Time's 50 Worst Cars Of All Time
Time's 50 Worst Cars Of All Time
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/c...45,00.html
Not a Benz on the list . '02 7 Series is though!
My dad had a Delorean and put 200k miles on it! poor fit and finish but a fun car none the less!
I had a Maserati Biturbo and put 4 miles on it before getting fed up with it breaking down! and costing big$ that's why I bought my first Mercedes diesel a 1982 300cd turbo diesel
I don't know if I understand some of the reasoning on this article. Lumped together are terrible cars that are just bad, and cars described as terrible because they were popular or iconic, increasing the amount of autos on the road.
The model T? The ford explorer?
this is the first knock on a model T I have ever read in my life, calling it the "yugo of its day"
Stupid
Eh, it probably was the Yugo of it's day. 100 years later and Ford is still hardly the standard of the world, but they keep going nonetheless. The Model T's success was probably based on the production line more than what the line was producing. Just because it was an important car, doesn't mean it was good.
I had fun reading the article, it had me laughing at many different points:
'70 Triumph Stag: "The Stag was lively and fun to drive, as long as it ran. The 3.0-liter Triumph V8 was a monumental failure, an engine that utterly refused to confine its combustion to the internal side. The timing chains broke, the aluminum heads warped like mad, the main bearings would seize and the water pump would poop the bed — ka-POW! Oh, that piston through the bonnet, that is a spot of bother. We'll not hear the last of Triumph on this list."
'82 Camaro 'Iron Duke' - "There was a time when 90 horsepower was a lot, and that time was 1932. Fifty years later, it was bupkis, especially under the hood of Chevy's beloved Mustang-fighter, the Camaro. As the base engine for the redesigned 1982 Camaro (and Pontiac Firebird), the 2.5-liter, four-cylinder "Iron Duke" was the smallest, least powerful, most un-Camaro-like engine that could be and, like the California Corvette, it was connected to a low-tech three-speed slushbox. So equipped, the Iron Duke Camaro had 0-60 mph acceleration of around 20 seconds, which left Camaro owners to drum their fingers while school buses rocketed past in a blur of yellow." Now I don't feel so bad about my 240D.
Posted by kamel - Today 02:17 AM
Where's the edsel?
Here - http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/a...81,00.html
Oh, and since I actually saw an SV1 in someone's signature here on the boards:
"The only Bricklin I ever sat in caught on fire and burned to the axles. This is notably ironic, since the car's creator — the smooth-talking Malcolm Bricklin — didn't include an ashtray or lighter in the car, to discourage smoking. Despite its hand-removing, 100-lb. gullwing doors, the SV1 was supposed to exemplify the safer car of the future; the name stands for "Safety Vehicle 1." The bodies were made of brightly colored, dent-resistant plastic, like PlaySkool furniture. Another safety feature: incredible, crust-of-the-Earth-cooling slowness. All those resin panels and compressible bumpers added hundreds of pounds that the emissions-limited V8s couldn't handle. This thing couldn't outrun the Rose Bowl Parade. Less than 3,000 of the wedgy coupes were built, but Malcolm Bricklin was far from through, as we'll see."
They made an ash/lighter tray been bag thing that they installed at the dealers??? And they had electric doors my dad went and looked at one new and tried to open both doors at the same time and overloaded the motor and couldn't get in. Then he went and bought his Delorean!
I admit, its loaded with snarky one liners that are hilarious, but I guess my point is that the definition of how something becomes part of the 50 worst cars of all time is all over the place in the article. Some or worse for being bad ideas, some for being markers in history, some for being old, some for being popular.
It just seems inconsistent. With the old cars, I guess I just get tired of reading these obnoxious articles that are so dismissive and contemptuous of these early automotive experiments and innovations.
The 300D and 240D mercedes, as well as the diesel VW rabbit are in this other book "automotive atrocities" if you want to be annoyed
For instance, the first one, the horsey horseless is actually a pretty interesting read and piece of automotive history. How is it a worst car of all time? The idea actually makes some sense for the time.
The horsey horseless was never built it was just an idea? Probably a good one for the time maybe a bit odd by today's standards but if you realize that 99.9% of all road travail was done by horse's that could easily be spooked by the loud obnoxious car's of the time just imagine if one of those Goliath's back fired in a street full of horse pulled carriage???
I think it was probably the idea of using the wooden horse's head as a fuel tank. That's crash protection worthy of a Pinto .
Yeah, it's a little all over the place, but it's just one writer's opinion. I found it kind of interesting that he spared the Chevette. And I almost applauded for not laying into the Corvair as bad as he could have.
That some tool considers our cars one of the worst of all time, and that it's actually in a book and not just some blog with 4 readers, only makes we want to finish my book, really. Apparently, anyone can get a book deal ;-). I can totally see how someone would think a G-Body Malibu would qualify as either a great car (if you're into muscle cars) or horrible (if you care about fuel economy, build quality, chassis stiffness, suspension geometry...). Our cars should basically be known as 'the perfect car if you really could give a crap about acceleration'. The diesel Rabbit on the other hand...at least it got outstanding mileage. Otherwise, even as a small car guy, too small and cramped, world's worst shifter (eh, that might be any A2 car, actually...), ludicrously slow (I felt like I'd already installed the V8 in the 240D blowing one of these cars away at a stop light!)...however, even with all that, one of the worst? Nah.
The way I look at the Model T bit was that the car gets put up on a pedestal for being an important car, and some sacred cows need a trip to the slaughterhouse. It was probably made as cheaply as could be feasible at the time, probably 'just ok' in quality for the time. Much like the M16 rifle, while it's now one of the best designs out there, when it was introduced for Vietnam it was garbage. Without the context, you could say it was either great or trash and be both right and wrong at the same time.
Anyway, I'd have to say my favorite nugget from this was from 'America's first sports car' (sort of) the '49 Crosley Hotshot.
"The first sports car produced in postwar America was a major hunk of junk. Actually, at 1,100 lbs and 145 in. long, the Crosley Hotshot was a minor hunk of junk, but at least it was slow and dangerous. A wondrously mangled and compacted Hotshot can be glimpsed in the 1961 driver's ed scare film Mechanized Death. The Hotshot was the work of consumer products pioneer Powel Crosley Jr., of Cincinnati, he of Crosley radio fame. But what he really wanted to do was build cars, which he did with middling failure until the doors closed in 1952. A Hotshot actually won the "index of performance" — an honor for the best speed for its displacement — at the 1950 Six Hours of Sebring, puttering around at an average of 52 mph. What killed the Hotshot was its engine, a dual-overhead cam .75-liter four cylinder, not cast in iron but brazed together from pieces of stamped tin. When these brazed welds let go, as they often did, things quickly got noisy, and hot."
Dude, why didn't I think of that? I've got a torch and brazing rods in the shed
Of course, mine would be a stroker, a whopping .95l
No way should some of those cars be listed. Yugo? De Lorean? Trabant? There are thousands and thousands of Trabants still running around. I mean its a crap car but they are still out there. Yugo? You get what you pay for it. I pegged the needle on one of those with 4 ppl in the car. De Lorean is a TIMELESS car.
Without those cats choking the exhaust, it would have had the power he wanted.
Trying to smuggle $24 million worth of cocaine into the USA didn't help the business either.
I used to have a file of the DMC-80 in Midtown Madness.
(01-02-2010, 10:55 PM)CID Vicious Oh, and since I actually saw an SV1 in someone's signature here on the boards:
"The only Bricklin I ever sat in caught on fire and burned to the axles. This is notably ironic, since the car's creator — the smooth-talking Malcolm Bricklin — didn't include an ashtray or lighter in the car, to discourage smoking. Despite its hand-removing, 100-lb. gullwing doors, the SV1 was supposed to exemplify the safer car of the future; the name stands for "Safety Vehicle 1." The bodies were made of brightly colored, dent-resistant plastic, like PlaySkool furniture. Another safety feature: incredible, crust-of-the-Earth-cooling slowness. All those resin panels and compressible bumpers added hundreds of pounds that the emissions-limited V8s couldn't handle. This thing couldn't outrun the Rose Bowl Parade. Less than 3,000 of the wedgy coupes were built, but Malcolm Bricklin was far from through, as we'll see."
(01-02-2010, 10:55 PM)CID Vicious Oh, and since I actually saw an SV1 in someone's signature here on the boards:
"The only Bricklin I ever sat in caught on fire and burned to the axles. This is notably ironic, since the car's creator — the smooth-talking Malcolm Bricklin — didn't include an ashtray or lighter in the car, to discourage smoking. Despite its hand-removing, 100-lb. gullwing doors, the SV1 was supposed to exemplify the safer car of the future; the name stands for "Safety Vehicle 1." The bodies were made of brightly colored, dent-resistant plastic, like PlaySkool furniture. Another safety feature: incredible, crust-of-the-Earth-cooling slowness. All those resin panels and compressible bumpers added hundreds of pounds that the emissions-limited V8s couldn't handle. This thing couldn't outrun the Rose Bowl Parade. Less than 3,000 of the wedgy coupes were built, but Malcolm Bricklin was far from through, as we'll see."
Oh, it was you. I just recalled seeing that name again (one of the reasons I liked the list was because of all of the oddities I wasn't aware of, and I'm pretty astute in that regard). Not my fault it was buried in that car list of yours!
If you want one that burns instead of explodes, the propane powered Morgan would be another to add to that list.
They weren't sparing of either hallowed marques (Corvette, BMW 7 series) or good ideas (Chrysler/DeSoto Airflow, dare I say the Corvair?) on this list.
I'd like to see the extended list myself, if an Iron Duke Camaro is up there, why not a 2.3l Mustang? I've driven cars and trucks with both motors and the 2.3 is by far the more gutless of the two (even with double spark plugs). My 60 Studebaker Lark VI probably qualified - a '60 car running a flathead motor! Couldn't get the 2 speed rear to work so top speed was something like 45mph. Rolled like a French car. However, I never, ever got more honks and thumbs-up from random people. That thing was a star anywhere it went. I'll have to dig up the photos from Luigi's Italian Ice Palace.
One other thing that just kind of connected: this is Time's worst 50 cars. Not Road & Track or Motor Trend's worst cars, although I'm sure there would be some repeat nominations (PINTO!).
I think the Mustang II should probably be on the list, even as a shared entry with the Pinto. (I'm really just hoping my cousin finds this post - he loves those cars, and I love to give him crap about it! "IT'S NOT A PINTO!!!!!" )
Oh, I'd forgotten about the Janus - "Built in Nuremberg, Germany, by the well-established motorcycle firm during a downturn in the two-wheeler market, this push-me-pull-you was based on a Dornier prototype and powered by a 250-cc, 14-horsepower engine, giving it a top speed of only 50 mph, assuming you had that kind of time. Its unique feature was the rear-facing bench seat, which meant passengers could watch in horror as traffic threatened to rear-end this rolling roadblock of a car."