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…
E65 BMWs as well. Pre facelift looked goofy and frumpy. Post facelift looks much better and still good today.
The monochrome 2005 and older look pretty good, uts the ones with chrome strips on the bumpers that looked really odd.
Regardless though the E65/E66 was the car that made me fall in love with BMW. Specifically a 2006 750LI that was white with a beige interior. It was forsale by the local Subaru dealership at a special sales event that they had at the local mall, out area didn’t have alot of 7 series status cars and while my parents were looking for a new car I wander around looking at what they has, saw it from across the lot and it was love at first sight. Then I sat in it and it made my titties hard.
Now I own 2 BMWs. A 2006 X3 and a 2013 X5.