The Most Pathetic Cars Ever

[jiacinto]

Here they are:

The Chevette
The Chevy Citation
The Yugo

What do you think?

[StClone]

1. Gremlin

What a dumb name for an odd car.

[ProudGerman]

8. Gremlins not eligible for this poll

Gremlins are so far off the scale that they register on the other side, and are actually cool.


I WILL have a Gremlin one day, oh yes, it will be mine.

[Maple]

10. HEY! I had a Gremlin

and I loved it. Lime green.

Even put a big plastic key on top with a suction cup.

Cool car!

[Throckmorton]

80. I had a 75 Gremlin Hatch Back,

Metal Flake blue. It burned up in my uncle's driveway one afternoon, when the metalized cardboard pre-heater tube caught fire and ignited the carburator fuel bowl.

It was 6 years old, and ready for the junk yard already, with 68,000 miles on it. It also had AMC fender syndrome, if you know what that is/was.

[LTR]

87. AMC Gremlin

Hey, remember the "Levi's Edition" with the all-denim interior?

[Interrobang]

2. I like Chevettes, especially Chevette Canadiens!

Built in La Belle Province, don't you know? ;-)

Personally, I think the dumbest cars are:

Hummers
Any other SUVs
Azteks
El Caminos
Focuses

[Liberal Veteran]

3. The Pacer....

[ReadTomPaine]

20. Hey isn't that a Pacer Wagon!

Even more rare!

[blondeatlast]

47. I had one of those! 1979 luxury model

[Torgo]

59. My old boss had to wait for four months to get his Pacer!

A strike by the glass supplier delayed shipment of his ordered car.

After he got the car, it was a disaster!

What a heap!

[regnaD kciN]

64. Actually, one of the later models...

...was even funnier-looking! During (I believe) the final year of production, they switched to a two-layer "grid" grille that looked like nothing so much as a set of clenched teeth. Just seeing it the first time was enough to make me burst out laughing.

[treefrogjohn]

4. The Lada

I once rode in one of these when visiting a friend in England. He was very pleased when it finally started up. He swore that was a rare occurance on a damp day, which they have a few of over there. I believe the dash was made of cardboard. Thin cardboard. Amazing piece of Soviet Union machinery.

[JVS]

42. The English person I know loved his Lada.

Said that it was a bit bad on fuel efficiency, but ran well all the time and was as durable as a tank. He also said that it compared favorably with British cars of the time.

[Torgo]

60. My friend in Spain had one!

I rode in it many times.

It was truly a Russian car!

Really not much went wrong with it because it did not have any modern amenities that could go wrong. It reminded me of a car that had been stripped for parts.

[madrchsod]

5. any 1970` and 80`s

french cars either made here or imported-le car,allaince...

[kanrok]

6. Le Car

Remember? What a piece of crap.

[FlashHarry]

9. It was great in France. Lousy here.

It's funny, you still see thousands of old Toyotas and Nissans driving around, but never a LeCar.

[caledesi]

17. I owned one. Horrible car. Totally died after 2 years. Never again.

[jiacinto]

18. What did a Le Car look like?

nt

[Awsi Dooger]

29. Jiacinto, here are pictures of the sad lot

http://www.qis.net/~jimjr/misc160.htm

Your nominees are holding up the bottom quite nicely, according to this guy.

[KDLarsen]

33. Oh my god...

... just looking at some of those cars simply cracked me up. I laughed out loud for a full five minutes, much to the amusement of people sitting around me.

It's horrible!

[7th_Sephiroth]

73. ya forgot

ther GEO and The Edsel

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

79. VW Bus

Hey! Not fair! I wish that every seventeen-year-old could have a VW bus as his/her first car. It was a piece of crap that broke down regularly, but you couldn't ask for a better set of wheels during your senior year. I have many fond memories of road trips with my bus, and I wish it were still around.

[Bruce McAuley]

51. I bought one brand new in 1981, it lasted 110,000 miles

Before it finally rolled backwards down the driveway and landed on it's top(OOPS!).
Traded it off to a guy for a Ford Pickup.
It only lasted so long because I ran it on synthetic oil.
It was a BLAST to drive, with 4 torsion bar suspension there was nothing so small that soaked up the bumps so well.
We LOVED that car, but maintainance was horrific...we never bought another one either.

Bruce

[Awsi Dooger]

19. We got a Renault LeCar directly from Paris: it sucked

The sunroof wouldn't open. The seat cushions fell apart. Constant problems with the engine. That car had a shorter lifespan than any car I've known since childhood.

This was mid-'70s, when my family took a European trip and was supposed to pick up our new LeCar upon arriving in Luxembourg. Not only did the car suck, but waiting for it siphoned a full 8 days out of our trip. After 4 days of disbelief in Luxembourg, we took a train to Paris to visit the Renault plant directly, smack on the Champs Ellysses. Still, it was another 4 days before they came through with a car, and not even the body color or interior color we ordered.

A black interior, wonderful for the South Florida climate when we shipped it back.

Correct, I have not seen a LeCar in well over a decade. Not exactly a surprise.

[ReadTomPaine]

15. Drive the R5 - If you can still find one!

And your opinion of these vehicles will change forever...

[Torgo]

57. I rented a brand new Alliance once...

The automatic transmission failed about 10 miles from the car airport rental agency. It locked in high gear when going forward. It was late and I had to get to my destination. To climb any steep hills, I had to put the car in reverse, climb the hill, and proceed forward in high gear.

Oh by the way, the windshield wipers quit and the washer nozzle popped out of its holder, so I had no way of cleaning the windshield either.

What a clunker. Thank God it was a rental.

[Don_G]

7. British Cars

Triumph, MG, Jaguar, Lotus, Austin and a few more that never made it on our shores.

After all, why couldn't Morris Garages put a thermostat in their car to make the heater work in the winter without turning a valve you have on the side of your house in the engine compartment just to make the heater work?

The were fun though.

[Maple]

13. All great cars

and all were available in Canada.

[Don_G]

27. 74 1/2 MGB?

Big ugly bumpers, jacked up on springs where the body roll affected the handling AND half SAE and half metric with a 4-cylinder engine stifiled by the pollution control equipment and a carburetor you had to stuff with 5W-30??????

I beg to disagree and I'd like to add Lucas Electrics and Dunlops both deserve a thread of their own.

[Torgo]

58. My buddy had a Sterling! (Remember those masterpieces!)

Even Honda could not figure out how to make a reliable British car!

[FlashHarry]

11. Fiat Multipla

It's gotta be one of the ugliest vehicles ever designed. Up there with the Pontiac Aztek.

[tridim]

32. Fiats are great cars

I know it's been an 'in' joke since the 60's that Fiats suck, but I've owned three (a 76 and 79 X1/9 and a 78 Spider which IMO is in the top 10 most beautiful cars of all time) and they are wonderful. They did have rust problems in the early 70's, but so did most cars at the time, foreign and domestic.

I hear Fiat is making a US comeback soon, and honestly I can't wait. I'll be first in line at the dealership.

[FlashHarry]

50. I've driven a Punto a few times. It's pretty good.

BTW, I didn't say the Multipla was a bad car; I said it was ugly. :)

[regnaD kciN]

65. We had a Fiat sedan while living in Switzerland in the 60s...

It was a great car. I never could understand why people in the U.S. hated them so much. After talking to several owners, I finally came to the conclusion that one of the top production executives must have been a member of the Italian Communist Party, and made a point of shipping all the lemons to the Yanks.

;-)

[Torgo]

56. Good Riddance to Fiat!

In the mid '70s, I owned a 124 Spider Convertible.

It was a beautifully styled pile of junk. Every possible mechanical, electrical and trim item broke. I even had the trunk lock fail with my luggage inside during a vacation. The front brakes and rotors were replaced during the first three months of ownership, the speedometer failed on the drive home from the dealership, I had to have it towed several times because the electrical system failed in cold weather, the electric radiator fans failed twice, etc., etc.

I kept spare door handles and window cranks in the glove box because they broke so frequently.

The irony was that my brother's Fiat was even worse!

Pure automotive garbage!

[HEyHEY]

12. Any Kia

Fucking terrible

[Fight_n_back]

14. Pacer

a car named after an ABA team...weird

[caledesi]

16. Agree, Pacer.

[SmileyBoy]

21. Plymouth Horizon, aka Dodge Omni.

THE FRICKIN' WORST IN HISTORY. The damn thing was built in the late 70's to early 80's, but it looked like a bastard relative of the AMC Gremlin, circa 1971.

[Philostopher]

39. Had a 1978 Horizon.

Biggest lemon I've ever owned. It drove me to Toyotas -- I've only bought used, but I've never bought anything but a Japanese car since. That car did not run more than ten days in a row without something falling off, exploding, or simply refusing to start. We put six alternators on it, and the windows and door locks stopped working somewhere into the fourth year.

Admittedly, that bastard of a VW Dasher (the early Horizons and Omnis had Volkswagen engines) clocked 97,000 miles before we trashed it. The engine was the only thing that wasn't a total piece of junk about the whole car.

[SmileyBoy]

43. Even the brand-new models looked 8-10 years old used.

Take a time machine back to a 1980 auto show. Look at the Plymouth Horizon or Dodge Omni in brand-new mint condition. The damn thing seriously then would not look like it was new, even if it was fresh off the line.

[noonwitch]

104. Me, too

I hit a bump and the axle broke. I got it fixed, bought a new car and gave the Horizon to my grandpa to fix for my sister to drive it (my mom had bought it for me). The axle broke again while grandpa was getting it onto his trailor(it ran, but it was a long ride to his place). He ended up designing and building his own axle, because the Chrysler part was poorly made to begin with (Grandpa was a Ford engineer). The engine died after my sister drove it for a few weeks. I will never buy a Chrysler again. I'm a Ford girl for life, unless I win the Lotto and can afford a BMW.

[jenm]

81. I'm with you

I think Omni was the most pathetic ever

[CO Liberal]

88. I Had TWO '81 Horizons

At the same time. Mine was maroon, my ex-wife's was blue.

When we separated, I got her Horizon because it was in better mechanical shape, and I got rid of the maroon one. I called that car "Beyond" - Beyond, the Blue Horizon.

:-)

[leanings]

22. Hey, lay off the 'Vette.

And the Citation. There used to be a sport version of the Citation with a hood scoop and racing stripes that was a hot car! Anybody remember what it was called?

I tend to think every car is beautiful in it's own way, even Ladas, Trabbies, Wartburgs, Le Cars, Yugos and Vegas.

My only beef might be with luxury SUVs like H2s and Navigators. They're for pussies. I know people that have a need for regular SUV's, even Suburbans, but these are folks that actually live in the woods. Luxury SUV's are for poseurs.

But one day we'll look back on them as being artifacts of a certain place and time, the auto industries response to the public, and we'll appreciate them from a distance.

[booksenkatz]

24. X-11 n/t

*

[tridim]

36. Which I always got a kick out of because

I drove a Fiat X1/9 and the X-11 was obviously a copying off the X1/9. It had a friggin fake side air intake like the Fiat even though the engine was obviously in the front. See my other post about Fiats, they were great cars.

[SaveElmer]

23. Ford Escort

Worst piece of crap car I ever had!!!

[tridim]

38. I used to deliver pizzas in the company ford escort

Yes, it sucked, but damn was it fun to drive. The power steering was messed up and if you jerked the steering wheel one direction and let go, the wheel would wobble back and forth by itself. It would keep doing this until you grabbed the wheel to stop it. Great teenage fun! :)

[Spirochete]

25. Vega

Citreon
Cortina
Dodge Colt
Corvair

[Davis_X_Machina]

26. I put an aggregate half-a-million miles...

...on two Dodge (really Mitsubishi) Colts, one a two-door 75, and the other an 88 Vista wagon.

[regnaD kciN]

71. Nothing wrong with Corvairs...

...as long as you kept the tires inflated to the specified pressures. If not, they would have handling problems. Of course, Ralphie Nader made a point of inflating them incorrectly for his book slamming them. But why is that a surprise?

My family owned a '66 Monza. Even after fourteen New England winters, it was still able to make several packed-to-the-gills trips up and down the Eastern seabord, followed by a similar journey from Bennington, Vermont to San Diego. One of the most reliable cars I've ever driven, topped only by my current '91 Accord.

[FlashHarry]

78. Citroens are great!

A little odd-looking, perhaps. They're still going strong in Europe. In fact, they're kind of a luxury car over there.

[Kellanved]

92. but still notorious for the maintenance costs.

And always in the "bad" third of the break-down statistics.

[KittyWampus]

28. The Trabant

Brought to you by the Eastern bloc!

[jiacinto]

34. What did that look like?

nt

[Kellanved]

76. like this

Quite a few still on the streets (along with a few thousand jokes and several movies)



http://www.trabi.sense.ch/photogalerie.html

[TXlib]

103. Trabi jokes

With a body made of reinforced paperboard, and a two-cylinder engine, it was the butt of jokes such as:

Q: "How many people does it take to make a Trabi?"
A: "Two. One to cut, and one to paste."

Q: "How do you double the resale value of a Trabi?"
A: "Fill 'er up!"

[tsipple]

30. More Awful Cars

Ford Fairmont
Chrysler "K" cars (Plymouth Reliant K, for example)
Pontiac Le Mans (most recent iteration)
Suzuki Samauri
Geo Tracker
almost every Oldsmobile
Chevy Cavalier
Kia Rio
any Daewoo
Stirling (the short-lived Honda-Rover partnership)
Ford Fiesta
Chevrolet 2000
Ford Tempo (and Mercury equivalent)

And here are some cars that some people think are awful but are really pretty cool:

AMC Pacer
AMC Gremlin
Geo Metro
Ford Festiva
Chevrolet Nova

[BiggJawn]

37. Oh, Yeah, the Tempo for SURE!

I had a 4-door "GLX" model that was really a POS.

The clutch spring was so stiff I destroyed my left knee on it and had to get an juice-box in my next ride...

[leanings]

61. I had a Topaz XR-5

two door sport version. 100 horses instead of the standard 95-yeah, that's right, get back. It was a fun little car tho, until the trannie locked up tight in front of the pump at a really busy gas station.

[Bruce McAuley]

54. I've owned a few of those cars, and I disagree on some..

In fact I now own an 86 Chrysler New Yorker that has about 175,000 miles on the chassis, just got it's second motor 10,000 miles ago. It gets 25 MPG AND I only got $1000 into it. Nice cruisin' car...
I had an 81 Oldsmobile Delta 88 that had the small V-8 and a four speed automatic with Positraction. Boy, I could climb just about ANYTHING with that car, as long as it didn't bottom out. LOL
The Ford Fairmont was the first iteration of the FOX chassis, as Ford called it, which continues up to today with the Mustang running gear and platform, and it has been used in T-Birds and smaller rear wheel drive Ford cars since the Fairmont, and has been hugely successful from a monetary standpoint.
I've seen Geo Metros that were put out of commission permanently after hitting a racoon...They are the lightest car currently being sold in America.
But then I like weird cars...LOL

Bruce

[LTR]

85. HEY! My Ford Fiesta

Rocked!

Built by Ford of Germany. Had one for three years back in college. I got up to 185,000 miles before the U joint gave out, and coupled with other replacement needs, I parted with it.

I heard that the new owners repaired everything and resold it.

Fiestas are used quite a bit in amateur racing.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

31. Gremlin...Chevette...Pinto

[jiacinto]

35. Now I remember what it looks like

nt

[mitchum]

40. Pontiac Sunbird was designed by remedial chimps

[dofus]

52. Hey!

Last year my kid acquired a 97 Pontiac Sunfire, a really cool teal green. It's perfect for him, since he doesn't drive much, and so far has been quite reliable.

Given the amount of money he had to spend, it was by far the best of the cars he looked at, and is actually quite fun to drive.

[mitchum]

55. Okay, maybe the newer models are good, but...

years ago I had an '82 that I still have nightmares about. Honestly, everything about the car was designed in the most f-up-ed way possible.

[CO Liberal]

90. The Newer Sunbird/Sunfire Models are Based on the Chevy Cavalier

In the Late '70s and Early '80s, they were rear-wheel drive and based on the Chevy Monza, which was mechanically a Chevy Vega.

[Ladyhawk]

41. Ford Pinto

n/t

[nini]

49. I had a yellow 71 Pinto

I'm still alive to talk about it!

[ironflange]

53. My wife used to drive a '76 Pinto

It was actually not a bad car, just tried not to think of being rear-ended. It had the V6 in it and I swear it could easily beat a Vette out of a stop light.

[Ladyhawk]

62. The handles fell off of ours within a couple of years.

And the engine made this distinctive whining sound...and the tail pipe would fall off the muffler.

Then my parents got the much better Chevy Citation...wait, isn't that on this list, too?

[bratcatinok]

91. At one time

we were a three pinto family. I had the sporty hatchback with the fancy hubcaps while the hubby had the green one 2 door one. He bought the third one and I've blocked it from my mind.

Our pinto's never lasted long enough for anything to go wrong with them because the hubby (now ex) liked to get qualuuded up and wreck them.

[jayfish]

44. The Cadillac Cimarron, Catera Or

Allante. Not to mention the Chrysler K-Cars and Pontiac J-Cars. Pure Garbage.

Jay

[jiacinto]

46. I loved the Alante!

I've always wanted one.

[ReadTomPaine]

68. GM actually had the bodywork for the car done in Europe and shipped...

...them here for the rest of the assembly. It was so expensive it's half the reason they killed it. BTW, the new XLR and CTS (esp. CTS-V) are the best cars they have ever made, pretty much.

[LTR]

82. K-car

Sure, they were absolutely boring, and a fitting vehicle for the boxy 80s.

But those things are tanks. Pretty dependable, from my experience.

But they were very boring.

[pansypoo53219]

45. my brother hqad a shitty little tin alliance.

but it did get me to drive very far from the steering wheel-safer.
but lucky me i had bitchin cars! 75' delta 88, 72' delta 88(i loved that ss queen Victoria, 67' catalina(what a passing dream!).my mom's 73' New yorker for a couple months. ugly but as scary as a SUV, the shitty one-83' delta 88 and my beloved Sweat pea, the 73' delta 88. i miss drivin those boats.

[Superfly]

48. The Trabant (Trabi) 1990 vintage

Body made out of recycled paper and/or plastic.

[ReadTomPaine]

67. Well, any Trabant, really!

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

63. The aluminum-block Vega

Pumpkin orange, to be specific. The color of rust-- oh, wait, that WAS rust. Blew the engine three times. It was finally stolen out of my driveway (there was a hole in the radiator at the time-- the car thief blew the block AGAIN less than two miles away. They towed it to the car lot. I never even bothered to go claim the damned thing).

[ReadTomPaine]

66. Dumbest...carjacker...ever!

Lol! The Vega V8's were quite popular with the speed crowd as I recall.

[JCMach1]

69. Chevy Chevette--

:puke:

My first car... it seemed like every three months I had to replace the starter. It always ran hot and drank oil like it was going out of style.

A complete and total POS

[ReadTomPaine]

72. "It'll Drive You Happy!"

Something for memory lane-

http://members.tripod.com/darryl_lowes/index.htm

[trogdor]

94. I had one.

Tough little car. Slow as molasses in January, but tough.

[wickerwoman]

70. Skoda

http://www.skoda-auto.com/

That marvel of Czechoslovak engineering. Out Trabis the Trabant.

Lame joke:

Guy walks into an auto repair store and says "I'd like a new hubcap for my Skoda."
Mechanic says "It's a deal."

[VOX]

74. My dad had a '64 Dodge Dart, and I felt nothing but contempt for it...

The starter sounded like an egg-beater, it had all the pick-up of an anvil, and the aesthetics of a refrigerator.

[hatrack]

89. Hey! Are you dissin' the DART?!?!

Ours was a lovely sky-blue, and the Chrysler starter sound was, shall we say, distinctive - sort of like a coyote in a Cuisinart.

OTOH, I said farewell to mine at 249,000 miles after the left front wheel fell off, and as the sagging rear end approached lowrider status.

However, the shop that took it off my hands pulled the engine (the indestructible Chrysler slant-six) and resold it. For all I know, it's still pulling somebody down the road somewhere in America.

No car exuded the unique anti-cool of Darts and Valiants! ;-)

[Misinformed01]

100. My next car will be a 1963 Dart convertible with a slant 6

My dream car; the best engine ever made in the US.

Mopar rules.

[RobinA]

106. I Had That Sky-Blue

in a Duster. It was my college car and I loved it. It had so much play in the steering wheel my father was afraid to drive it. The alignment was always bad, you had to steer it to make it drive a straight line. The starter was iffy. But in ran on no oil many a time and the time the hole in the radiator drained it dry as I was driving down the turnpike gave it no lasting ill effects. It's Achilles heel was rust. Rust on the body, rust on the floor, rust on the rear axle.

[Nlighten1]

75. Mustang II

[Scottie72]

77. AMC's Pacer

My family drove that sucker for years.

[LTR]

83. Suzuki X-90

Ugly, tall car. Two seats. 4WD.

Most hideous thing I ever saw.

[ArkDem]

84. Ford Pinto

.

[LTR]

86. Other nominees

Morons that do THIS to cars:

http://www.riceboypage.com/

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

98. Even more pathetic than a "real" ricecar...

I was at a stoplight and an old Ford Bronco...now painted metallic purple and with undercarriage neons and an inordinate amount of large antennas pulls up next to me and starts revving the engine and pumping up their music. Um...okay, do you think you can beat me. I'm driving a 2003 Saab Sport Sedan btw. The light turns. I let them pull out. I wait a second then burn their gas guzzling ass. Best part...the huge decal on the back that says "Bad Ass Toys Are Not Just for Boys."

BTW, my vote for worst car is Toyota Echo. I'm just really bitter about that pos. My current car makes up for it though.

[Best_man23]

93. My favorite

The Pinto

I took this car to a high-crime shopping mall and left it unlocked with the keys in the ignition. I came back several days later and, much to my disgust, it was still there.

[Best_man23]

95. My Bottom 10

10: The early 1980s GM X Body cars (Citation, Cimmaron, Phoenix)
9. Pontiac Fiero (also known as Fireo)
8. 1988-1992 Pontiac LeMans (also known as LeMons)
7. Ford Granada/Mercury Monarch (what a POS)
6. Any Kia (known in the auto repair world as "Kia Pets")
5. 1987-1992 Hyundai Excel (had an intake manifold that would begin dissolving upon contact with engine coolant)
4. Acura NSX (big, heavy, slow for a performance car, and really expensive)
3. Ford Pinto (Ford succeeded in mounting a Molitov Cocktail on wheels)
2. Toyota's first minivan (what a pile)

and the number 1 POS car

1. Any Renault (We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Renauts are pieces of crap)

[FlaGranny]

96. Back around 1961 or 2

my first husband drove a Renault. He bought it brand new out of the showroom. It was completely, totally shot at the end of one year.

[spinbaby]

97. Worst car I ever had was a Volvo

Seriously. A 1993 Volvo 850. I've never had a car with so many problems. Doors fell off...okay, not off, but they started making horrible cracking noises and not shutting properly after a couple of years because the hinges had started to come lose from the frame. Guy at the body shop said they all did it. That, and the transmission problems, dash problems, electrical problems, leaking air conditioning, and it leaked fumes into the passenger compart for months making us drive with the windows open in the dead of winter while the dealer claimed not to smell anything...

Hated the thing.

[VermontDem2004]

99. AMC Gremlin

'nuff said

[trogdor]

101. The incredible dissolving Chevy Cavalier!

The first generation was horrible. Anybody who went to the Northeast and saw what winter could do to one in just two years would never consider buying one of their own.

Edit: They should come with at least two extra trunk lids and a set of doors.

[hatrack]

105. The best quote I've seen on the Cavalier

"It can't get out of its own way."

[Kusala]

102. Late 70's, early 80's Vega

[Kolesar]

107. I'd put Vegas and Citations far above Mavericks or Pintos

And who in America ever really wanted to buy something from Chrysler? Up until the 1980s, there was always something better available from GM. Chrysler products were for those who could not afford a GM car, that was why they sold all of those inexpensive Darts and Dusters. How about the Swinger? That was real optimism in naming a car. More likely they should have named it "the Spinster".