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…
To me the 5th Gen doesn’t look as much like a modern interpretation of the original so much as a bad caricature, I never liked it. I think the 6th Gen is fantastic though, even though they are somewhat similar.