There were some amazing cars, like the new Volkswagen Scirocco coupe and the Ford GT - voted the best comeback by you last week.

Sadly, there are plenty of cars that should have been left well alone and some totally ham-fisted attempts at building a copycat, which make you wonder why they ever got off the drawing board.

Stuart Milne takes a glimpse at the strange world of shonky second generation motors.

GAZ Tiger-2 - Hummer H3

Here’s an idea. Take an ugly car that sells on the basis of its bling factor and off-road ability, and remove them both.

What you're left with a hideous excuse for a Hummer, with an asthmatic 190bhp diesel engine and plastic wheel trims where the alloys should be. Oh, and the interior looks like a 13 year old's school design project.

The only ones in existence are pre-production models, so fingers crossed GAZ doesn't inflict this abomination on an unsuspecting public.

Mitsuoka Ray - Riley Elf

Mitsuoka are 'a small factory with a big dream', and that dream is to take uneventful Japanese family cars and turn them into something vaguely approximating a classic British car.

In the case of the Ray, it’s a Perodua Kelisa with the face of a Riley Elf. The Elf - and its brother the Wolseley Hornet - was the more luxurious but less glamorous cousin of the Mini. So why this Japanese coachbuilder chose this model to butcher is anyone's guess.

Chery Windcloud - Seat Toledo

The Toledo was a thoroughly competent car. One of the first Seats to benefit from VW investment, it sold well and would run for many thousands of miles without so much as a hiccup.

But it was dull beyond belief. In a decade dominated by the Mondeo and Peugeot 406, the Toledo couldn't even cut it alongside the cabbies favourite, the Cavalier.

Chinese car maker, Chery has packed the Toledo full of bits like a 'six-horn' loudspeaker set up, walnut wood effect trim and a 'luxury roof panel' but have still failed to lift this above the automotive equivalent of drying vinyl silk.

Hongqi 2004 Edition Luxury Sedan - Audi 100

The original Audi 100 was cool, and the second almost hit the spot in a kind of retro, anti-stylish kind of way. The third generation 100 was about as funky as Bernard Manning in a tank top.

The shonky Hongqi took design cues from the American Ford Taurus (bad idea) and was supposed to compete with the stylish Citroen CX. It didn't.

So why, oh why would Chinese manufacturer Hongqi choose a 100 to base its 2004 Edition Luxury Sedan on? Maybe because of the front grille's 'elegance' or the way the rear lights 'tastefully highlight the rear'. I suppose we'll never know.

Hindustan Ambassador - Morris Oxford

The Ambassador must surely hold some kind of record for ill-conceived longevity. Based on the Morris Oxford, it's been in continuous production since 1958 - and still remains tank-like to drive.

The original Ambassador/Oxford wasn't an ugly car - kind of like a smaller New York taxi cab, but it spawned an illegitimate offspring in the Avigo.

The Avigo is a masterclass in ugliness. Taking the common-or-garden Ambassador, Hindustan have grafted on a strange Mini/Trabant hybrid front and the most shocking alloy wheels I've ever seen.

Etsong Lubao QE6400 - Austin Maestro

The Maestro was a fittingly bad replacement for the god awful Allegro - or All Aggro, as many of its owners dubbed it. It was supposed to be a chic alternative to the Escort and Alfasud, but was about as appealing as a sprout sandwich.

Sadly the Maestro sold in big numbers, and its propensity to stop working was surpassed only by the speed it would rust.

But following an ill-fated rebirth in Bulgaria, the Maestro is back in production in China as the Etsong Lubao QE6400, where there's a huge appetite for cheap cars. Ironically the Lubao is affectionately referred to as 'land leopard', 'Ruby' or 'Laird'. Odd.

Paykan - Hillman Hunter

The Hillman Hunter will never be held up as a British classic. My dad had one in Khaki, and it was a rusting, polluting scab on the backside of an otherwise impressive roll call of car ownership.

In 1967 Hillman started exporting Hunters to Iran in a 'completely knocked down kit form'. When Peugeot bought the Rootes Group - Hillman's owners - the first thing they did was close Hillman.

The factory was shipped to Iran, where it built the Paykan-badged Hunter until May 2005. It remained true to the original car, with a 1960s Peugeot 504-derived engine being the only notable change.

FSM 650 - Fiat 126

I know the iconic Fiat 126 has a cult following, but as a car it was pretty awful. It packed a wheezy 700cc engine, vague steering, patchy build quality and some of the worst brakes I've ever experienced.

So in 1992, I remember breathing a sigh of relief when Fiat announced it was ceasing production, although a 126-owning friend went into a week of mourning.

My jubilation was short lived when I discovered Polish car maker FSM were still building them. More than three million of them were built up to 2000 - all of them badly.

MG SV - Qvale Mangusta

It wasn't that the SV or the Mangusta were bad cars; far from it. They looked great, and were pretty special to drive. Those lucky enough to own one reckoned the combination of Italian design and a big, simple Yankee V8 engine meant it was easy to live with.

The reason they're here is because of MG Rover's ill-fated attempt to buy Qvale and produce its own Mangusta-based supercar. Spin forward two years, MG went pear-shaped and the rest is history.

Could it be if Rover had concentrated on building everyday cars, rather than building big, fast, white elephants, it'd still be alive and kicking today?

Olimp - Trabant P601

The Trabant was an icon of Eastern European communism, but that didn't make it a good car. Despite being loved by left-leaning hippies, the Trabant's nasty 600cc two-stroke engine probably caused a bigger hole in the ozone layer than all the SUVs on the planet.

In fact, the Trabi's biggest claim to fame was passing Sweden's swerve-and-brake 'moose avoidance test', which literally toppled the Merc A-Class.

In the late 1990s, Uzbekistani car maker Olimp said it had: "both the money and potential to reach a production level of 30,000 to 40,000 Trabants a year." Luckily they didn't, but it was a near miss.

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