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G-Wiz voted the worst car ever in the UK

The G-Wiz has been voted the absolute worst car ever, beating the Reliant Robin and Vauxhall Frontera to the top spot.

Auto Express ran a poll asking its readers what they thought was the worst car ever to grace the UK. Out of 4,782 votes, 493 – more than for any other car – were aimed at the all-electric, pint-sized G-Wiz.

Poor build quality, a complete lack of safety and ugly styling were said to key issues for the G-Wiz, which was produced by Reva from 2001 to 2012 in India and had an electric motor that helped propel it 50 miles between charges.

Second place was the Austin Allegro, which received 474 votes and its fair share of criticism, including digs at the ‘dumpy’ styling and a fairly poor 650,000 sales over a nine-year period.

Third place went to the Chrysler PT Cruiser. Awful styling inspired by American hot-rods, poor sales and sloppy handling all played a role in making it a bad car, which is perhaps why it earned itself 347 votes.

Fourth, fifth and sixth place went to the SsangYong Rodius people carrier (ugly as sin), Alfa Romeo Arna (an Alfa and Nissan collaboration gone wrong) and the Range CityRover (a small car with a big list of issues).

Seventh, eighth and ninth, meanwhile, went to the Morris Marina (a top-seller with poor handling and a rust problem), Reliant Robin (the three-wheeler Clarkson kept tipping over) and the FSO Polonez (a rubbish throwback to Eastern Bloc communism).

The Vauxhall Frontera off-roader rounded off the worst cars ever list. It had a cramped cockpit, bouncy suspension, poor fuel economy, woeful handling and as many faults as it had different names – and those were the good points. It was sold as the Honda Jazz in Japan, believe it or not.

“The standards by which bad cars are judged have changed over the years,” Auto Express said. “There are some cars that seemed moderately OK when they were new, yet are still remembered because in hindsight they are the worst of their era.

“Other models stood out as being terrible cars right from the get go, building a worst car reputation that would follow them down the ages like a bad smell.

It added: “In the past, it seemed like some manufacturers had a ‘suck it and see’ approach to launching a new model.

“Some cars probably had good feedback when released as a concept, yet the final production model was so badly executed that it destroyed the goodwill of any car buyers who may have been tempted to buy it.”

These days consumers are lucky there are so few bad cars you can buy, although is there anything worse than being average?

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