Posted on 06/13/2012 9:59:05 AM PDT by doug from upland
DETROIT MainStreet) -- For me, it is the Chevrolet Vega.
I was living in Toledo, Ohio, in the late 1970s and working as a reporter for The Toledo Blade. One day, I was preparing to drive a friend's Vega. I sat down in the driver's seat and put my foot on the floor in front of me, about to step on the gas. And guess what happened?
It's not a tough question if you were ever in a Vega. My foot went right through the rusty floor. And for the ensuing three decades, I have had my own story about the worst car ever made.
Events like my Vega experience make a big impression on drivers, says Edmunds.com Editor-in-Chief Scott Oldham. "Everyone I know who had a Vega has a story like that," he says. "Even now, GM(GM_) is still paying for the ill will towards the Vega. A lot of the people who bought Vegas won't buy a GM car, and their kids and grandkids won't buy GM cars either."
Yet as bad as the Vega was, it is not the worst car ever, according to Edmunds.com. About two dozen Edmunds.com staffers spent a couple of months refining a list of the 100 worst cars ever. They started with individual lists of bad cars, compiled them and put the cars in order, accompanied by lots of discussions, emails and meetings.
Our list is limited to Edmunds' top 10. We will tell you right now that the Vega is ranked as only the fifth-worst car ever built and that the competition to be the worst car ever was extremely intense:
10th-worst: 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Diesel The Cutlass was once among the best-selling U.S. cars. In the late 1970s, GM decided to take advantage of its popularity and develop a diesel version. The 4.2-liter Olds diesel engine was sold only in the 1979 Cutlass.
Unfortunately, GM hadn't yet mastered diesel technology. "GM was trying to market a technology that wasn't ready for prime time," Oldham says. "The cars never really ran properly. They were underpowered. They blew up. They broke. It was a warranty disaster for GM."
The engine "reached 90 horsepower before shattering into shrapnel," Edmunds.com wrote.
The failure of the Cutlass diesel "turned Americans off to diesel," Oldham says. "It is one of the reasons why diesel is still a bad word in this country."
Ninth-worst: 1957 Trabant Capitalists aren't the only people who sometimes make bad cars.
Edmunds.com calls the 1957 Trabant, a two-cylinder, two-stroke engine compact from East Germany, "one more reason why communism is evil."
The car was common in its home country, given the lack of competition, and was sometimes exported. It was East Germany's answer to the Volkswagen Beetle, and in some ways it was comparable, with the major difference being that the Beetle was a worldwide success and the Trabant was a spectacular failure.
"Over the years, the Trabant has become an underground poster child for bad global cars," Oldham says. "It was produced for a long time, but never got better, never [embraced] any technology improvements" despite 30 years in production.
Eighth-worst: 1982 Cadillac Cimarron The 1982 Cadillac Cimarron was a symbol of what was wrong with GM in the 1980s, an effort to compete with BMW by redecorating the front-drive, four-cylinder Chevrolet Cavalier and calling it a Cadillac.
Edmunds.com called it "a self-inflicted wound that nearly killed Cadillac."
The car was an embarrassment from the start, Oldham says, and "the press was all over it." It underscored the difference between BMW and Mercedes, on the one hand, which understood what luxury car buyers wanted, and Cadillac, on the other hand, which did not.
Cadillac "was on the downswing, almost to the point of extinction" until cars such as the CRS and SRX began to revive the brand, Oldham says. Now, Cadillac is trying to further redefine itself as a viable competitor with the ATS.
Seventh-worst: 1958 Edsel Corsair Ford's(F_) Edsel brand became a symbol of a manufacturer's failure to judge the market.
Not to say the every Edsel was bad, but the styling wasn't what people wanted -- the marketing of a brand that allegedly competed with Buick and Oldsmobile was way off and the production was often flawed. Edsel was "the legendary flop of all automotive flops," Edmunds.com says.
The 1958 Edsel Corsair "was rejected by the marketplace," Oldham says. "It was reviled for being unattractive, starting with an unusual vertical grill" and horizontal tail lights, opposites of what car buyers wanted.
You simply cannot make a list of the top 10 bad cars and not include an Edsel.
Sixth-worst: 2003 Saturn Ion Saturn got off to a good start. Many reporters trooped to Spring Hill, Tenn., in the late 1990s as GM showed off the new symbol of its ability to compete. Every company with the slightest connection to Saturn felt it had something to brag about.
But by the start of the millennium, Saturn needed to be refreshed. Unfortunately, it came out with the 2003 Saturn Ion.
Oldham recalls that he drove one of the first Ions, at a GM press event. "I was astounded by how bad it was in every way. I said, 'I think this is the worst car I've ever driven and GM should be embarrassed,'" he recalls. "And history has proven me correct."
The Ion was uncomfortable and noisy and production quality was poor. It was tough to drive and had "a stupid interior to match," Edmunds.com says. "Kick it and your foot could get stuck in the gaps between the plastic body panels." Moreover, the competition was extremely tough at the time because Toyota(TM_) and Honda(HMC_) had excellent products in the small-car market.
The Ion "was far behind the competition on the day it was introduced," Oldham says. "It was the second-worst car of the millennium and was so bad it killed Saturn." Saturn, once an inspiring symbol of the U.S. auto industry's ability to compete with the Japanese, shut down in 2009.
Fifth-worst: 1971 Chevrolet Vega The Vega preceded the Ion as a symbol of GM's failure in the small-car market.
It wasn't just the rust. The Vega had "an engine that couldn't hold oil in a car built with contempt for its buyers," says Edmunds.com. "It's the car that invited Americans to buy Toyotas and Hondas." Perhaps fifth-worst car of all time is too good for the Vega.
Oldham expresses some sympathy for the automaker. "GM was running the world back then, but there was an oil embargo at the same time as there was increased regulation. It was a tough time for the automobile, a tough time globally. U.S. automakers weren't ready for the fuel crisis, and new safety regulations came in simultaneously. They had to build small cars that their hearts weren't in."
"The Japanese were poised to pounce," Oldham says, and that is what they did.
By the way, Oldham mentioned that John Pearley Huffmann, who wrote Edmunds.com's story on the worst 100 cars, is also a former Vega owner. "He wanted the Vega to be No. 1," Oldham says. "He said he had one and he could watch it rusting around him."
Fourth-worst: 1987 Yugo The Serbian-made Yugo shows up frequently on worst-car lists. Edmunds.com ranks the 1987 Yugo as the fourth-worst car ever made, but Oldham says it was a contender for No. 1.
"The Yugo was terrible in every way -- terrible quality, terrible performance, and it fell apart around you as it went down the road," he says.
The 1987 Yugo was a Serbian-made version of the Fiat 127, under license from Fiat.
For a time, it was sold in the U.S., with 141,511 sold here between 1985 and 1991 -- "a Serbian-made version of the Fiat 127 that couldn't possibly be as awful as its low price suggested," Edmunds.com says. "But it was!"
Third-worst: 1955 BMW Isetta Perhaps you did not expect to find any BMW products on this list. But BMW "built the atrocious, single-cylinder, 12-hp, one-door Isetta for 7 years," Edumunds.com writes. "The whole car was a crumple zone."
Ranked as the third-worst car ever, the Isetta was in the running for worst ever. "It's such a ridiculous automobile," Oldham says. "It has one door, five horsepower and is very narrow in back, almost like a three-wheeler. We can't understand why anyone would want one."
In particular, Oldham says, he cannot understand why the Isetta has become a collector's item that sells for around $50,000.
Historically, the car reflects an effort by a German manufacturer to get back on its feet after World War II. "Fuel was hard to come in Germany at that time, and they made a very small, very economical car," Oldham says.
Second-worst: 1974 Ford Mustang The Mustang is an iconic car with a rich past, but Ford stumbled in 1974 and created one worthy of being called the second-worst car in history.
Certainly in retrospect, the concept of a Pinto-based Mustang does not make a lot of sense.
"The car was popular in its day, but it was almost immediately looked upon as a mistake for Mustang," Oldham says. "When you look back at Mustang history, which is very glorious, [this car] should not have existed and should not have been called a Mustang. It was not attractive, not powerful in the least and didn't measure up to its name."
In Ford's defense, Oldham says, the 1970s were a difficult time for U.S. automakers trying to adjust to rising fuel cost, intensified regulation and tough competition from Japan.
"Thankfully, Ford didn't turn away from what Mustang should be," he says.
The worst: 2001 Pontiac Aztek Our winner is not only extremely ugly, but also has a singular distinction: it destroyed an 84-year-old automaker.
"Only hours before we went live [with the list] did we settle on where the top three would settle out," Oldham recalls. "We decided that none of the other 99 cars on the list had such a negative impact on such an established and successful brand. The Aztec became such a punchline for a bad car that Pontiac was damaged goods. After the Aztec, GM couldn't save Pontiac no matter what they did."
The car is hideously ugly, Oldham says, adding: "The joke is that the styling is its best feature."
-- Written by Ted Reed in Charlotte, N.C
Thanks for posting #31. Few things make me laugh out loud but this one is among them.
I forget the name of the motion picture this is from but I can recall that scene vividly!
The Corvair was a very well designed and well built car. The problem was that it needed to have different tire pressure front and rear or it handled like it was on bowling balls (no radials in those days) Unfortunately, a shyster lawyer named Ralph Nader decided he could make a name for himself and trashed the car in the automotive version of Earth in the Balance.
Exactly. Even then they were highly successful models.
First of all, the rust problem was not limited to the Vega. My husband had a ‘69 Cutlass that you couldn’t put anything in the trunk because it had rusted through. There were holes in the floor in the back seat area as well.
The other problem was with the linkage. It was a standard shift on the floor, and would get stuck between gears all the time. On the other hand, the engine was great, ran for over 200,000.
I also think that GM put that diesel in a Cadillac model, an Eldorado, I think. My in-laws had one, dark blue convertible with light blue leather seats. -horrible car.
My worst car though, by far, was a Buick Electra Wagon, an ‘85 I think. It was loaded with electronics, all of which failed within two years, the seats, the windows, the climate control, none of it worked. The transmission went at 40,000, the radiator went at about 50,000, the gas gauge didn’t work, smog control thing failed and took out the carburetor and when you went around the corner, the engine would sometimes just shut off.
The car was so bad that AAA threatened to drop my membership. They told me to get rid of the car or fix it.
I have two stories: 1) I worked for a rental agency near Dulles airport-Redskins Park in the 70’s. We rented a Vega to defensive lineman Verlon Biggs. I will say that it still had 4 wheels when we got it back. 2) I bought new a ‘76 Mustang II “Limited Edition”, the white over red two tone hatchback model. Had the 4cyl (Pinto) motor. First time it rained, water poured a steady stream thru the top of the windshield. Timing belt gave out at 115k. Of all the cars I have owned, that “Pin-Stang” remains the worst.
I'll confess I bought one.
Underpowered, only available in two colors lousy suspension and a gas tank between the occupants and right in front of the firewall. I had six recalls on it in the first year just trying to control the spontaneous combustion problem.
This diesel Chevette had something over the Olds..
The engine was originally designed to run on diesel and was built by Isuzu. The olds.. well.. Some GM engineer (who probably still works there) thought it would be smart to take a gas engine and bolt some diesel bits on it and see how it went.
GM, not to be out done with the fabulous 5.7 olds diesel also made a 4.3 V6 diesel (I think this was the start of the 4.3 gas V6.. Basically a small block chev minus 2 cylinders) that could be found in early 80’s front wheel drive cars and also the metric body rear wheel drive cars of that period (Malibu, Monte Carlo, cutlass)
You can’t really find a diesel Chevette any more. They where great donor cars for the engine. Bobcat used a ton of them in skid steers.
Other rare birds..
Mark VII with a BMW diesel
Luv Pickup Diesel
Ranger Diesel
I am sad to admit. I have owned over 50% of the cars on the top 10 list.
My wife had a 1979 Monza, but with the 5.0 liter V-8. One of the fastest (and most dangerous) cars I have ever driven. It could burn rubber in all gears (3-speed automatic), and would go faster than you would want to drive it. Never felt quite right at high speeds...
It was also THE worst car in snow and ice... It would start sliding when you put it in gear at an idle, just getting out of the drive way, no matter how many bags of kitty litter you put in the back. Needless to say, it never got out of the driveway in bad weather.
You could also only take it once to a shop for a tuneup. You had to loosen two engine mounts, and jack the engine up to change all the spark plugs. When you paid the bill, they would kindly tell you to never darken their door again...
The electronics were Italian.
I had.” an MGB with Lucas Electronics...and never had a problem.
Lucas was also known as “The Lords of Darkness
Bet that old buick had the 2.5L 4 cylinder named “the iron duke”.
That motor would live up to it’s name. It’s history can be traced back to marine engines.
It’s ONLY weak points where valve cover gaskets and the fiber timing gears.
For the Mustang, turn it into a convertible, put different rims on it and it would look like a pretty sharp car.
My first car was an AMC Gremlin. If somebody posts a picture of that dog turd, I am going to go postal and then have to check into rehab, and spend years in counseling.
All I wanted was a 1967 Mustang coupe and I saved for years. Then my father MADE ME buy a 1974 Gremlin to commute to college. Puke.
I HATED that car.
A year later I dumped that dog on my Sister and got my hot rod 1968 Mustang California Special. My favorite car to date.
Have mercy on me and don’t post a picture of the AMC trunkless wonder. My hold on reality is tenuous as it is.
Le sanity esta Fra-jil-lay. Don’t finish me off with a Gremlin picture.
I drove my first Chevy Vega from 1972 through 1978, when I sold it before returning to the States from Germany. I bought a new Chevy Monza “station wagon” in Dec 1978 and drove it unitil the fall of 1991, when the main seal went and left a big puddle of oil on the ground. It had 163,000 miles on it. The Chevy Monza was a Chevy Vega with the Pontiac Sunbird’s cast iron block engine instead of the aluminin block. I got great mileage with the 4 speed transmission in the Monza.
My wife’s Century blew the oil filter off and dumped the oil out of it while driving. She had someone bring her an oil filter and oil and is still driving it 100k later.
My wife’s Century blew the oil filter off and dumped the oil out of it while driving. She had someone bring her an oil filter and oil and is still driving it 100k later.
I drove my 72 Vega in the snow in Indiana, Kentucky, and Germany. I drove my 78 Monza in snow in making many trips from Washington DC to Indianapolis, Indiana, during 4 years in Germany, and through the mountain pass just east of El Plaso on New Year’s Day 1983, when there was 6 inches of packed snow and ice between the tires and the asphalt of I-10, the Texas Highway Patrol were only allowing cars with chains or snowtires to go through the pass. I always used snow tires in the winter and had no problems.
I think the best line I’ve ever heard describing it...
“The back end looks like the squat a dog takes when it’s taking a @hit.”
Although the rust was a problem, some Vegas had an engine that lasted. A friend’s wife had one that went over 100K. He asked for help one day and I found a blocked fuel filter. He was really happy until I told him the gas tank was rusting out. A couple of months later, the gas poured out of the tank when the car was being refueled.
Sorry. I must interject.
Obama killed Saturn. Part of GM's deal with The Devil. Couldn't have non-union plants now could we? Not as part of Obama's assault on America.
BTW...I currently own a 2008 Saturn Ion 3. A very nice car. I traded in a 2007 Hyundai Elantra for it and could not be happier.
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