Okay. We've done the good cars of the '80s. We've done the bad cars of the '80s.
Naturally, today's thread is about the ugly American cars of the 1980s. This is going to be a tough one, because narrowing the list to 10 cars only is going to be challenging. A couple caveats to start with: First off, we're going to focus on American cars. Otherwise, the list would be filled right off the bat with Renault offerings... Secondly, it will be cars that were, for the most part, introduced in the 1980s - i.e., the AMC Pacer was on the market from 1975 to 1980, it doesn't count (even thought it is uuuuugly!).
So, without further ado, my choices for the ugliest cars of the 1980s!
1. 1987 AMC Eagle. This car has, quite possibly, every single possible design flaw. Fake woodgrain paneling? Check. Wire basket hubcaps? Check. Square, utterly lifeless grill? Check. Fender flares for skinny tires? Check. Chintzy door handles? Plastichrome? Check and check. UUUUUUuugly! This car was so bad I had to redefine the list...
2. Chevrolet Citation. I don't know what genius thought that 900 square feet of rear glass was a great idea, but they were wrong. It looked like they tried to make the Pacer uglier. And succeeded.
3. 1980 - 1985 Cadillac Seville. What the hell was up with that mutant trunk? Apparently GM felt so bad about giving the Citation such an odd rear end that they needed to short-sheet the Seville.
4. 1985 Ford Aerostar. How do you make the minivan even uglier? Well, I don't know, but Ford managed it with the Aerostar minivan. It looked like a regular minivan whose front got stepped on. If the intent was to create a vehicle with the worst possible airflow going, they succeeded.
5. 1983 Plymouth Caravelle. Ugh. So many little design flaws add up to one butt-ugly car. That cheese-grater front grill. The prismatic Chrysler emblem. The useless C-pillar windows. The crappy two-tone paint. Cheap-ass hubcaps. Ugh.
6. 1980 Ford Thunderbird. I shudder just looking at this car. From the elegance and simplicity of the '55 to '57 roadster to this... abomination... Ford should have killed the T-bird when it started to bloat in the 1970s... Look at that. Acres of cheap-ass imitation chrome. Vinyl roof. Crappy sunroof. What a shitbox.
7. Any K-car. What a lousy design. Hey, let's make a car that's ALL corners! No styling whatsoever! Not only that, but we'll make all the trip super extra low-grade, so it all falls off in the first month or so...
8. 1982 Ford Exp. I know! Let's take the already-hideous Escort and completely and utterly fail at making look sportier! You know what would really look great? Make the headlights stand out - it works for the Porsche 911!
9. 1988 Buick Regal. Ugh. After the rousing success of the Gran National, they did THIS to the Regal. Unforgivable... Melted corners, that weird wrap-up grill, laid-down emblem... Nothing like the earlier 1980s Regals. They could have had the decency to kill this model like they did the Monte Carlo, but nooooooooo.
10. 1980 Chrysler New Yorker. This looks like something out of a Paul Verhoeven movie. It is a concatenation of ugly. I particularly like the round headlights set inside the retractable, square, headlight bezel. Class.
Well, there's my list of ugly cars of the 1980s. I'm certain I missed a few, as it was a decade of ugly for certain. A good deal of cars I intended to put on this list, come to find out, started in the earlier parts of the 1970s. I think next week's list will try to choose the 10 ugliest cars from the 1970s. That's where the Chevette, Vega, Pinto, Pacer, Gremlin, et al will get their due...
That is all.
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14 comments:
I don't think the Eagle really counts as 80's--It is basically a 70's Hornet with square headlights and a small lift kit.
I think the K cars were fairly smart--Front drive, but without the radical (for the time) styling of the Citation and its badge-brothers. Boring, but not particularly unusual for the day.
You should have found a frog-green picture of the EXP as your example...
Hi.
Delurking to say: Yes! The frog green EXP. My brother had one. I ralphed in it once.
Dude. "Mutant trunk" had me rolling. I never understood that bashed-in backside. Nice.
The weird caddy design is simple . . . it was an attempt, albiet a badly failed one, to make the caddy look a bit like some sort of Rolls Royce Phantom or other such claptrap.
While it wasn't per se ugly, we need a shout out to the Chevy Beretta.
IIRC, Beretta sued them not just for infringing the trademark, but because (especially?) because the car was so bad.
I like the Eagle and the Aerostar.
(And while the K-cars are boring - if not properly ugly - I'd like to point out that my parents' Reliant wagon had all its trim when they traded it in on a ghastly little Ford.)
Ugly is as ugly does. As part of the Chrysler bail out the federal government agreed to buy Chrysler products for their assorted agency motor pools. That’s how I ended up with a Reliant kitted out as a police car. Yes, a stock 4 cylinder K-car with automatic transmission, a/c and power breaks laden down with two police radios, light bar, usual trunk-o-cop-gear. Bits of body and interior trim routinely fell off when going over speed bumps. We would leave the parts on the shift commander’s desk. He was not amused. We could not go code three with the a/c on. The car could not handle sudden acceleration, electrical drain of light bar and a/c all at once.
Don't forget to include the 1980 Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon. I bought one in Germany from the AAFES auto sales. Godawful yellow & black sport version (024) that started falling apart within 6 months after I drove it home. Sunroof leaked/fell in, battery exploded, wipers did not work, rattled just about everywhere. Sold it off within two years at a loss.
I can't wait for the '70's post.
Although personally I think that the only thing wrong with the Vega was that the bodies were all made out of second-hand rolls of tin(not aluminum)-foil without the benefit of any anti-rust treatment at all.
emdfl
The Omni/Horizon was a late 70's model, so it doesn't count.
And I have a fondness for the '80 Thunderbird, I had a girlfriend that owned one. The car sucked, but the girlfriend...well, actually...
OK, moving along.
While the '83-'85 Caravelle might have been a bit plain-looking, the '86-'88 Caravelle was a wonderful car! The front-end was a little more aerodynamic with beveled corners yet keeping the quad rectangular headlamps (which I love), much like the '83-'86 Ford Thunderbird and '88-'91 Ford LTD. I had an '87 Caravelle with the non-turbo 2.2L engine. It had a very soft, big-car ride but with decent gas mileage, front-wheel drive, and decent handling.
I kinda disagee with the Chevy Citation. The only design that looked good on this car was the notchback design.
I personally drive a Dodge Aries K, and what it lacks in beauty (I think it looks like it has an additude problem, like most Dodge products) it makes up for with cheap luxury and decent performance that you wouldn't expect from a vehicle of that sise with an engine of that sise (2.5 liter 4 cylinder). And if that's not enough to make me respect those K cars, they're cheap as dirt to repair and easy as hell to do maintanance on.
Every car in the 80s was butt ugly. no need for list
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