Which Car Is The Poster Child For ‘Mediocre Is Worse Than Being Bad’?

The thing about turning your hobby into a job is that it’s a terrible idea, and you should never do it. Ok, yes, as you’re reading this, I’m on my way to the Indy 500 for what will most assuredly be one of the best weekends of my life, but the fact that I picked the worst possible time to make my point doesn’t make it wrong. When your hobby becomes your job, it forces you to find a new hobby and swear you will never do it professionally. For me, that became food. 

Cooking wasn’t supposed to become my hobby, but at a certain point, I got tired of paying way too much money to eat mediocre meals at overpriced Boston restaurants. It sucked. I hated it. So I started cooking more at home, and what do you know, it really was easier to make a burger that was just as good, if not better than the ones nearby restaurants wanted at least $18 for. Cheaper, too, but that’s not exactly an accomplishment. Doing something yourself is almost always cheaper than paying someone else to do it for you, and no one cares that you can grill a steak at home for less than Longhorn charges. 

To this day, though, there’s nothing I hate more than a mediocre restaurant. I love fast food more than could possibly be healthy. I love fine dining. I love complicated cultural dishes that I’m too lazy to make again myself. High-end, low-end, it doesn’t matter. Just, whatever you do, do not make me pay money for a mediocre, forgettable meal, and that goes double if the seats aren’t comfortable

In a lot of ways, I feel the same way about cars. It’s a capital-intensive business with massive risks, and even bets that pay off return limited profits, so it makes sense that automakers would stick with safe, inoffensive designs in the hopes of staying in business. But I’m not an automaker. I’m a car-enjoyer, and because of that, there’s nothing less interesting than a car that plays it as safe as possible. Give me a bad car that tried something and missed over one that didn’t take any risks, every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

You can’t love a car that no one can hate, and a car can never be great if design and development decisions were made from a place of fear. You can only love a car that dares to do something a little different and risks alienating too many buyers. It’s why Hyundai and Kia are so popular these days. It’s why we all respect the Dodge Viper, even if you’d never dream of actually buying one. And it’s why the new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupe is good, even if you hate the design. Mercedes is trying, and that’s always going to be better than an automaker that only tries not to offend.

But while it’s easy to list cars enthusiasts love because their focus is clear, what about the opposite? Which cars are the $24 truffle oil burgers of America’s car industry? The cars that are so afraid to take risks, they end up being more disappointing than if they’d been worse? The cars that make you scream, “Good God, just try! Anything! Please! Take one risk!” Which car was ruined by an automaker making it “better”? 

Whatever you answer is, let us know down in the comments. Whether you then get into a fight over mediocre cars in said comments is up to you, though. I’m not sayin’ nothin’.