many accounts, ugly. That was kind of the charm though – here was a remarkably quirky-looking car that acted as the face of an overall slightly mad but surprisingly functional package.

Clearly, it was too polarising for the public and that resulted in Fiat deciding to refresh the MPV in 2004. The result was a car that had just become painfully boring to look at, devoid of the character of the original weirdo. Oh, and still didn’t sell particularly well.

Chevrolet Camaro (Sixth-gen)

Introduced in 2016, the sixth- and seemingly final Chevrolet Camaro played things safe. Here was a car that, while under the skin was significantly changed from the one before it, and looked more like an evolution of a recognisable design. No real problems from us.

Then, when the time came to overhaul the car for the 2019 model year, it seemed like Chevrolet’s designers decided to change things just for the sake of it. It’s the SS, in particular, we had a problem with, introducing a gopping new front grille with the Chevy bowtie dropped to the centre of it like an afterthought.

Maserati Coupe

This is more of a bum lift than a facelift, but it’s still worth inclusion on this list.

Starting life as the Maserati 3200 GT, this Italian grand tourer had a face we could only describe as ‘challenging’ from the get-go, but that was neatly evened out by a stunning rear end with lovely ‘boomerang’ tail-lights following the car’s curves.

So when the time came to turn the 3200 GT into the revised Maserati Coupe, surely the one thing they would fix was the face, right? Right…?

Err, no. In fact, save for some very minor tweaks, the ugly grin of the original remained. Instead for reasons unknown to us (and despite rumour, it's not because of US regulations), Maserati swapped out the distinct rear for a pair of rotund brake lights shoehorned on either side of the bootlid. Grim.

Honda NSX

Before you get upset and start doxxing this author’s location, please hear us out. We do think the NA2 Honda NSX is a very pretty thing indeed, but this is a list of facelifts that made the car look worse… and we think that’s a point that’s hard to argue with.

The NA1 was close to perfection. Its wedgy, unbroken silhouette remains a thing of beauty and there’s nothing more ‘90s than its iconic pop-up headlights.

By 2001 though, the NSX was an old car and it needed to keep up with the times both visually and regulatory. At this point, safety regs basically eliminated the pop-up, and the NSX wasn’t immune. The new face looked neat but just didn’t have the same magic.

Hyundai Coupe

The Hyundai Coupe (known as the Tiburon to those of you speaking Freedom) wasn’t a good-looking car from the off, not that this surprised anyone. Hyundai then was very different from Hyundai now, better known for producing cheap and hateful modes of transport than the cutting-edge stuff it’s producing today.

Clearly, someone in Hyundai’s design department had taken a look at the UK-market DC2 Honda Integra and wished its car looked more like that. In 1999, it grafted a set of quad headlights onto the front of the Coupe yet left clear lenses on either side of those, giving it the vibe of some haunting arachnid.

Aston Martin Rapide

Aston Martin didn’t really need to change much, if anything, at all on the Rapide when the time came to freshen things up. Here was possibly the prettiest big saloon on the market at a time when Aston managed to make the ageing DB9 design philosophy still look good on everything it was doing.

Its facelift was pretty light as a result, but one tiny change altered things dramatically. Gone was the body-coloured panel splitting the grille at the front end, leaving a gaping mouth on the front of the car.

This wasn’t so bad for cars with a front number plate, but those destined for US states where such things aren’t required looked constantly surprised.

MGB

Early ‘60s versions of the MGB are sweet little things with a quintessentially British sports car look – neatly styled with quite a lot of chrome, but not so much that it looked like the grilles of a West Coast rapper 30 years before such an aesthetic was established.

As was common at the time, though, the MGB remained on sale for quite a while – almost thirty years, actually, if you count the MG RV8.

Unsurprisingly, it changed a lot in that time. Later cars ended up with horrible, chunky black bumpers as a result primarily to suit US crash regulations but they would become adopted in the UK too. Almost like placing a muzzle across the front of a Dachshund.

Ferrari F512 M

The Ferrari 512 TR was itself effectively a facelift of the Ferrari Testarossa, but it didn’t ruin that car. Sure, the cool-looking black trim of the ‘80s icon was gone in favour of body-colouring the whole thing but nip and tucks elsewhere kept it looking fresh.

Then, for its final years of production, the 512 TR became the F512 M and… yeah. In came fixed headlights, making the M look as if the pop-ups had their eyelids skinned off and with an appropriate expression of pain and shock from the car. Things weren’t great at the back either, with rectangular headlights replaced with a set of circular items thrown on. A rare miss from Ferrari, this one.

Citroen Xsara

Admittedly, the Citroen Xsara is far from the most exciting car on this list if you discount the Kit Car rally machines. It was however an inoffensive, neatly-styled thing that we would’ve had no qualms with had it never changed.

It underwent a fairly substantial change in 2000 though that saw its tidily formed front end with bulbous new headlights and a warped grille, as if someone had slapped some tape on its forehead and stretched all of its features back.

Jaguar F-Type

Of all the cars produced in our living memories that needed a change, the original Jaguar F-Type was not one of those. Penned by legendary designer Ian Callum, the version introduced in 2013 was perfectly proportioned, and fluid in how it looked. An instant classic.

Yet, it had quite a dramatic change in 2020 that sort of ruined the whole thing. A very corporate-looking face was scrubbed onto the front, and while it didn’t look bad, it lost the grace of the original. That said, we are sad it’s now gone.