[mikeash]

Surely that's tautological. Of course the people who actually bought the car liked it. Why would you by a $20,000 car you didn't like?

You get no points for nailing your demographic to the tune of 27,000 cars a year at peak sales, when you need to sell 30,000 cars a year just to break even.

[kasey_junk]

I meant in comparison to lots of cars that come out and are panned by both the general public and the people that bought them. The Aztec (and to a large extent the subsequent cars it inspired) were adored by their owners.

Full disclosure: I was until very recently an owner of a Honda Element and loved it.

[mikeash]

I suppose people could like a car when they buy it and then get disgusted with it over time.

I wonder if there's a paradoxical filter effect at play. If a car is really obviously bad (for most people) then they won't buy it. But if a car is bad in a more subtle way, maybe people are more likely to buy it and then hate it later. Thus, one might expect overall terrible cars (in the eyes of the general population, at least) to have a fanatical following, since they're the only ones who would buy it.