(Off topic) Worst car(s) in history?
Rather than rehash the same old stuff, rooting guide, I'll be the first to admit after the IU loss I am kicking the can and not much into basketball at this time. Is it football season yet?
Worst car(s) produced in history?
My vote is for the Yugo. What say you?
March 11th, 2022 at 10:21 PM ^
Let me step in here and defend the Corvair.
It was unfairly labeled as unsafe - it handled no differently than other rear engined cars like the VW Bug and (yes) Porches.
It was an advanced design for its time and I think stylish.
March 11th, 2022 at 10:46 PM ^
Some of the later model years had better styling. They improved the handling over the years. Here is a good explanation of the issues:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Corvair#Handling_issues
The first-generation Corvair featured a rear engine + swing axle design similar to that of the Renault Dauphine and Volkswagen Beetle – a design which eliminates universal joints at the wheels and keeps the rear wheels perpendicular to the half-shafts, rather than the road surface. The design can allow rear tires to undergo large camber angle changes during fast cornering due to side g-forces causing "rebound" camber and decreasing the tread contact with the road surface, leading to a loss of rear wheel grip and oversteer – a dynamically unstable condition where a driver can lose control and spin.
While the Corvair sedan offered competent handling,[27] "the average buyer more accustomed to front-engined cars, did not take [into] account the car's different handling characteristics."[28] Chevrolet made a succession of improvements to the first-generation Corvair suspension.
March 11th, 2022 at 10:49 PM ^
Matt's Off Road Recovery converted a Corvair into a recovery vehicle and it's a nice looking machine. 
March 12th, 2022 at 12:39 AM ^
My dad may have been the only Ford customer to buy two Edsels. That was back in the day when you bought a new car every year because they fell apart quickly.
That's hilarious.
The funky Vega would have been the worst of the 70s but it wasn't quite as explosive as the Pinto.
The combo of ugliness and lethality was pretty special with the Pinto.
March 11th, 2022 at 10:19 PM ^
i see your pinto and raise you a zephyr
underpowered bag of bolts. and heaven forbid you buy one that was made on a monday or a friday.
March 12th, 2022 at 12:48 AM ^
My dad, the man that bought two Edsels, thought it was a great idea to buy a Zephyr that he would use for a year and then give it to me, the poor starving college student. It was a complete stripper….no AC, AM radio with one speaker, vinyl interior, anemic four banger with a four speed manual. No tachometer, so you shifted by how angry the gerbils under the hood sounded. I had to drive that car from Ann Arbor to Boston where my family lived. No cruise control, so I swapped between using my left or right foot on the accelerator. It was the American equivalent of a Yugo…or maybe a Trabant.
March 11th, 2022 at 10:26 PM ^
My brother and I learned to drive on the Ford Pinto stick shift. Approximately the 1981 vintage. We thought our father was the coolest allowing us to drive that car when we needed to. In hindsight...
Oops. ALready posted
March 12th, 2022 at 11:05 AM ^
Ralph Nader had a lot to say about that car.
March 11th, 2022 at 11:32 PM ^
Just goes to show what a bit of publicity can do. The '65-'68 Mustang was constructed essentially the same way - open the trunk, lift the trunk floor liner and you are looking at the top of the fuel tank. One is a classic whose bloodlines continue to this day, one is the subject of ridicule.
A plus from all the negative publicity - you would not believe how rigorously Ford tests fuel tanks in crash tests.
I laugh like a demented fool every time I watch that clip.
March 12th, 2022 at 12:42 PM ^
Thing of beauty. I'd put down money I don't have to get that in my driveway.
Have to include Le Car - with a full 51 hp equipped engine.
A good high school friend of mine had one. I remember laughing about his 3 cylinder car with the leaky, soft-cover sunroof. The thing would barely climb hills. If he got good grades, his parents let them drive their Chevy Citation for a while as a reward.
My best friend had to drive a 1974 AMC Matador when he turned 16. That car was ugly. We got teased a lot when cruising Gratiot. Didn't help with the babes.
not a fan of our 22 highlander
Any car sold out of Ohio or Lansing regardless of make/model
It wouldn't be right not to include an electric vehicle. I give you the 1974 Sebring-Vanguard CitiCar
March 11th, 2022 at 11:18 PM ^
What the fuck is this nonsense?!
American made in Florida in the 70's... do I need to say more?
Good enough for the USPS!!
Pacer,Gremlin,Corvair,Yugo
Old car guy chimes in with his picks for worst:
Yugo (for too many reasons to list, clearly the number 1 failure)
Ford Pinto (goes boom, silver medal winner)
Dodge K- cars (failed to start in damp weather).
Aztec (funtional, yes; so ugly not even a mother could love it).
Any Cadillac with the V8-6-4 engine (a huge, repeat huge engineering failure, so I give this the bronze medal).
Chevy Vega (no, just no, what were you thinking).
Fiat 124 or Fiat 131. FIAT = Fix It Again Tony.
Cars most likely to put you in a ditch: Chevy Corvair, Porsche 356, Dodge Coronet with huge honker motor (no ability to stop, none, zero, zilch).
Cars most likely to achieve lift off at any higher speed, even if requiring long downhill runs: BMW 2002, VW Beetle.
March 11th, 2022 at 10:40 PM ^
Agree with the top three but then would go with eithrr the Cimarron or Citation.
March 11th, 2022 at 10:53 PM ^
My father, who can be talked into anything by a salesman, got a "good deal" on a Cimarron. I was young, but I remember the mechanics laughing when he brought it in after a few thousand miles.
March 11th, 2022 at 11:07 PM ^
Yep, they were memorably bad, too.
Citation
Excitation
March 12th, 2022 at 10:04 AM ^
Worst car we ever owned BY FAR was a 1989 Dodge K-car. Never had any damp start problems but even though bought brand new, the front door broke off of its hinges within 2 years. Fortunately we were home when that happened.
Haven't spent a dime on vehicles from that company since, and no plans to do so in the future.
The Edsel
March 11th, 2022 at 10:00 PM ^
The real answer to this question is the Trabant. Absurdly underpowered pieces of shit made from plastic, all with a ten-year waiting list.
Plastic and some weird pressed fiberboard. As far as American cars go, the worst I ever had was a Ford Maverick (handed down to me by, you guessed it, my grampy). Steering had a huge dead band and serious hysteresis, which made holding a steady lane position impossible. The chassis and suspension was the forerunner of such 70’s Ford classics as the Fairmont, Zephyr, and Granada.
Agreed. I believe that in certain year/models, the Trabi's heater was powered by a different fuel than the car's engine, and pumped fumes into the passenger compartment.
March 11th, 2022 at 10:11 PM ^
2012 Dodge Journey
March 11th, 2022 at 10:32 PM ^
Zhiguli
March 11th, 2022 at 11:58 PM ^
Nice. Manufactured in Ukraine?? Is that what this is all about?
Did you have a Lada problems with that car?
March 11th, 2022 at 10:39 PM ^
My first car was a 1977 Plymouth Volare. It was a terrible car but I loved it because it was my first car.
It was recalled several times, for the most ridiculous things. I can only remember the specifics of two recalls - the first one was that the hood latch was faulty and the hood might fly up at any time while the vehicle was driving. The second one was that the battery was leaking battery fluid onto the brake cable, which might eat away at the brake cable, causing sudden brake failure. There were a few more equally horrible recalls.
That car was such a lemon and I loved it so much.
We had one with T-tops. They kept getting stolen. Though strangely they never took the car itself.
i had no idea such a thing existed (t-top volare) but the google machine found one. hey, for 1978 or thereabouts, that is a pretty darn fancy ride. now sing that commercial jingle: voollaaaree, wo - oh - oh - oh, or something like that.
March 11th, 2022 at 11:19 PM ^
I'd love to have my first one back. It may have been a few years (ok, a few decades) before digital images. I lost all my pics in a flood so this is not a pic of mine but it was identical minus the side stripe.
I spent a few of my formative years as a mechanic so i have far too many memories of some of the bad ones.
Someone mentioned the Cimarron - a Chevy with Cadillac emblems. They were the first generation of electronic fuel controlled vehicles and suffered from a winter cold start issue. For only $5k more than a Chevrolet J-Car you too could have it line up on the back of a wrecker waiting to get into a dealership to get it started.
March 12th, 2022 at 12:22 AM ^
Now THAT is a beautiful piece of machinery! Thank you for bringing back that memory.
I offer you two significant words about that car: wheel hop. ;-)
Wheel hop was a thing. I had an acquaintance who had a 428. He had spent some time around racers and had the slickest set of coil springs under I have ever seen to stop the hop.
For the rest of us there were the bars that were put on the Sunbeam Tigers and GT350's. The name escapes me.
It may have suffered from wheel hop but the small rear windows, the louvers, and the fold-down rear seat compensated for it.
March 12th, 2022 at 12:22 AM ^
Yes, Cimmaron was really great for a dude that lived in Northern Michigan and often parked his car outside.
I don't remember the details, but he also had a failure that involved some major engine damage. GM actually had to get involved after a lengthy fight with the dealer on warranty work. I was young, but I remember learning new words from my father that I had never heard before.
March 12th, 2022 at 12:01 AM ^
I don't know the model, but I always think of this photo when people talk about terrible cars.
March 12th, 2022 at 12:50 AM ^
Anything from AMC in its last few years of existence. Worked in an oil change out of high school and we used to call them All Mixed-Up Company because they had Ford, GM and Chrysler parts bolted together in one driveline. None of which held any fluid that wasn’t completely puking out everywhere.
It must be the Pinto. While many other cars of the malaise era lacked quality, style, or performance, the Pinto suffered from design gross negligence making it a death trap.
Worst car I ever owned was a 2001 Dodge Intrepid with a 2.7 liter piece of shitt engine. Bought it used (HUGE mistake!) in 2004 with just 30000 miles on it because we had been very happy with our 1994 first-generation Intrepid (3.5L engine in that one).
Only got to about 34000 on it when the engine failed, fortunately it was still under warranty and they replaced the engine only to have the same thing happen again at around 75000 miles. Friggin Daimler refused to stand behind it. I fought them at every level from the dealership on up but was frustrated at each and every turn, even joining a class action suit to no avail. End result, I'll never EVER again buy anything from Daimler and/or Chrysler/Dodge.
In my battles with those bastards, I found out that several design problems (narrow oil ports, leaky internal water pump, a weak timing chain, engine underpowered for a mid size, etc) doomed that engine from day one. All of those design problems caused the engine to clog up with sludge, no matter how conscientious one was about scheduled maintenance. I doubt any of that era Dodge Inteprid was still in driving condition anywhere beyond about 2010 without it's owner dropping in an aftermarket redesigned engine.