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Quintessential Mid 90's Loser Cars
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girlfriendwife had this guy who's now a lawyer who still had a crush on her from high school driving around our house and neighborhood in a brand-new black Mercedes E-Class. She saw him once in 20 years at her high school reunion and he cried when she told him she had a boyfriend (me). After the reunion, he drove around our house looking for her for the next five years and only spotted my ugly mug instead! Finally, the guy gave up and married this big nasty girl who probably kicks his butt every night. Speaking of loser cars, didn't your cow-irker have an Olds Silhouette minivan?The "Cadillac of Minivans" lol
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
I can vouch for that. Had one for a rental back in the day and managed a speeding ticket in it.
Cadillac of minivans - almost cost me a keyboard.
The Yugo is its own little category. Didn't they only go to 1992? Not quite mid-nineties. One of the best arguments against Reaganomics was the fact that it produced Yugos in the marketplace.... Fiats without the world famous Italian quality control....
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
The GM dustbuster minivans...at least they were original and had dent-resistant body panels. The 'softening up' of the front end near the end of the model run, was an improvement IMHO.
I'd better watch it..my Edmunds 'handle' was put out there some time back when I couldn't think of anything else. I'm sure my wife's Uplander will be on a similar list for the decade after the '90's!
Bill
I bought a brand-new bright red '89 Beretta GT, which I enjoyed (before they started putting large graphics to differentiate the GT model); I also bought a new '90 Corsica 4-cyl. 5-speed which was reliable and still good-looking after 108K miles (in fact I think Corsicas looked good for a four-door; better than the Beretta), and I bought a new '93 Caprice Classic with F41 suspension. I was 35 and my wife 28 when we bought that car; I'm sure we were Chevy's youngest Caprice customers that year!
My mother-in-law had a bright blue Honda delSol bought by her gentleman friend because he thought she looked 'cute' in it. Yes, I had a Caprice when my mother-in-law had a Del Sol!
Bill
wow, you guys are rough...
i've owned two of the vehicles on the list, and i liked both of them... an 89 LeMans that my wife drove for 2-3 years, and a 92 aerostar that, mile for mile, was probably the most expensive car i've owned... it leaked something different every 3 months, it seemed. so yeah it was a piece all right.
for all that, i really liked the aerostar for hauling, traveling, and canoeing. a very pleasant vehicle for a family with a small child.
And the LeMans was cool because (i) it was a carbon copy of the mid-80s Opel Kadett (E); (ii) i got it for $1,500 bucks, and (iii) it was dirt-cheap to run, easy to fix, and fairly reliable. of course, ours had no p/s no a/c no cruise no nuthin.. there wasn't much left to break.
i'm gonna also have to disagree with the suzuki sidekick someone mentioned; those are considered excellent off-roaders. not that i'd want one myself.
most of the others, esp. the corsica/beretta/skylark/... are just foul.
cheers -mathias
Notice that there's little, if any, consensus.
My neighbor has an Aerostar and it is a good hauler, 4x4 to boot. His drives like a sick pig however.
OT - I haven't thought about an Opel Kadett for years. Wasn't there a Miata-like one that had flip up headlights?
I wonder if the car would have more success under a different name. Maybe the fact that GM took a legendary name and slapped it onto a Korean subcompact ticked off and turned off people from trying it that otherwise would have bought it if it were named something else.
And steine, don't worry if you had these before. The whole discussions is whether anyone drives these cars now, and how they're perceived by others for doing so.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
And a POS to boot...........You must of been lucky!
I guess the Kadetts for the Euro market were built in Germany and were of much better quality.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
except the one my uncle bought, which turned out to have been painted but not primed. really.
i think that was his last opel... -mathias
And a POS to boot...........You must of been lucky!
Half right. They were Daewoos, not Kias. Kia built the Ford Festiva, which was a heck of a lot more reliable, but not exactly a "winner car."
Not sure if I'd consider them total "loser cars" as I remember the reviews saying they handled very sporty (might even have a lotus designed suspension under there) but they were damn fugly.
I would drive one.
Neither the Festiva nor the Aspire were significant, but, then, much of what we talk about in these discusssions is trivial. Oh, well, it's harmless fun.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
and pretty well built, too, by all accounts.
-mathias
Europe had that 121 for a long time as steine mentions - and they were never cursed with the Aspire, in the terrible period colors I remember. The car itself was bad enough, but it seems half of them around here were teal, purple, kind of a dark magenta, etc. I'd say the Aspire has to rank way up there for the subject of this thread - if not just for the stupid name, for the low quality, terrible image, and I bet the mileage isn't even that great.
It may have been a loser car but it never attempted to be anything but a dirt cheap commuter car and it served my purposes at the time. I think it had about 60 hp, but weighed less than 1900 lbs, about 41 mpg highway. I still think the name was horrible though. It was imported by Ford from Korea, but had a Mazda engine control system and the distributor was made by Mitsubishi.
It's only a loser car if you drive one now.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
daewoo or kia.................both were/are a POS!
:P
As a sophmore in college (fall 1995 - spring 1996), the Residence Director (RD) (grad student in "charge" of 4 dorm buildings) of our dorm was a guy named Brian Klocke (Pronounced Clucke) drove a GEO METRO hatchback. The entire back of the car was covered in bumper stickers such as: VEGETARIANS ARE SPROUTING UP ALL OVER THE PLACE. Clukie had an assigned parking space next to a Handicapped space. We would come home late at night (on a Friday or Saturday) & 4 of us (I've seen 2 guys do it) would literally drag the GEO from his spot into the Handicapped space. The next morning before we went to breakfast, one of us would call Campus Safety to tell them his wheelchair bound uncle came to visit & needs to use the Handicapped spot, but there is another car without a Handicapped sticker or plates parked in the space. Campus Safety would come within minutes to tow the car away :P
Now the best part about this is, that one day all of us are walking back from the dining hall and Cluckie stopped us. He asked us if we saw anything suspicious happening to his car in the parking lot (because some of our rooms faced the parking lot). With a straight face, I said to him, "what, someone's messing with your car?" He said "no, someone's been moving my car into the handicapped space. It keeps getting towed away" My friend Munch said "you mean someone took your keys and moved your car?" Cluckie said "no, it is a pretty light car & if you got like 10 or 12 guys, you could pick it up and move it."
LOSER!
2001 Prelude Type SH, 2022 Highlander XLE AWD, 2022 Wrangler Sahara 4Xe, 2023 Toyota Tacoma SR 4WD
Human nature being what it is, in order to salvage any scrap of dignity, the drivers of small, slow cars would start feeding off each other. Our cars were so slow ( 0-60 in the 12 to 15 second range) that other drivers were probably unaware that a race was even happening.
The whitewalls and luggage rack just make this car, don't they?
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
your girlfriendsome girl you just met that you drive a Daihatsu Charade is probably a great way to say "goodbye" without actually having to say the words.They were actually pretty good little cars, but too expensive for the market. But yeah, loser material.
well..............you got this one wrong. i guess 6 outta 7 ain't bad.
I want to get one, thanks for replying.
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:shades: