10 Ugliest Cars at SEMA 2008

Every time there’s an auto show, we always tend to look for the best rides during the entire event. Of course, most of the time people including those certified car enthusiasts and professionals as well as the spectators look for the hottest wheels featured at the show. And today I just want to invert that idea by bringing up not the coolest cars but the worst rides presented in a car show. Here’s a list of the 10 ugliest cars featured at SEMA 2008 according to PopularMechanics.com.

I’m blogging this so that you can decide whether the cars listed below should be considered as one of the ugliest rides or not. For the details, here’s a repost from PopularMechanics.com.

1. Disturbing Trends

Check out the hand-sawn , unfinished wheel well arches on this poor Dodge Charger. In my day, these would have been rolled over to a rounded lip and arched smoothly. But I guess if you are going to mount a tire so large that it contacts the sheet metal all the way around, what’s the point?

2. Truck or Tractor?

Okay, so I get the rubber tracks. I’m sure they turn this Hummer H2 into a killer off-road machine. But have a look at that spare…tire. I don’t think that spare is going to be much help on this truck. I suppose any excuse to hang more chrome is a good one.

3. Disturbing Trends, Part 2

The rise in popularity of side-by-side ATVs means there are people willing to customize them. But like every niche in the automotive world, one can easily go over the edge and get a little ugly. Apparently even utility ATVs aren’t immune to the Tijuana Taxi school of customizing—just hang more stuff on. Ick.

4. Caddy Hack

Yup, that’s a ’70’s-vintage Caddy triple cut stretch limo. It’s apparently jacked up with about a 14-inch lift, which makes the U-joint’s expected lifespan about three blocks. But the 4WD Caddy look seems a little out of character with the 30-inch rims with low profile Pirellis.

5. Disturbing Trends, Part 3

We’ve seen a couple of cars displayed this way at the show with the wheel cantilevered out of the wheel wells on metal stands. I guess it’s supposed to showcase the detailing in the wheel well. Okay, but this car was nothing special. Its undercarriage was more reminiscent of the immediate after effects of a car bomb, actually.

6. Brush Buster

We’re trying to fathom the purpose of the extension on the cattle guard on the front of this off-roader. Okay, assuming it’s supposed to serve some purpose, like preventing the thing from overturning end-for-end if you stab the brakes on a steep downhill, it’s poorly fabricated. Never put a welded joint at a stress point like that. That should be a loop, not two pieces of tubing welded together.

7. Earth Shaker

I can see the need to showcase the speakers by covering the green thing, whatever that is, in the bed of this pickup. The amps are neatly arranged in the lower part of the bed. But somehow the green metallic-sprayed gravel (and believe me, it really is gravel) escapes me. What is that supposed to be, Leprechaun droppings? Purina Dragon Chow?

8. Odd Craftsmanship

This tubular…thing… extending back from the windshield frame just looks like something we’d be bumping our heads on a lot. But there’s a truckload or weird going on here besides frame. How many TVs do you really need? If they really want to be custom, they’re going to have to mount way more LCD displays in this car, we only counted five.

9. Disturbing Trends, Part 4

We’ve always thought the concept of airbrushing pictures of women on cars was at best odd. But this year especially, the faces of the women so portrayed are often disturbing, like a horror flick. We can’t explain it either.

10. Questionable Taste

We won’t get into this truck’s engineering. Let’s just say, despite the tall tires and tall suspension, this thing isn’t going too far without breaking something. But the most disturbing thing about this beast is what’s written on the front suspension link. Hint: If you have to tell the public that your suspension is “Bad Ass,” it ain’t.

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