Posted on 04/26/2018 10:06:08 AM PDT by Red Badger
Yeah, the Rabbit was so ugly that Chrysler copied the design for the Chrysler Omni/Horizon.
Has anyone noticed that he seems to have something against hatchbacks?
Nope. Purty, though..................
I owned a 72 vega gt. Loved the handling. Went through two engines before someone did me a big favor by slamming into it while it was parked and totalling it. The styling was very “camaro-like, at least in the nose.
I kind of liked that one. It really grips the road - most of the time.
My bro had a Gremlin.
It was a 3 speed. Getting up to freeway speeds required careful planning.
When he got several parking tickets he realized they were for more than the car was worth, so he stopped paying the meter for a while and effectively gifted his Gremlin to the City of SF.
My dad took us camping all over the Western US in a Pinto Wagon, with the wood stickers that you describe.
It got vapor lock in hot weather. Remember vapor lock?
On one trip the vapor lock got so bad he had to replace the fuel pump with tools on hand in the parking lot of the rail yard in Ely, NV.
Oh and on those trips he drank beer the entire time behind the wheel. He averaged 3 or 4 beers a day!
What the heck was wrong with your Father??? Only 3-4?
On camping trips, one child was deemed the navigator and the other child was deemed the bartender.
Remember around 1980 the cans that had those 2 holes you popped on them, one bigger for your mouth and one for air ingress?
They still haunt my dreams.
But for real, that Pinto took us to every National Park west of the Mississippi.
Every.
Single.
One.
Did they call it the Aztek because they were on peyote while designing it?
Put fins on it and I’ll take it!
Fun thread to read - thanks everyone for the Friday grin.
The Aztek for me is tops, without question. The story I heard about that POS was that a couple of designers met after work at a bar and colluded to put one over on GM; to build a truly ugly car. It was intentional - to be ugly, but approved by GM brass to build.
Lots of comments on the VW Thing. That wasn’t a “new” car for VW when it was introduced to the US market for the 1973 and 74 model years. There’s a long history of that car throughout the world that all began by the WWII Kubelwagen.
Have you ever been stuck in traffic and saw a car and thought “ya know, when that car first came out it wasn’t too bad looking, but boy, it sure hasn’t aged very well”? Well I have:
- early Lexus cars
- early to mid 2000’s Cadillacs
- the 2002-04 Corvette
- Dodge Caliber
- Anything Buick pre-2016
IMO, some other truly ugly cars:
- first generation water-cooled VW’s (Fox, Rabbit, etc.)
- Late 70’s/Early 80’s Chryslers - all of them.
- Tuna boats (huge Oldsmobiles, Buicks, Cadillacs, etc. of the late 70’s into their discontinuance in the early 80’s). They rattled in the showroom’s when you shut their massive doors.
The 1980-ish era of automobiles was a sad decade. Poor design, growing emission standards that zapped all power and made them run like $hit, lousy fit and finish, etc. Just a sad time.
Yep, neat looking little cars, with the Pinto looking distinctly Ford in its styling and the Vega looking distinctly GM (with strong Camaro overtones as mentioned).
But I never claimed to be normal.
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