1. 1988 Suzuki Samurai - I had a friend growing up who traded in a 1983 Pontiac Trans Am, Daytona 500 25th Anniverary edition on a Suz. Worst. Trade. Ever. Not only was the Samarai notoriously underpowered, poorly engineered, and slow; it was also prone to rollover crashes at moderate speeds. Bad, bad, bad.
2. 1985 Yugo GV - this one's masquerading as a GTI, but failing. What can you say about the Yugo other than, well, you get what you pay for? Manufactured by Soviet bloc comrades, this car was as ugly as a CZ-52 but nowhere near as reliable or durable.
3. 1988 Hyundai Excel - A buddy of mine had one of these. He got in a fender bender outside of NYC, and went into a shop to use the phone to call the authorities to report the accident. When he got outside, the car was gone. He said it was the best day of his life...
4. Mercedes 190 - Let's see. How can we sully the Mercedes name? First off, make it a teeny car. Then wicked over-engineer it. Next, offer it as an "entry level" so people who have no idea what it costs to maintain a Mercedes will buy one.
5. Porsche 924 - Sense a trend? The 924 was a less-expensive version of the 944, one of Porsche's more popular models. It actually started life intending to be Volkswagen's flagship sport-coupe, but got absorbed back into Porsche at the 11th hour. It didn't help assuage the egos of Porsche owners everywhere that the entry level Porsche was supposed to be a VW...
6. Volkswagen pick-up. Whoever thought of this concept should be dragged off and shot. A front-wheel drive pickup truck? WTF? Uh, guys, the idea of a pickup truck is that you put extra weight in the back. When the drive wheels are in the front, extra weight in the back means that it's a LOT harder to move... Duh!
7. Mid-1980s Honda Prelude - Nicknamed the Honda Quaalude because of the anemic 110hp engine, the styling of Honda's (alleged) flagship sports coupe mirrored the two-door Accord. "Performance" was a joke, the styling bland, and the hefty price tag all contributed to a car with very limited appeal...
8. 1985 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon - I am still trying to figure out what the hell Toyota was trying to do with the Tercel 4wd wagon. Keep up with Subaru? Try to usurp the title of "World's Ugliest 4WD Wagon" from the AMC Eagle?
9. Subaru Brat. Yes, another front wheel drive pickup-looking vehicle. Only this was had garish styling, rear facing seats in the bed, and t-tops! The only redeeming quality of the Subaru Brat is that I dated a girl who owned one, and she had really big... Well, never mind...
10. Nissan Pulsar. All the aerodynamics of a door wedge. All the frightening raw power of a weedwhacker. Pop-up headlights that broke within weeks. The only way this car could possible have gotten worse would have been to give it a restyle with a modular ass end. Oh, wait, that's what they did...
This concludes another automotive hit list. If one of the cars listed is your absolute favorite, please accept my most sincere condolences for the sharp blow to the head you must have received to muddy your decision-making processes...
That is all.
25 comments:
Toyota was trying to suck in younger parents with an entry level station wagon. It worked, although it was ugly as a bucket of cow rectums. My sister bought one of the first ones and has bought nothing but Toyotas since.
I was going to tell you that you forgot the Nissan B210, but that was an incredibly ugly 1970s car. Just goes to show I really am old.
Did you forget the original Toyota Van? That was an ugly 1980s car too.
I have a soft spot for the Toyota van, since I owned one.
Called it "The Toaster". Bought it off the UNH farm school for $500 with only 86,000 miles on it. You had to lift up the driver's seat to work on the engine, and the battery was in a compartment at the feet of the middle seat row...
I drove it for exactly five months before some doofus in an SUV plowed into it at 60 MPH - he thought that having rear wheel ABS meant he could stop on a dime. In the rain.
Damn, I miss that van...
Hey, Zuk's are great to turn into little off-roading monsters. Drop a tracker engine in them, and they are pretty peppy. Plus, the little bastards can go anywhere.
Mercedes 190 - typical Dallas comment: oh. you got the cheap one?
Speaking of the 924. The 944 was a kickass car aside from the anemic 4 banger (why o why would you have an interference motor with timing belts that easily broke?)
the 944 would be a FUN car if you stuffed something like an EJ20 or EJ25 motor from the WRX or STi into it.
I had an 89 Prelude, and it was my favorite car for daily driving of all I've owned. The handling and road feel was great, even with 200,000 miles. Power was adequate, especially since you didn't have to slow down much for corners. Mine was the version with a 135hp engine, probably made a good bit of difference.
I am still trying to figure out what the hell Toyota was trying to do with the Tercel 4wd wagon.
During the the mid-80s, Japanese carmakers attempted a trend toward vehicles that came from backyard matings between a compact car and a Jeep Cherokee. Basically they were a first attempt at the SUV concept, but built on a car chassis instead of a truck chassis. The Tercel wagon was one example; the Honda Civic "Tallboy" wagon was another.
Renault Le Car. Ugly, unreliable, and french. Kind of a trifecta, there.
Ooooh... I forgot that one...
And the Fuego. Anyone else remember the Fuego???
Offoraders still love the Samurai, as capable and sturdy.
(And what's wrong with the 190s?
It's not like Mercedes had never made a small car; there wasn't that much room in a Ponton.
As for over-engineering, that's not exactly news for Mercedes; one could easily argue that started 20 years earlier. If not "as long as they've existed".
[How would YOU control the A/C compressor in a car?
If the answer is "with a fragile capillary tube filled with freon acting as a pressure switch mediated by a rotary knob", you might be a Mercedes engineer!
If the answer is "with a simple I/C controller off of a thermocouple", you're sane].
On the other hand, even through the mid-to-late-80s, they were still built like tanks, even in the 190 series.)
I dated a gal back in college that had a Yugo and I am fairly sure it had A/C as a backup assist for a possible brake failure. If you turned on the A/C without giving it more gas you would slow to a halt. It was a remarkable POS.
You're mention of the engine between and under the front seats reminded me that the Toyota always reminded me of 1960s Econoline vans.
I always laughed when I saw one of the Toyotas, it was retro before retro was cool.
"The only redeeming quality of the Subaru Brat is that I dated a girl who owned one, and she had really big..."
...tracts of land?
Another vote for the LeCar. A coworker had one. It was a real POC; like a poor French copy of an early VW Rabbit.
Couple of folks beat me to the LeCar... Absolute POS!!! Best bumpersticker- On a Yugo, it said," 0-60 someday..."
VW pickup. . . wasn't that one of the signs of the apocolypse?
The Subaru Brat had a 4wd version, which had decent offroad capability, and a non-anemic turbo option. Add the rear facing seats, and the goofy passing light (center grill) and you have a recipe for fun!
"Regolith said...
"The only redeeming quality of the Subaru Brat is that I dated a girl who owned one, and she had really big..."
...tracts of land?"
A Monty Python reference, I love it!
Here's the real trivia/geek question. Why did the Subaru Brat have those seats mounted in the bed?
"Here's the real trivia/geek question. Why did the Subaru Brat have those seats mounted in the bed?"
From memory, and not google'd,
So it could be imported as a car, and not a truck. You see, if it has four seats, then it's a car. Tariffs and stuff would be different for a truck.
Was I right?
Yes Michael exactly right. At the time and well into the 1980s, if it only had two seats it was a truck, if it had four it was a passenger car and the tariff was much lower.
Which is I think also why Toyota used to ship their pickups with no bed installed. That was done by the local importers. It's also why the beds on those trucks rusted away in about a month.
The original Isuzu Trooper II had no rear seat either. That was added for the US market. At least for the two door versions.
That also should go down as a bad foreign car. True to the heritage of partial owner GM, they would start to rust and fall apart about an hour after the warranty expired.
Fun to drive, though.
A friend of mine claimed the inspiration of the Suzukui Samurai was as a utility vehicle for Asian pineapple plantations: narrow so they could drive between the rows, and light enough not to get stuck in the mud.
I once witnessed a Samurai in a nasty rollover accident. It was BAD. Traveling northbound on my commute I saw sudden dust-cloud on the opposite side of the freeway. I stood up on the pegs of my Honda XR650L and could see the whole thing.
Two cars in a parallell, slightly elevated double merge-lane for Hwy 880 southbound at Mission Boulevard (past the CHP weigh-station) had attempted to occupy the same space and collided.
From the dust-cloud rapidly emerged a purple Samurai *IN THE AIR* - that flew across the dirt median separating the merge-lane from the rest of traffic, and landed among the rest of the commuters. SCREEE-BAM! SCREEE-BAM! SCREEE-BAM! SCREEE-BAM! I heard screeching tires and banging as guys locked-up the brakes and cars started to rear-end each other.
Someone had put extra kewl and snazzy *BIG BALLOON TIRES* on the damn Samurai and it bounced out of control and SOMERSAULTED five times - I counted - crossing four lanes of traffic, hitting cars and landing on some, and ended up upsidown at the concrete middle divider.
It only took a few seconds, about as long as you could count to five and hear the bangs and watch the bounces. There was no movement from the vehicle and I was past it in those seconds. Going away I continued to hear SCREEEE!-BANG! as inattentive tailgaters smashed into each other.
I quit riding my big dirtbike to work after that since obviously my fellow California drivers clearly hheld an only casual regard for traffic safety. Later a friend who worked at a motorcycle shop drove into the snarl and said it took four hours to clear the freeway before he got to work.
Also after that I got rid of my small pickup truck and bought a F-150.
Lots of bad cars there, and I'd add the Renault Alliance, which is easily the worst car to get Motor Trend's "Car of the Year." (Everyone knows that title is a paid-for endorsement, right? After I learned that I never picked up that magazine again.)
Gotta disagree about the Prelude and Toyota Tercel, though, having had friends with both. The Prelude wasn't a fast car, but it was a darned nice car.
The Tercel was a pretty good car, too. Typical Toyota reliability, 4WD, practical layout, and a shockingly roomy backseat.
well those 85 tercels are still on the road, 4x4 that works well in the mountains where I live.
If you have one without rust and in good shape you can get $4000 because they did turn out to be one of the worlds most reliable cars, many getting 500 000kms.
I hve a 1985 tercel wagon 4x4 sr5 I jus bought last week 4 450$ it runs with 190k on it I also own a 1981 tercel base model I put a 5speed outta a wagon n it! Ima Toyota guy check me out on Facebook as Mike long from belen new mexico ull c my Toyotas
Had a '85 Nissan Pulsar. The peppy lil thing stuck to the curves better than most cars I have ever seen. Sure it was no superfast car, however it never claimed to be. I drove it for 350,000 miles until I blew the motor up that had NEVER been replaced. The headlights never tore up, nor did any other part of it except the routine wearout. You could fill it up and go 2 weeks on gas driving all over town! Perhaps you should actually own a car before you pass judgement! It was one of my favorite cars and if I could buy one today I would!
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