After the statute of limitations by Mazda expired everyone has agreed: The New Mazda Miata is the single best vehicle in the planet must own one. Yes, even if you need a seven-seater SUV what you must buy is a Miata. Personally I think that the rumoured Fiat 124 will add a little bit of Zest (and hopefully a lot of sales) but the fact that everyone has agreed on that has left me with a thought: can I find a car in production today that everyone could agree to hate?

Even if we go just looking for the absence of good there’s a couple of names that spring almost instantly to mind. The U.S Volkswagen Passat for one. If Richard Hammond has gone on record saying that he hates the European MQB based Passat (Probably because of how dull he finds it) one has to wonder what would think about the lager, duller, cheaper brother of the pair. It may just be enough to get him to sing praises about the one in his home market. However, it has something that the Euro model doesn’t. The lovely 3.6-liter VR6. So that saves it.

Then we have the Nissan Sentra. A car that somehow manages to do the impossible and makes the Toyota Corolla look exciting and interesting. Seriously. The Corolla is slightly more powerful, has slightly better trunk space, better fuel economy…slightly and when it comes time to sell it again (which, if you buy any of these you’re not looking for emotional attatchment) the Toyota will probably have a better resale value. But it’s not bad, it’s just that it’s not as good as its main competition. Maybe if they made a GT-R version… While we’re on Nissan, how about the Rogue Select. Select by whose standards?

Then you have the ones that are so underwhelming that they aren’t even sold in the United States. The Mitsubishi Mirage G4 for example. Take an already mediocre Mitsubishi, graft a trunk into it and beat the front with the ugliest of all the ugly sticks. Unfortunately, the added trunk means that it’s better than the hatchback Mirage…marginally.

The BMW 2-Series Active Tourer…Now we’re talking. This isn’t the first apparent betrayal by the Bavarians. I think that was when they made the M3 a V8? Or was it when they made the M5 a V10? Or when they made it a V8 again? Or when they made the X5? Or the X3? Or the X1? Or the X6? Or…you get the drill. Not that they a toss with the amount of money they’re making on all of them. The 2 AT commits the unholy sin of making a Front wheel drive BMW, this from the company that decided to run this ads not too long ago.

Well, I know why they decided to do it after all

The fact that they already had the FWD UKL platform lying around all nice and developed also meant huge savings. It’s not like the people who will buy a 2AT will be as excited about good weight distribution and lovely handling as they’ll be about it having as many BMW badges as they can possibly fit in it. But we’re going on the right track.

The Fiat 500L Living should also go here. If only because it’s named 500 instead of literally anything else. It’s one thing to try and capitalize on the look of the Fiat 500, it’s quite another to draw some 500-esque design cues on your seven-seat crossover and try to sell it as a 500. “Giant Panda” Just saying…

But for me none of this cars are the most deserving of hate, probably because with the possible exception of the Mitsubishi I haven’t seen any one of them. No, the car that makes my blood boil, that makes me want to fly to the plant where its made and bomb it until nothing but rubble and a lot of confused but unharmed employees is this: The Hyundai EON.

Do not let the modern-ish styling fool you into thinking that this is something worthy of paying new-car prices for. This abomination upon earth is all the faults of the Mitsubishi Mirage taken to 11 and with some new interesting and dangerous ones. For a kickoff. The Mirage, with its 11.2 second sprint to 60 MPH thanks to its 74 horsepower 1.2-liter 12-valve three pot seems like a veritable hot-rod compared to the EON, which has a 814cc, 9 valve three-cylinder. This means 56 horsepower and a 0-60 time of 16 seconds…in 2015. Go ahead, count 16 seconds now imagine that when trying to merge into anything faster than a city street. Fortunately if you want to do burnouts you still can, because the standard tires for this…thing are 145/80 R12. No, that’s not a typo.

Inside, things get worse. Even with all the tricks in the book to make it look nice, the interior of the EON still looks like it was made with plastics that were reject for Cozy Coupe production for being too drab, miserable and cheap. AC is standard but, without trying to be a sourpuss, with that engine I’m damn skippy that the AC is about as effective as having your passenger fan you with a piece of cardboard while you suck on an ice cube.
The EON is terrible by even 1990’s standards, yet because it’s cheap and it looks similar enough to to other small hatchbacks that that fact isn’t immediately apparent. Not to mention that they sell them with very long-term loans so that the payment seems lower than they already are means that they sell very well. So every day I’m treated to lines of shiny happy people in EONs with dealer plates, unaware that they have spent their hard-earned cash on a subpar vehicle that wouldn’t have passed muster when I was in the womb. That, above all else, makes it hateful.