Pontiac Aztek - Here's proof of just how important a vehicle's styling is to consumers. Look on any 'Ugliest Vehicles Ever' list, and there's a good chance the Aztek will be on it. Though it wasn't a bad vehicle at all, consumers were scared away by the Aztek's styling, and it barely sold half of what GM projected it would, depending on what statistics you look at. Either way, it didn't reach expectations and was discontinued after the 2005 model year, a mere four years after it was...

Volkswagen Phaeton - Another disaster for the North American market, the $100,000+ Phaeton lasted for three years in Canada and the U.S. from 2004-2006. The problem? Quite simply, no one wanted to buy a six-figure car with the VW logo on the hood. It wasn't a bad car, but no one who had money for a BMW, Audi, Mercedes or Lexus wanted to go the route of VW. That being said, there are rumblings that it will be re-introduced in North America in 2010...

Lincoln Blackwood - In hindsight, what makes the idea of this pickup even worse is that after the huge failure that it became (it was sold for one year in the U.S. in 2002), Lincoln tried again to sell a pickup with the Mark LT ... and failed another time. The Blackwood took luxury a little too far, with a power tonneau cover and carpeting inside the truck bed (no, really!). It was only sold in black, and offered next-to-no options. Cadillac and its Escalade could only laugh from afar.

DeLorean DMC-12 - Though the one and only DeLorean ever made seems to become more and more of a hit cult car every year, from a sales perspective, it was the dictionary definition of a flop. Only about 9,000 were ever produced before the company went bankrupt in 1982 after its founder, John DeLorean, was arrested for drug trafficking. This car with the gullwing doors may look cool in the Back to the Future movies, but a time machine it is not.

Saturn - It may seem unfair to lump an entire car make into one category, but as you'll see later in this list, it's completely justified. The Saturn brand started out just fine when it first introduced vehicles in 1991, offering what its tagline promised - 'A different kind of car' - but over the years, the vehicles became stale and sales lagged. Saturn went through a revival of sorts in the late 2000's, but it was too late - less than 20 years after it started, Saturn was no more.

Cadillac Catera - Similar to Jaguar's X-Type, the small Catera was aimed squarely at a younger demographic, but failed to catch on. The older Cadillac demographic didn't buy it because it was smaller and less powerful than other vehicles in the lineup. It had bland styling, and it was actually discontinued a year before Cadillac's new design language was introduced, along with the Catera's replacement, the much cooler, much more successful CTS.

Suzuki X-90 - This l'il SUV just didn't sit right with customers, and it lasted a mere three years before being forgotten forever - well, it'll always be remembered as a flop, that is. The styling was off, and there was simply nothing to grab customers and get them to drive it. Only a few thousand were ever sold in the U.S. before it went extinct.

Nissan Quest - Nissan couldn't have picked a worse segment to put an oddly-shaped, quirky vehicle. Minivan owners want a simple, convenient package in which to haul stuff, but the strangely-shaped 3rd-generation Quest turned soccer moms and dads off right out of the gate. Because sales were so low and interest was so lukewarm, Nissan was forced to do a mid-generation refreshing in 2007, something that Japanese automakers don't typically do ... unless something is wrong of course.

Edsel - There's not nearly enough room here to go over what went wrong here, and there's no one specific reason why this sub-brand of Ford failed so badly in the late '50's. A little more than 100,000 of the four cars produced under the Edsel umbrella were built in the three model years it existed. The timing was wrong, the styling was wrong, the name was wrong ... customers just didn't get it (heck, people still don't!) and so, arguably the biggest automotive flop ever happened.