WHAT'S THE WORST CAR OF THE MILLENIUM

Car Talk dot com ^ | unknown date | Staff

[doug from upland]

CLICK HERE FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE AND ALL 10 OF THE DISHONORED PIECES OF JUNK

No. 10 - VW Bus

"If everyone had to own one of these as a first car as I did, there would be no traffic jams anywhere. At least half of us would be so turned off by the experience of owning a car, that we would seek alternate means of transportation."

"There was no heat--unless, that is, the auxiliary gas heater caught fire."

"The flower stickers were the only things that held the car together."

"The bus had no heat, blew over in the wind and used the driver's legs as its first line of defense in an accident."

"It was a death trap on the highway-you could never go fast enough. The chances were good that you'd be hit from the rear."

No. 9 - Renault Dauphine

"Truly unencumbered by the engineering process."

"At the time, it cost about half the price of a Volkswagen... which was half the price of everything else. How could Renault do this? Simple. It had half as many parts."

"This car topped out at 45 mph. Since the minimum speed on the Florida Turnpike is 40, patrol cars would follow me, waiting for me to hit a hill so they could ticket me."

"From a historical perspective, it's a shame that the French spent their Marshall Plan dollars on automaking."

"A side impact by a bicycle totaled my Dauphine after only one year."

No. 8 - Cadillac Cimarron

"GM thought they could take a Chevy Cavalier, slap some Cadillac stuff on it, add an extra $5,000.00 and sell a bundle. Tragically enough, they pulled it off-for a while."

"Hands down, worst car for the money spent. Yugos were junk, but at least they were cheap. This heap had a Caddy price tag!"

"A stupid marketing ploy. Nothing more than a Chevrolet Cavalier, which Roger Smith gussied up and called a Cadillac."

"When we traded it in my wife was upset because we didn't keep it long enough for her to buy a gun and shoot it."

No. 7 - Dodge Aspen/Plymouth Volare

"This car began to rust while it was still in the showroom."

"The stalling problem was so bad that I had to take a clockwise route to work so I could make all right turns, and not risk stalling on a left turn in front of oncoming traffic."

"After the floor boards rusted out in the rear, they would fill up with water and freeze. I ended up putting soda crates on the floor in the back to keep people from falling under the car."

"The only useful purpose this car served was as the model for the car used in National Lampoon's Vacation."

"Owning a Volare was total ego death--the theme song, the vinyl Landau roof, the inability to pass another car on the highway."

Nol 6 - Renault Le Car

"I'm convinced that the body metal for this car was supplied by Reynold's Aluminum."

"Like any French restaurant in America, it was overpriced, noisy, moody, and would put you in mortal danger if you had an accident with anything larger than a croissant."

"Our Le Car couldn't climb a hill fully loaded, so the passengers had to get out and walk up."

"I left it unlocked overnight, and it was finally stolen. The insurance check paid for a textbook."

[OC_Steve]

Come on that was supposed to be "America's Sweetheart".

[OC_Steve]

Ya know after I owned my Chevette is when I started seeing those darn Mormons following me around. Hey they are still outside my window!!!

[Nik Naym]

"Moter Trend Car of the Year" always struck me as a scam. I honestly belive it was selected based on how much advertising a carmaker did with Moter Trend. I offer as evidence to support this:

Aspen/Volare

The ugly ugly ugly boat tailed Caprice (the one that killed the Caprice model)

The Renault/AMC Alliance

All of the above were horrible vehicles, yet all were "car of the year".

[Richard Kimball]

76 MG Midget. It was like a beautiful crazy girl. If a girl's ugly and crazy, you just want to get away from her. When this car actually ran, it was one of the most enjoyable drives I've ever owned. However, there was a bumper sticker I saw on another one that came back to haunt me: "Every part that falls off of this car is of the finest British craftsmanship." That sums it up.

[Diddle E. Squat]

What, no votes for the Adobe?

[mn12]

What are the 3 headlight positions on British cars?

Off, dim and flicker....

I thought that was a joke until I followed my dad home while he was driving his Triumph TR7. It also has popup headlights, which makes the operation of the headlight switch even more random. Those rare occasions where the housings pop up AND the lights come on are really exciting!

[Jeff Gordon]

This has to be the biggest marketing flop of the century. Is it any surprise this car was created by the same guy that screwed the US Military in Vietnam?

[MikeO]

I believe the aforementioned Vega also received "Car of the Year" accolades.
One friend had one dubbed the vegamatic. Another had one with a 350 shoehorned into it. THAT was a frightening car - you could almost hear & feel the body twist when he romped on it.

[Jeff Gordon]

Go Lucas Electronics !

Lucas! The Prince of Darkness.

Q: Why do the English drink warm beer?
A: Because they have Lucas refridgerators.

[reg45]

That's right - they had a waiting list

Note the difference
• Communism - waiting lists for Trabants
• Capitalism - waiting lists for Corvettes and Vipers

[BluesDuke]

Er, since I have never done that sort of thing in leather buckets or even in the backseat, I am hardly the expert on the subject. (For the record, it is said often enough about me that, were I so inclined, the only motor vehicle in which I could do that sort of thing at my height is called a stretch limousine...)

[2Trievers]

So THAT'S why you wanted me to order the Lincoln for Boston ... "I see," said the blind dumb blonde! LOL &;-)

[gaffin]

I have alot of good memories from VW vans. Yeah, they get blown all over the road in a little wind, and you freeze in the winter, and you didn't get anywhere very fast, the engines were always catching on fire, and if you had a accident you would likely be killed. They were the poor mans Winnabago.

[BluesDuke]

Actually, Robert McNamara had little but contempt for the entire Edsel project; if anything, he did his best to undermine the project, which was conceived originally as a bid by Ford to bolster its position in what you could call the "move-up" market: buyers who were ready to move up from the basic Fords and had, among Ford-made cars, only the Mercury to choose, and wanted a little style to burn and a few innovations if they could get them. Enter the Edsel.

The car's odd enough style, a number of problems with spare parts suppliers to dealers, and the sometimes outlandish publicity campaign Ford conceived to promote the car (Ford so sonorously beat the publicity drum for the new marque that the Edsel itself couldn't have lived up to it even if it was the second coming of Cadillac) did the Edsel no favours. But perhaps what really killed the Edsel before it had a real chance to wring out its kinks and find its audience was the recession that hit the auto industry as the car made its premiere; it is entirely possible that any new marque, never mind one as odd as the Edsel, would not have stood a chance. (Ford didn't help any by being so hasty with the car once it committed to it that there had been assembly problems, with some Edsels requiring finishing assemblies at the dealerships.)

According to Ford historiographers Peter Collier and David Horowitz, there were those in and out of Ford who believed that the Edsel could have survived if it had waited perhaps another year to premiere, because the midmarket had begun to come back by 1960. Unfortunately, following the unusual 1958 design, for 1959 and 1960 the Edsel became more like a hastily-made Ford with a few weirdo design touches; the 1960 Edsel dropped out of production practically after it began production (only 2,846 1960 Edsels were made - in fact, the rarest Edsel of them all is said to be the 1960 Edsel Villager 9-passenger station wagon: only 59 of these cars were produced for the 1960 model year. The last Edsel rolled off the line in November 1959.

The 1958 Edsel actually had two sizes: a Mercury-sized pair of cars (the Citation and Corsair models) and a Ford-sized pair (slightly smaller, the Ranger and Pacer). The 1959 Edsel began looking more like a Ford even with the famous horsecollar grille and did away with the Merc-sized offerings; the 1959 Edsel offered only a Ford-sized Ranger and Corsair. The 1960 Edsel offered only the Ranger. All three years produced station wagons in six and nine passenger configurations. From what I have been able to gather, most automotive reviewers and critics of the era seemed to believe the 1959 Edsels were the best of the line.

[BluesDuke]

So THAT'S why you wanted me to order the Lincoln for Boston ... "I see," said the blind dumb blonde! LOL &;-)

And the fact that I simply happen to like Lincoln couldn't possibly be relevant...*snickering*

[chadmaster]

This is sick

http://www.therockalltimes.co.uk/2002/02/25/trabant.html

SNIP

"...The new Trabbi has already won a series of awards for its highly original TV advertising campaign. In one ad, entitled "The Bulgarian Job", a mulleted German porn star with a big moustache leads a convoy of Trabants at speeds in excess of 35mph around the grim concrete streets of Sofia chased by Stasi officials in Skodas after carrying off a daring bread heist."

[2Trievers]

[Jeff Gordon]

I recall Robert McNamara being called the "father of the Edsel" during the time he was SECDEF. It appears that was a misconception.

The two things that stand out about the Edsel was the toilet seat grill and the push button gear shift in the middle of the steering wheel. I also remember the car being a joke among consumers of the time.

[GRRRRR]

The AMC Pacer had a wider body and tracked very nicely in the snow...the large hatchback made mine very popular on the weekends as we could get two kegs in the back for our House Parties...YITBOS!

The 60-60 airconditioning never failed!!

GRRRRRollin for the USA!

[metesky]

A Yugo jumped a stop sign, slammed into the passenger side door of my '88 Chevy 1/2 ton.

Dented door, totaled Yugo.