OT: From CNN/Time - The 50 Worst Cars of All Time

Saw that earlier today, but the "list" is tainted by a left-wing eco-friendly slant. The Ford Model T is a bad car because it made everyone want to have a car and drive and thus start us down the road to global destruction. The Ford Excursion and Hummer H2 are bad because they are big gas suckers, the Ford Explorer started us down the road to SUVs, and so on..

Dave

Concur, Dave.

Any one of those slots could have been more properly filled with the "economical" but self-destructing time bomb known as the Chevy Vega!

Kevin

No, that was the Ford Pinto (included). The Chevy Vega was the one with terminal body-rot. I actually had a friend who drove one with no fenders. He replaced the rotted body panels (the car was about five years old at this point) with motorcycle fenders and strap-on headlights. It lasted for about two years until the frame started to go as well.

Actually the ENTIRE list is this writer's opinion, nothing more and nothing less. It's puff journalism, not an objective ranking of the vehicles.

Two things that stick out for me:

1) The aerocar was the first car/airplane; it was designed and built in 1949. The prototype (I don't know how many were eventually built) is at the Museum of Flight in Seattle Washington. Go to The writer didn't do his homework.

2) multiple references to women drivers in SUV's etc etc etc; "Suzy Homemaker". Sexist slant that CNN should not have allowed. They'll get mail on this (whether they care or not is a separate question)

In short..... the list is humorous but means little. Puff.

--- Stephen

While body rot was indeed a problem, it was the lucky Vega owner who had one long enough to worry about rust. The aluminum block engine was a horror show in terms of overheating with resulting warped heads and blown head gaskets. Oil consumption was legendary, too. As my brother, a lucky Vega owner, used to joke when he pulled into the service station, "Check the gas and fill her with oil".

kc

I had a '73 Vega wagon with a four-speed -- surprisingly one of the best cars I ever owned. I got 35 mpg highway out of it and 23 in the city. When I went to Berlin in 1977 sold it to my brother who immediately complained he was getting about 20 mpg highway and 12 mpg city out of it. I told him that was a mistake, and he cussed me out over it. Six months later he called me back and said he still couldn't get my mileage, but instead was now getting 37 mpg highway and 25 mpg city out of it. I asked how did he get such improvements -- answer: "I bought a locking gas cap..."

Poor old beastie was not "Montego-proof" and got bloused in a winter accident while parked.

Cookie Sewell

Definitely a puffy piece, but entertaining reading.

You guys only read and comprehended what you wanted to see. Sure the author faulted some of the vehicles for being gas-guzzlers. In the Hummer H2's case, the author specifically said that the H2 was unfortunately released not long after 9/11 - during whose subsequent events your Elected official, in his State of the Union Address, stated that America was addicted to oil.

On the other hand, the author specifically faulted some cars for being gutless and wished the automakers had put bigger engines in them.

Don't try to categorize everything as left- or right-wing. It makes you look like a tool.

Major problem is that the author obviously knows nothing about vehicles outside the USA.

Where's the Lada Niva? The Reliant Robin?

Bloody amateur.

Cheers, Gary B-)

Thanks. Until you pointed it out, I didn't realize that I was a tool. Now I'll have to sit and rexamine my life and decide how can I not be a tool and be a free thinker instead.

ah yes, the 1960's credit card, a rubber house. i went from boston to seatle and only spent $11 on oil.

no zodiac's either? had to be the worst brit car of the 20th century.

Hear hear....making everything political, right down to humor pieces as this one was is kinda silly.

--- Stephen

>?cnn=yes

You mean the Trabant was missed?

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

Andrew DeBoer wrote: : : On the other hand, the author specifically faulted some cars for being : gutless and wished the automakers had put bigger engines in them. : Well, that can apply to any vehicle sold in the US from the late '70s to the late 80's, including the chebby corvette.

Damn near got killed while interviewing in Florida in a rented chebby shitvette, err, chevette. 15 hp to run the A/C, 5 hp to run the wipers/lights and fans did not leave much to allow the car to get out of its own way.

The Vega, and its replacement the Crapalier, were cheap cars sold inexpensively. And, a lot of the problems with the Vega were due to americans not checking basic maintenance items like checking water levels. I don't think they had an overflow tank on them. Mine did not. My crapalier had one, for all the good it did...

But, perhaps the worst bomb GM produced was the Citation. I understand GM is keeping its find tradition alive with the Cobalt.

Was the Yugo listed? No list is complete w/out that miserable example of eastern european engineering.

Bruce

A couple of decades back I had a nifty little sportscar to whip over Mt. Tamalpas too and from work every day.

It was a Datsun 1600 Roadster. Front end was a copy of an Austin- Healey, back end from an MGB. It had three serious problems. The power to weght ratio was askew. Too tight a turn at even moderate speed would throw you into a fishtail, on occasion a 180. Twenty pounds of sheet lead in the trunk helped, but two inch spacers on the rear axle did the trick. I had to flare the fenders to make the tires fit and the result was a very attractive modification.

Second problem was just irritating. Anyone know what ISO threading is? It's a cross between metric and SAE. Nothing fit if I had to replace a part. It did, however, have a nfty removeable hardtop with portholes lke a '55 T-Bird.

The one unacceptable problem was the design of the clutch. A metal protective plate welded to the frame "protected" the clutch from underneath. It was not accessable from above unless the engine was pulled partway out. Had to do that one too many times.:-(

Datsun came out with a new model with a 2000 cc engine after four years of 1600s. As may be imagined it was a horrible mistake to take an overpowered car and increase the power.

The only kit that I have ever seen of the little car was the original "Fair Lady" version. I think that it was from L.S.

tOM

Le Zebre! A car that could consistently suffer a major malfunction every 200 miles of travel, including such goodies as having the axle shatter and the wheels disintegrate. I'm glad the barfmobile Pontiac Aztek made it onto that list; that's one of the most subtly awful looking vehicles ever made by the hand of man. The brazed stamped tin engine on the Crosley Hotshot was a very novel approach, a classic example of answering the question no one ever asked. :-D

Pat

The Yugo was listed. In its defense, I knew a guy who had one. It was essentially a Fiat

600 that the Yugos built under (or without) license. He bought it from a local dealership that normally sold Fords. When he took it in for service, they told him to make an appointment to make an appointment, they'd have to order any parts that were needed and they'd let him know when the parts arrived. Three months later they still hadn't. Then he went to a Fiat dealership, figured out what parts he needed and bought them there. Spent a couple of hours under the spreading Chestnut Tree replacing them himself and drove away. He told me that anything else he needed, he went to the Fiat dealership for help. He also found out that the Yugo/Ford dealership absolutely refused to repair or maintain any of the Yugos that they sold. They just didn't tell anyone at the time of the sale. But what did you expect for a $3,000 car? Service?

A guy in high school with me had one. It was a damn fine car after he put a Ford four-banger into it and dumped the original engine. The Ford marginally fit. He also rebuilt a 1947 Playboy out of two that his dad found for him at the local auto graveyard.

on 9/10/2007 7:54 AM The Old Man said the following:

I once had a white 1963 Opel Kadett A, 3 door Caravan station wagon bought new from a Buick dealer. Water cooled 4 cylinder 1000cc (1 litre)

40 hp engine and 12" wheels. The only things good about it was that it was kinda cute, got good gas mileage, could beat a VW in a drag race, and the clutch plate could be replaced from inside the car. It was tinny, and I remember the sides and doors were no more than about 2" thick. Most of the metal body was visible inside the car with thin plastic covered cardboard door and side panels covering the holes between the sheet metal bracing. When it rained for any length of time, the car wouldn't start, requiring a call to Buick. I complained that it was no more than a driveway marker. One night, when going to work for a midnight shift, it had been snowing heavily (about 6") which then turned to freezing rain, putting a hard crust on top of the snow. The roads hadn't been plowed yet when I started out. I drove about a mile on the highway, alternately riding on top of the crust and sometimes breaking through. At the rate I was going, I figured that I wouldn't make it to work before my shift ended in the morning, so I turned around and went home, and called in sick. After about a half hour of googling, this was the only pic I could find of the station wagon (mine didn't have the aux lights):