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
The MSM isn't truthful now and wasn't then.
Mine came in a lovely off yellow color. It was sort of a cross between UTI discharge and the vomit from a baby fed creamed corn.
On the plus side the front bench seat folded all the way back to make it completely flat. That was handy for the drive in movie.
Toss in a Craig Power Play 8 track and life was pretty good.
L
haha parking brake- took me a second to find it!
I had a 1978 white Pinto with Red interior.
I taught many a kid to drive a stick in that love.
One day, while transporting my nephew to preschool, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the grill of a van up close and personal.
I said a quick prayer cause I knew
1. I didn't have time to get the four year old out of the backseat
2. We were going to explode.
Well, Ford had fixed the problem so we didn't explode and because I took my foot off the brake, there was only minor damage.
However I had to chuckle when I asked for the insurance information on the other driver.
He handed me a card. He was the Vice President of Safety for the Cleveland Regional Traffic Authority!!!! (the bus system)
Pitifully the bottom rusted out of the Pinto in 1989, or I swear it would still be running.
I have no idea. I just know that my parents had to get rid of theirs because the sight of it made small children cry.
My dad has a Z06, he's buddies with the Corvette racing team guys. They tweaked it out in their shop for him, set it up like the racer. (He works for GM.)
THAT is a scary car.
LOL! James Bond eluded the bad guys with that in "For Your Eyes Only."
The repair bill I got recently for my Dodge, which is on life support in the shop, is truly scary.
I believe you could slide a 302 into a Gremlin.
I had the misfortune of being a passenger in some of those VW minivans ... cold doesn't quite cover it, and I remember being quite concerned for my safety every time I got into one due to the sway and the fact that they could put a tuna can to shame for crumple quality.
I owned the 69 Pontiac Trans Am - loved it. Still own an 86 Suzuki Samari. Very best off road vehicle IMHO
Scary for Criminals
owned and restored 5 of 'em (a 64, 69, 73, a 74, and a 62 I'm getting close finishing now, car number 374, 4th oldest surviving MGB on the planet), so I know where you're coming from!
I learned how to rebuild cars owning and driving them. At least they're easy to work on.
And to the man about the 'Vette, couldn't agree more! I'm driving my second one (just swapped out my 2006 Lemans Blue coupe for a 2007 Monterrey Red vert and they are a BLAST to dive, and a car that can compete with one's 5 times the price.
Oh wait, these are the Liberal car guys, now I remember.
Calista Flockhart - She's scary and probably bad for the environment too.
ah-h-h-h ,... LUCAS , "Prince of Darkness"
[that was what we said back in the day]
... btw , the fastest I ever went in a "car" on a road [I-95] was in a Pantera
... I'd like to try some DreamCars trickedOut , if I could someday , ... being a former "Wrench"
The Javelin.
Pardon my ignorance, what is an MGB?
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