Posted on 10/08/2006 5:20:54 PM PDT by GretchenM
We asked Tom and Ray to give us their Top 10 scariest cars. They came through and were even kind enough to tell us for whom exactly the cars are scary.
Scary for: Bystanders and other drivers
Looks like an early Ford Mustang, right? It is, on the outside anyway. The inside, however, is all Ford Falcon, a pedestrian vehicle if ever there was one. So what, you say? Well, drop a Boss V-8 into a Ford Falcon and what do you get? An overpowered car that doesn't have the shocks, brakes or structural rigidity to turn or stop well. In other words ... look out!
Scary for: Bystanders and other drivers
Garish? Sure, but that's not our complaint. This was the height of muscle-cardom. This was when American car manufacturers figured out how to make humongous, powerful engines. Sadly, they hadn't yet figured out how to do handling, so you had an overpowered rear-wheel-drive car with no weight in the rear end. As a result, when there was half a drop of rain on the ground this thing spun around like Dizzy Dan from the Battling Tops. Anything but perfect weather, and it was totally uncontrollable.
Scary for: Firefighters and plastic surgeons
What could possibly be scarier than a car endorsed by both the Shriners' Burn Ward Fundraising Division and the League of Asbestos-Clothing Manufacturers? These cars had an unfortunate tendency to explode when hit from behind, since that's where the gas tank was located. Ford did eventually fix the problem, but the damage was done, so to speak. Being anywhere near a Pinto still gives us visions of Robert Duvall calling in airstrikes in "Apocalypse Now."
Scary for: Drivers
Here's a scary idea: Design a car so the occupants' legs are the very first line of defense in a frontal crash. Then add poor stability. Shaped like a pizza box standing on end, the Microbus blew around on the highway like Calista Flockhart in a wind tunnel. Drivers never had time to worry about these issues, though; they were too busy trying to keep themselves warm in the chilly Bus.
Scary for: Onlookers
Just take a gander at this. No wonder they named it the Thing; it was styled by the same guy who invented the cookie sheet. Thankfully, they rusted quickly enough that few remain to invoke PTSD for former owners.
Scary for: Mechanics
The Monza was designed as an economy car, so it was built to have a four-cylinder engine. Unfortunately, when sales slowed down, some geniuses at Chevy decided that what the Monza needed was a V-8, so they shoehorned one in there. The result? Half the spark plugs are almost impossible to reach; to get at them you need rappelling equipment and an air chisel. Whenever one of these beauties reared its ugly grille in front of the garage, every mechanic with more than six weeks' experience would go running for the men's room and lock the door.
Scary for: Drivers
Rolling over is fine if you've got personal knowledge of Knuckles Goldberg's wrongdoings and you're heading into the witness protection program. Rolling over at 70 miles per hour on asphalt, when you're swerving to avoid an errant chipmunk? Not so good. These cars were cheap, so they were purchased mostly by young drivers — the people most likely to end up hanging from the seat belt with four wheels in the air. Scarier still, the Samurai wasn't that much worse than other SUVs of the era.
Scary for: Drivers
Take a good look at this car. Kind of small, wouldn't you say? Now imagine yourself in a Festiva surrounded by amphetamine-snacking tractor-trailer drivers. Going 75 miles per hour. At night. In the rain. Scared yet? We sure are. We once got in trouble for saying this car came right from the factory with a funeral wreath on the grille.
Scary for: Society, the environment and therapists
When you stop to think about what kind of person would buy a Hummer, you begin to worry about the future of our country. This is a person who feels so inadequate inside that he has to drive around pretending the 82nd Airborne will be backing him up in his next argument over a parking space. On the environmental side, the Hummer burns through resources like there's no tomorrow. And if enough idiots keep driving them, there won't be.
Scary for: Onlookers
Well, now we know where the designers of the Volkswagen Thing went to work after VW canned their sorry butts. Take a good look at this vehicle — it's a tribute to the art of unfortunate compromises. Someone at GM said "take a minivan, whack off a few corners and make something we can call a utility vehicle." The car itself was not bad — rather utilitarian, actually — but it pinned the needle on the visual pollution scale.
Posted on 10/2/06
By senior year there was barely a trace of the body left. It had rusted out almost completely.
I didn't think it was possible to almost literally watch a car melt in the rain, but the AMC Pacer is the one car that could pull it off.
On the bright side you could park it in the front yard, flip it over, and make a pretty nifty koi pond out of it.
L
My step mother (later given to my step brother) had a car with a wooden floor. It was a 10 year old Datsun B210, and the floor on the driver side had completely rusted through. So, to keep from driving like the flintstones, we put a piece of plywood in to make a floor.
Mark
I had a friend in high school that had one of those Mavericks with a 302.
Sucker would haul balls!
The VW Thing was the ugliest vehicle made back then. I remember walking into a dealership back then and laughing so hard we couldn't even talk with the salesman.
My friend had a Lotus Elan. I fit into it OK, but I could never drive it with my shoes on-the pedals were too close together.
They must have had monkeys working in the factory. I've never seen wiring in a car that was as bad as that one.
Theyy forgot the Hon-duh Element. It is not just scary but the ugliest thing every to hit the streets.
Of all the cars, that was one I was expecting to see in the list.... :-)
Your right
Did you know that Iski made a HP cam for that, and you could get an offy intake manifold for a HP carb... IIRC, you could mount a small 4 barrel on it.
Those were great motors!
Mark
Here she is from the rear.
Here she is about a month from completion (doors, gills, emblems, etc.). Note the exclamation ("Fired 45 secs") on the garage wall - only took 45 seconds to break her cherry. LOL.
That MGB would have been the last with the three main bearings (the one with the lever action door handles?), basically an MGA 1600cc donk with a longer stroke. I've owned three of them, and like like good lookin' women, they were high maintenance but a lot of fun, despite poor handling.
Most fun I've ever had on four (moving) wheels: A bug-eye Austin healey sprite with the original 800cc engine replaced by a 1600cc Ford. Didn't own, just drove it a bunch of times -- and it was like being in the world's fastest and only street-legal go-kart.
Was the aztek really designed by a team of gals? If so, it would explain everything.
Ah, the Sunbeam Tiger, my ultimate dream car...
I had a 1972 AMC Ambassador .. heres a scary thought .. vacuum operated windshield wipers ,, uphill in the rain your wipers would cut out every time... mine was the same yellow color you described.
My x-husband had two--so he could keep one running.
LOL, I got a pea green 62 Chrysler Newport that is much loved (and needing more)... Pushbutton of course
It was a great car and I love it. My only regret about the car was it only had the three speed manual on the floor. I wish I had spent the money for the four speed.
I was able to get one of the spark plugs out only after someone had broken off my radio antenna.
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