I’ll start with the Porsche 997, the 996 looked alright imo, but it looks “like a 90s Porsche”, the 997 made it look sleeker and more modern. Still looks good today.
As for cars that looked worse after a facelift? Maybe the facelifted 6th gen Camaro? The 6th gen looked great pre-facelift, but they did something weird with the headlights and now it looks so-so…
I think people are confusing facelift for generational changes.
For a mid-cycle update with a big improvement, I’d go with the 4th generation Firebird. Those 98-02 ones look so much better than the 93-96 ones.
For the worst “facelift”, I’d go with the 2nd generation Impreza. Bug-eye to blob-eye was okay, but the additional facelift to hawk-eye was… woof.
You don’t like the hawk eye impreza? How come?