That was the age of:
- The Alfa-Romeo 147 which looked like it had fetal alcohol syndrome and the 156 which looked like it was inspired by a parrotfish
- Audi taking the wildly successful and good-looking A4/S4 and instead of a refinement of the design instead bloated it up and radically reworked it into monstrosity. Ditto for the C5 platform A6; another huge redesign, which also looked like garbage.
- Chris Bangle at BMW managing to ruin one of the most iconic, good-looking luxury performance cars (the E38 7-series) which BMW only slightly refined for several generations until it finally looked half-passable.
- Mercedes W210 and W220 platforms. Two of the ugliest, most cheaply/poorly-built Mercedes ever made
- Porsche going from one of the most iconic, good-looking sports cars of all time - the 933 - the absolute monstrosity that was the 996, and I'm not talking about it being water-cooled. And then there was the Cayenne, which Jeremy Clarkson said was an incredible technical achievement but he wouldn't be caught dead in it, and famously joked would frighten its owners children: https://youtu.be/z97PYF9QWFY?t=283
- VW, a bit late to the game but going from the gorgeous Mk4 Jetta and Golf to the hideous Mk5's. Don't even get me started on how fugly the Passat was, both the horrid Mk3 to the somehow-even-worse B5
A few notable exceptions:
- The Corvette C5, which was a massive step up in Chevrolet's game. The Corvette went from looking like an econobox with a big hood to "sports car", and it had the handling and power to match.
- The Mazda MX-5 NB and NC
- The Mk4 Jetta