We have an active thread about the world's most beautiful cars. But how about the opposite end of the spectrum. The cars that are so bad that you can now (years later) laugh about them.

One of those car radio programs asked about listeners' worst cars and had some really amusing responses. One guy had a car that broke in half driving going over a railroad crossing.

I knew one guy in Tennesee back in the 70s who had a Ford Maverick. It was stolen and eventually retrieved out West. A couple of friends told him not to press charges if only the thief would tell him how he kept it running that long.

I have had some real dogs when I got them on their last legs. My second place nomination however is the newish Mitsubishi Pajero we had for work in Bolivia. It really makes you feel picked on to have to get out and push the vehicle up a gentle hill because the car does not have enough umph at 13,000 feet. By the way, Pajero means masterbater in Latin American slang.

Now for my first place nomination which I saw at the car show. The Isetta.

http://www.diseno-art.com/images/bmw_isetta_open.jpg

Back in the 60s, one of my high school friend's Dad was a Missouri Synod Lutheran preacher (right out of Prarie Home Companion) who had an Isseta. Granted he had a Beamer in the driveway, but still. They took it on vacation back to the midwest. The only gear low enough to get over the Rockies was reverse. They had to back up all the way over the mountains.

The Grimlin, any year. This car was butt ugly.

River

Heres a bit of a controversial one..Any Porche 911. Engine in the wrong place.Bad engineering that the Germans stuck at to show they were not wrong really.... VW (Hitler inspired) derirative. Sounds crappy, even the fast ones. Jelly mould body stlye and dull interior. Great gearboxes though

I agree they were butt ugly...they drove pretty nice though. That tough old AMC 6 in that small light car was great.

Riverwind (imported) wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2011 9:31 am The Grimlin, any year. This car was butt ugly.

River

One that stands out in my mind as an utterly useless piece of crap was the doomed Yugo. The ONLY thing it had going for it was it's price. They failed so badly that I haven't even seen one in a junk yard for 20 years!

streetglide (imported) wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:20 pm One that stands out in my mind as an utterly useless piece of crap was the doomed Yugo. The ONLY thing it had going for it was it's price. They failed so badly that I haven't even seen one in a junk yard for 20 years!

Worse than the YUGO,

I was told about "Polish Fiat" in the mid 1980's by a visiting scientist from Poland. He said that Fiat once built a plant in Poland and built a whole shitload of Fiats, little ugly Fiats, too.

Then in a political struggle, relations went down with the West and Fiat closed the plant. Since they weren't allowed to import any auto parts, they cannibalized already existing cars for everything. This was the car you bought two of -- one for real and one for spare parts.

And in Poland, a "Polish Fiat" became the joke for any falling apart car with no new spare parts and everything held together with bailing wire, coat hangers, duct tape and chewing gum.

And they say Ethnic jokes are rude and ignorant? There was once a car factory in Poland that only built cars and neither stocked nor sold spare parts. How stupid was that? And the Italians built it for the Polish.

Pontiac Aztek & Subaru B9 Tribeca are the ugliest things in recent memory.

2010 and 2011 Acuras. The whole lot of them.

Honda is building a great car with the Acura as far as the drivetrain and the interiors, but some idiot in their design department decided to take a car I was getting all hot and bothered over (the Acura TL) and in 2009 or 2010 put a f-ing bird-beak/bottle opener grille on the front of it. Ugly, ugly, ugly.

They took an amazing car and visually destroyed it. I no longer desire to get one.

Heres a couple charmers from the past, first the Edsel. The introductory year looked like it was adorned with a horsecollar for a grille, and then to make it worse the second year they added rows of small round taillights to the boomerang shape on the rear end. Then just to add insult to injury, they totally redesigned the edsel for 1960. Look that up on Google, they were seriously mistaken, the horse collar was by far better.

Fast forward about 20 years, and our pals at AMC hit the mark twice. First came the GOD-AWFUL matador!! Switch the taillights for headlamps, and it could be driven backward. The factory colors were all putid, and then to add insult to injury, they wrapped the top with even worse colors of vinyl, and then made side moldings out of it! As if they hadn't created enough shame for themselves, out they come with a new model, The Pacer. At its best it looked like a salt water aquarium with wheels, in its fake wood trimmed station wagon version, it looked the the incarnation of something that Mickey Mouse would drive. They were obviously scraping the bottom of the barrel design wise with both these models , which only helped to fuel the exodus of loyal AMC owners to the major auto makers.

Around the same time that AMC was creating their two abortions listed above, Ford dreamed up the Pinto. The cheap car for everyone, that in even a minor collision might explode into a fireball!!! Not to be outdone, GM issued the Vega, and a Pontiac version the name of which I forget. They had an aluminum 4 cylinder engine, with steel pistons, which ground away at the block til there was no cure for burning oil. They were economical on gas, but you had to stop every 200 miles for a fill up on the oil. Add to that that they used cheap Japanese steel, and in just a couple years they were rolling rust buckets.

While others might disargee, the real death knell, of the american auto industry was when GM and Ford both decided to shrink everything. Even the Grand Dame Cadillac lost 4 feet in length. to stave off the naysayers, they built the Fleetwood for a few years so you could still buy a land yacht, but only the one choice. American consumers stayed away in droves, and then came another 20 years of bad decisions, that brought us to the auto bail out.....................

Losethem (imported) wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2011 1:29 pm 2010 and 2011 Acuras. The whole lot of them.

Honda's designers suck...Every one of their cars sucks ass, design-wise...

Engineering-wise...other than the no torque 4 cylinders, they get it right..

They still hold onto their motorcycle roots...High rpm's, no torque..

Fortunately, they still make quality products...

Watch Hyundai...dragonfly