Hands down, the worst car I've ever lived through was the Chevy Chevette (the Shove-it, I called it). My parents had one in the late '70's. It was a piece of crap, brand new. Before the new-car smell was gone, the turn signal/high beam/wiper/headlight/horn/dome light/etc lever broke clean off when it got caught in a coat sleeve, a crippling disaster that would be repeated half a dozen times over the next few years. The body rusted instantaneously. The crankshaft broke after something like 50k miles, so they got rid of it. My dad got $100 trade-in for it, no lie.
As a teenager, I came very close to running myself over with it, but I must accept at least part of the responsibility for that.
Fess up, Phys. You told some girls you had a 'vette, didn't you?
I bought a '70 Ford Maverick in '73 for $1300 and drove it until 1981 when I sold it for $500. It was a good commuter car. Car rust in the Pacific Northwest has never been much of a problem, so that may color my opinion a bit compared to owners in other parts of the country.