10 worst cars to be sold in the UK in the 21st century.

From not a desirable market to cars so ugly they make the Lada Riva look hansome, I take a look at the cars that were allowed to cross the channel to the UK from the 21st century and devise a top ten list of the worst cars to be sold here.

10 - Rover CityRover

in 2004, Rover were in deep trouble, they were financially screwed and they needed a car that they could sell cheaply and quickly. Because funds were so short they had to turn to another company to partner up to create a new vehicle, so who did they turn to? Fiat? nope. Toyota? pah! Fat chance. Proton? you got to be kidding me.

Nope the company they chose was Tata. Yes, they chose Tata. Tata already had the “perfect” car, the indica, and all they had to do was just slap a rover badge on them and ship them to the UK from India and thus the CityRover was born.

All eyes were on Rover to deliver, and did it? no, it was a catastrophic failure, the engine was weak, the looks were terrible, customers complained of poor handling and the interior was so dull, it made libraries look like a music festival. The car itself was a total rip off, Rover/MG were paying Tata £3,000 for every car sold, but when they arrived on our beaches, they were slapping a sub seven grand price tag, and you thought buying a lottery ticket and not winning anything was a waste of money.

after 18 months of misery, the CityRover died, and along with Rover/MG, the fact of the matter is that the CityRover lived like by the top gear quote “Ambitious, but rubbish”.

9 - Perodua Kelisa

I personally haven’t seen anyone under the age of 72 drive one of these, in the same sense that I’ve never seen a Perodua dealership, and I’m glad too because why on earth would you buy a car so dismal and so utterly terrible?

The Kelisa was brought over here in 2002 to replace the outgoing model called the “nippa” (an equally terrible car with an equally terrible name) and wore a price tag of £4,995 making it the cheapest car to buy in the UK, and boy was it really cheap.

The engines were either a 847cc vaccum cleaner or a 989cc food blender which came with an optional automatic gearbox for when you really don’t want to clutch kick these bad boys.

there were even updates that came with the car too, it was facelifted in 2003, and low and behold, bluetooth connectivity built into the car, because you’re a recently passed 17 year old and your parents hate you that much. However there was good news, James May actually liked the car, but that was short lived when clarkson later blew one up to improve its styling.

by 2007, the Kelisa was gone, and so was all that was terrible with it.

8 - Vauxhall Signum

Have you ever woken up one morning and thought “hmm, I like the vauxhall vectra estate, but I wish I had more room in the back so I can do buisness and things in there”. Well look no further because that was the Vauxhall Signum in a nutshell. designed on the same chassis as the Vectra estate, it was 5 inches longer than the estate meaning more legroom.

The idea for this was to have the same amount of legroom in the back as you get in the front, which is fair enough, rather than the conventional 3 seat bench in the back, it offered just two meaning that the rear seats can move forward and backwards at will.

but you’re probably thinking “gee, that sounds like a good idea, why was this such a flop in the UK?” well its simple, the brits, just wern’t ready for such a car. No one wanted a spacious Vauxhall, rather they wanted a BMW, or a Mercedes or an Audi or for some strange reason a Peugeot. We brits didn’t want to spend slightly more money on a roomier Vectra, or just slightly less of a 5 series, otherwise we would look like a total plank.

but after 5 years the Signum died, it was then replaced - alongside the vectra, with the insignia, which is also a bit marmite, as is Vauxhall in a nutshell.

7 - Seat Exeo

lets be honest, if you looked at this car side on, you would mistake this for an Audi A4 am I right? and lets be honest again, the reason you would buy the Seat Exeo, was because you couldn’t afford the Audi A4. You would forever be the laughing stock at the water cooler at the office because you went skimp and bought the Exeo rather than the Audi because “everyone else buys the Audi and this is different”.

and to you guys, you’re idiots. You’ll forever be an idiot because you might as well spent the money on a year old or two A4 of the same body and you’ll still be cool, you’ll be a typical Audi driver tailgating the car in front of you, not some prat in a Seat.

and thats pretty much the reason why this car never caught on over here, you’re making a cheap alternative to an Audi thinking that if it was cheaper than the Audi, it would sell better. No, you’re forgetting that us brits are badge snobs, we buy the Audi because its an Audi, we won’t buy the Exeo because it’s like an Audi but cheaper. And thus ended the Exeo in 2013 after not really making much of an appeal over here.

6 - Aston Martin Cygnet

Four words come to mind when the Aston Martin Cygnet came out: You had one job. This was Astons first and so far only attempt at a budget hatchback, and boy did they miss the point. Based solely on the weird yet funky looking Toyota IQ, a fairly good start.

Astons approach for this was to sell 4000 a year to the british public, now we’re all here thinking “Oh my days! an Aston that the average person can buy, finally this is what we’re waiting for.” But you guys are so wrong. Aston pitched the Cygnet, a re-badged Toyota IQ, at £30,000. THIRTY, FLIPPING, THOUSAND POUNDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In what parallel universe is that acceptable? Its four times more expensive than the IQ and the only reason you would buy this thing is because its an Aston Martin. It’s not even that good looking, a Lada Riva thats been riced looks better than this, it’s a hideous, hideous, hideous car.

Thankfully, production lasted only just over 2 years. Aston Martin pulled the plug on the Cygnet in 2013 claiming that the reason was that due to disastrously low sales (150 sold in the UK, 300 Globally) they missed their projected target. Gee I wonder why that is Aston, not advertising it enough?

5 - Fiat Croma

Apart from Michael Schumacher owning one, there’s nothing really amazing about this car, in all fairness, the design of the car was good, a high riding estate with the functionality of an estate car but with the room of a people carrier. In reality, it’s a little bit like the Signum, in fact, thats what this car was pretty much based on.

However, this is still a fiat, Southern Railway are probably more realiable than Fiat at this time, and that just wasn’t going to cut the mustard. The public just didn’t trust the Croma, and after two years, the Croma was pulled from all UK dealerships after only 900 were sold in just one year. What would have been a good shout out at the time, the british public just turned their nose u against it.

4 - Mercedes R-Class

Lets get this straight, this is not an attractive looking Mercedes, you know when you’re in aclub and the more you drink, the more attractive the ugly girl gets, well not even a whisky distillary could make this look good.

The R-Class is basically the multi-tasker of the industry, an MPV, Estate, and SUV, sounds good on paper, in reality, it was a bigger mess than a 3 year olds drawing of a tree. ercedes thought this would be a good idea, selling a car for people who wanted a people carrier of sorts, but didn’t want the Zafira or Scenic. But it was a disaster,

The car had poor handling, it was wobbly and the public were genuinely confused as to why ercedes made the car in the first place, even the R63 AMG was no help. Sales in the UK were low, with more ending up in the US, even they didn’t like them, and they’re easily impressed by everything (no offense to the yanks there).

2013 spelt the end of the R-Class, being replaced by the ML and the new GL SUVs.

3 - Renault Vel Satis

In all honesty, I quite like this car, in fact there’s one that lives round the corner from me, and it puts a smile on my face when I do see it, unlike the faces of many brits.

The Vel Satis (shortened terms of the words “Velocity” and “Satisfaction” if anyone was wondering) was designed as an exec car, a car to rival the likes of the A6, 5 Series, E-Class, the Omega and so on and so forth, it was designed for people who wanted to be executives, but didn’t want a saloon.

And thats why you end up with this odd ball design, to the brits it was weird, too foreign, too out of it’s depths. The Vel satis just never caught on, on last check there are but just a handful, perhaps only just making it into double figures, parts are hard to come by and ownerships are a nightmare. Its fairly safe to say that this car is dying out in the UK.

2 - Citroen C6

I love this car, I love its retro looks (Citroen XM and Xantia anyone?) the technology, the ride quality is sublime, in theory, this car should be a big hit, but no, reason? Well its the same with the Signum and Exeo, it’s good ol’ fashion badge snobbery.

What would you rather have? the posh, high quality german saloon car with all the trimmings, or the exact same car, with all the trimmings, but french, and badged as a Citroen? Obviously you’re gonna want the german car.

And of course the other issue is that it is french and therefore, fairly unrealiable, parts for the car are very expensive too, and people were not willing to stump up the money to keep them maintained hence the reason these cars depreciate like theres no tomorrow.

1 - Renault Avantime

And then there was one! When this car was confirmed for production, everyone was bricking themselves, this car was ahead of its time, with its double hinge doors and coupe/MPV styling people were genuinely worried that this would be it, this, was the car of all cars that will trounce on.

But it was exactly opposite. The Avantime went down like a Kebab van parked outside a Vegan nightclub, it was a very unfortunate chain of events really, see the Vel Satis was launched around the same time and that also was having the same response as the Avantime, the pair were just hemorrhaging money, so rather than move production to a new facility, it was better to end production and within two years and 400 cars sold in the UK production was seized. The knock on effect of the poor number of Avantime’s was that their affiliate Matra called it a day partly down to the financial loss of the poor sales.

So there we have it, my 10 worst selling cars from the 21st century in the UK if you have any other suggestions, pease, feel free to post it in the comments section below.