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
Brilliant!
Ha! I had the same EXACT thought when I saw the picture...
LOL, folks didn't believe me either. The cars I had in high school all had what we euphemestically called, "character". I loved the Gremlin though, that car could MOVE!
"My first "new" car was a 69 Mustang with the workhorse Ford 390 in it"
Maybe my memory is failing but I did not remember Ford offering the 390ci in a Mustang for 1969. I do remember the 289ci, 428ci (Cobra Jet?) and the Hemi engine, 429ci I think. The 390 engine was a hot offering in 1961. However in 1962 the 406 came out, then in 1963 the 427.
"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."
The Falcons and early Ford Mustang looked like they had been made crudely and cheap at a postwar Japan or South Korean sheet tin stamping plant.
TWO gerbils? You must've had the GT model.
I had an employee with a 69 Mustang. He put a wooden block under the accelerator pedal to increase the response time....... The first time he tried it he drove through a motel wall. I was paying the motel bill so received a call about it. His insurance covered the "accident"
Don't forget the Boss 302! The '70 429 was a Boss engine too. There were some Mach I's that had the 351C as well.
Actually, there was a 390 GT Mustang in '68. I don't remember that model in '69, but I could be wrong. Generally the 390 was the mill for Galaxies, Country Squires and pickups.
Hey, I had one of these in 68 overseas, bought it for $300 from another guy going home...it had been bondoed, repatched, and fixed so many times, the mechanics had to start making parts for it.....the driver's side door wouldn't stay shut so
I always had to keep the left elbow clamped down on it...when it wouldn't start, I lifted the whole front end hood and dropped it a couple of times and it started up again...
1983 Renault Alliance (aka "The Appliance")
Scary to the wallet. My first car. I had the axle replaced 4 times in this piece of junk because of a poorly designed CV joint. I spent more on axles than the original price of the car.
Think I'll make my next vehicle a Hummer. I despise enviroweinies.
Don't believe I would have told that!!
My daughter and SIL bought a new Plymouth Colt in 1985. The speedometer cable broke at over 200,000 miles and they still drove it for years after that. The interior was just shot. The door handles were vise grips. Finally the steering wheel broke so they gave it to my SOL's dad . He put in another steering wheel and drove it for a couple more years before it jumped time. They parked it in a field and planted flowers in it I think.
*drool*
I've seen those cars (aztek) driving around. They look like the sandwiched one car on top of another. Just weird...and you say a team of women designed it? they need to go back to the drawing board.
Yeah, but the beauty of the Rochester Quadrajet was that it could have a plugged jet, a dozen missing fasteners and a chipmunk wedged in one barrel, and you'd still get home.
Your parking brake reminded me of a 1954 Chevy truck I drove in law school. I had a "parking BRICK" that my girlfriend would engage and disengage. Sort of like chocking a plane.
That was one understanding gal.
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