yeah, and Opel has been owned by GM since the 30s! You would have thought that back in theose days when GM was demonstrating to everybody that they couldn't build anything but V8 engined gas hogs ( and still can't?) , that there was a lot to learn from those Germans over at Opel. Cars like the Corvair, the Monza, the Citation, as well as the Chevette could have been so much more adn maybe the US mfgrs. wouldn't have had to 'give' the car industry to the Japanese.
Towards the end of the tenure of cars like the "X-platforms" and the Pontiac Fiero, they were actually pretty good cars. That's not meant to absolve GM for those blunders. Just that they didn't put enough development time into them until the damage was irreversible. They may have turned into good cars, it was just too little, too late.
However, Cimmeron was just a bad idea, from start to finish. Isn't Mercedes the developer and the manufacturer of the "Smart" car? I predict that one will go down in the automotive annals as a great blunder, too.
And honestly, are there really that many differences between a VW and an Audi (at least base models)? Speaking of VW/Audi, how's about the Phaeton?
I was going to say...... I wouldn't touch an old (90s) VW, Audi, or Land Rover with a 10 foot pole or a full warranty that pays me for the suffering endured as well while the cars are in the shop. :lemon:
Towards the end of the tenure of cars like the "X-platforms" and the Pontiac Fiero, they were actually pretty good cars. That's not meant to absolve GM for those blunders. Just that they didn't put enough development time into them until the damage was irreversible. They may have turned into good cars, it was just too little, too late.
Yeah, from what I've heard, by 1983 the X-cars were pretty much up to "average" in the CR ratings, which was about as good as it got out of a domestic in those days. And for some reason, the Buick Skylark didn't suffer the same stigma that the others did. The Phoenix and Omega became such losers that they were dropped a year earlier, in 1984, their names never to rise from the ashes again. The Citation did make it through 1985, but once it was gone, its name was retired as well. The Skylark managed to sell about 100,000 units in 1985, which was fairly impressive considering the stigma the X got. And the name still had enough equity to get carried over to the 4-door version of the Somerset Regal. And before too long, they called the coupe Skylark as well.
And when you figure the A-body (Century, Ciera, 6000, Celebrity) was based on it, and some of those made it up through 1996, that showed the platform had potential.
I bought a new 1971 Vega, the Motor Trend Car of the Year for 1971. My first new car. I babied it, changed the oil and filter every 2,500 miles. Nevertheless, it went through two engines in 65,000 miles (one lasted 35K, the other 30K), both suffering from excessive oil consumption (a quart every 75 miles).
Aluminum block, cast iron head, for cost-cutting reasons. Good cars have the reverse. The Vega's block had no cylinder sleeves, just treated aluminum.
Exterior surface rust showed within the first 90 days.
By 1974, they had cured the engine problems (sleeves added).
The next GM car I bought was a ..., uh, no, I haven't yet bought a GM car since then.
In contrast, I knew a Chevette owner with more than 100,000 miles, and one with over 150K.
The early Vega with its tissue-paper engine must surely be one of the 50 worst cars of all time.
And the Euro Fords have been pretty much equally superior to their domestic counterparts, and still are. Such huge corporations have a loud inability or an ego-driven unwillingness to communicate.
Phaeton appears to be a used car bargain, much cheaper than the A8 it is based on (which also suffers from eye-watering depreciation), but I would be afraid to own a 15 year old model. Early 1997-98 A8s are worth very little already, there has to be a reason.
With all the Vega talk here, I have to say I thought the wagon version wasn't a bad piece of styling, its unreliability aside.
My 1st car was an 1963 Austin Mini (850). It needed 3 valve jobs. 1st week the font wheels fell sideways at a stop sign/ The drivers chair legs went through the floor due to rust. Going down the Westmount hill (Monteal) one night was murder as I had to zig-zag down the hill using my left foot, because the brake fluid resevoir sprung a leak. My 2nd car was a 1965 Morris 1100. When the valves went the Austin repair shop broke the 2nd & 3rd gear syncromesh bearings and I had to swallow 75% of the repairs. The a garage left the oil drain plug loose and the motor seized up on the hghway.The 3rd car was a 1967 Plymouth Valaint (not the Dart disguized as a Valiant) with no fins. Great car except the body rusted out in a year. The yellow colour went to orange. The next car was far better, a 1972 Datusn 510 automatic. Until it's accident it had no major problems. after these - 1979 Mercury 4-door Zephyr 1982 Ford E150 Triple E travel van modification ( after 7 years the doors and window trims rusted out) 1992 Ford Taurus long-stroke 6 (forever in for wiper motors, brake jobs) 2002 Honda Odyssey EX (current) (had a transmssison go at 180,000 kilometers)
I think one of the worst cars is the 1986-89 Hyundai Excel. My aunt had a 1988 Excel and she babied that car and it still was always breaking down on her. Hyundai had to keep alternators in stock because they went out around every 10,000 miles. Not only that the cv boots wore out very quickly. Thankfully Hyundai has turned things around and builds some pretty good cars now. So I think the biggest question is this. If we can forgive Hyundai for building some horrible cars in the 80's and 90's can't we forgive GM and Ford?
if you think the early Excels were bad, you should have seen what Hyundai was building for the Korean market, called the 'Pony' over there. Really bad! I don't know that the car buying public has really forgiven Hyundai just yet, there is a reason why they continue to have to discount them (and warranty them) heavily, and why their resale values are crappola. Same thing has been happening with the US manufacturers - big discounts and big warranties. The car buyer usually has a long memory and little tolerance for unanticipated problems/expenses on something they generally pay so much for. It is the 40+ folks that remember what Hyundais were or FTM what the Vega/Pinto/Chevette were, for example. The next generation would not have those memories (or experiences) , and are not nearly as likely to swear off Korean or 'American' cars - which undeniably have both improved to some point of acceptability even if it is still short of those 'Japanese' standards.
I had a friend at work who had one. Her engine blew at about 20 -30 (?) thousand miles. They tried to brush her off by telling her that she had to have receipts for all her oil changes. She had them. Then they had to admit it was going to take more than a month because they couldn't get any replacement blocks. The demand for them was huge.
Didn't the Fiero have similar engine failure problems? I seem to remember an exsalesman telling me about having 15 of them behind his Pontiac dealership waiting for engines at one point. This little fact was the determiner in his leaving the car sales business - forever.
if you think the early Excels were bad, you should have seen what Hyundai was building for the Korean market, called the 'Pony' over there. Really bad!
The Pony was actually imported to Canada and sold here in the mid 80s.
I guess we were used as a gunea pig for the North American market. The cars here were junk too, and some people I know will still not touch a Hyundai because of the memories they had with the Pony.
This is from Wiki about the Pony in the Canadian market:
The Canadian version of the Pony had to be changed slightly to meet standards of that country. the Pony was released for sale in Canada for the 1984 model year and ended in 1987. Differences between the Canadian Pony versus its European counterparts were left hand drive, 8 km/h bumpers, sealed-beam headlights, different locations of marker lamps, and slight alterations in interior instrumentation and trim application. Initial projections for 1984 called for 5,000 sales, but the final total was an astounding 50,000, and it incredibly became Canada's best selling car that year.
Now that I look at it, it had very similar looks to the European market Volvo 300 series:
Up until a few years ago I would still see a Pony on the roads (or parked) now and then in the lower mainland...they could be all gone now. Same for the Stellar.
to nominate the 1979 New Yorker to the 50 worst cars list, because my blue one died on me Monday night. It would turn over but wouldn't fire up, which is a stunt it's done in the past. Did the same thing yesterday. And today. Until I threw another battery in it and it fired right up. I guess the battery was getting to the point that it had just enough juice to turn the engine over, but not enough to fire it up...does that make sense? And annoyingly, it wouldn't take to jump starting, either.
But, I guess I can't throw a car on this list just because of a battery that (I think) dates back to the Clinton administration!
I did read somewhere though, that when these cars were new, the line workers joked about taking the next-to-the-last R-body off the assembly line, and taking sledge hammers to it as a celebration. Dunno if they ever did that though, or what fate, if anything special, awaited the last one off the line? It was sort of an end of an era...the last full-sized car Chrysler would ever build. But at the time, I don't think anybody cared.
I was a little extra-irritated on Monday night too because I had to work late, so the parking lot was almost deserted when I walked out into the cold, almost-freezing rain. To make matters worse, I couldn't get cell phone reception in that particular part of the parking lot. And just to make a trifecta out of it, my keycard wouldn't let me back into the building to use my office phone! How could something so pretty be so evil? My creme NYer would never do this to me. In fact, the creme NYer gave up its battery to start the blue one.
The most fascinating thing to me about the Fiero is how GM managed to make a two seat sports car feel *exactly* like you were driving an F350 pickup. How DID they do that?
If you have a car that is still running that is almost 30 years old, I don't think it is the worst car. A friend of mine has a 1992 Chrysler New Yorker with around 250k and it still runs great. They aren't the throw away car like the Excel.
A friend of mine has a 1992 Chrysler New Yorker with around 250k and it still runs great. They aren't the throw away car like the Excel.
Wow, that's actually inspirational! Which engine does it have? The 3.3 V-6? That was supposed to be an excellent, sturdy engine, and they still use them in minivans. It's low-tech by today's standards, but has stood the test of time. Has your friend ever needed to rebuild the transmission?
After building / selling ONE marginal model Hyundai is now peddling reasonably decent rides. The 'Big 3' have built crap for thirty years over and over and over again, -- THAT'S WHY!!!
I remember the first Sonata (what the Stellar grew into, but the US didn't get it until 1989) as being a real lemon too. I know someone who had one in the mid 90s - it was only maybe 5-6 years old, and it was very unreliable and falling apart.
I remember back in college, one of my friends took a new Elantra out for a test drive, and I went with him. I think this was around 1991. Even on the test drive, that thing felt like a piece of junk. Noisy, cheap, tinny. And I swear I even smelled something burning!
My friend ultimately settled for a '91 or '92 Corolla.
Back in the 80s my folks bought one of those K-Car-based New Yorkers with the "full Florida" treatment "(1/2 vinyl roof, opera lamps, fake continental spare etc. It struck me as an econobox masquerading as a limo. It would definitely make my list of 50 Worst Cars.
1957 Nash Metropolitan (this was one of the cars of my childhood). Would routinely get stuck in second gear. Top speed of maybe 50 mph on a good day. Not a good car to have in Southern California desert roads where everyone drove 80 mph. We used to drive on the shoulder of the road as a matter of routine. Chevy Chevette. A friend of mine had one; it could barely make it up a hill without a running start. the 1980 or '81 Ford Escort. Same problem. 1979 Ford Fiesta. Had to replace the water pump almost every year. Strangely I see lots of these in Europe; they must be made better there. The Pontiac Aztek could be the ugliest car ever made.
Actually believe it or not, it is the original engine and transmission. Her husband changes the fluids like a maniac, and has kept up the car really well. It is the 3.3 v6. It is a lot more reliable then the 95 Chrysler LHS that my mom had. She got rid of it when it had 68k miles on it because the transmission was about to go.
An old friend of mine had a poopy brown Pontiac Phoenix (X-car) in the early 90s....there were some hills it simply couldn't tackle. Another friend had a Bronco II at the same time, in high school...on one steep local hill he actually had to give up and back down it. Yet my less than muscle car of an old fintail can pull it without a problem.
That's one of the reasons I get a bit nervous about all these European transplants Ford is bring over. GM Opel or Ford of Europe, they don't have a good track record holding up in America. Hopefully things have changed.
This wasn't the Pontiac intermediate, but, rather, the Opel-designed 4 cylinder Pontiac-badged small car, built by Daewoo. It served as a replacement for the Chevette based T-1000, if I remember correctly. Anyhow, although I never had the misfortune of owning one, fortunately, I understand that this car was a pretty bad car, at least in terms of reliability.
The fact that I still see one on the road now and then, though, and as recently as last month - which is pretty unbelievable to me - suggests that it may not be bad enough to be one of the 50 worst. Maybe it's just the 51st worst car of all time.
I'm sure some of you remember these rather awful cars. It was yet another failed attempt by GM to compete with the Japanese. The Opel (Kadette) on which the LeMans was based would have had to be a much better car than its Daewoo built counterpart, in terms of build quality, at least.
Come to think of it, I think the Chevette and T-1000 were based on the Opel Kadette too. It's a good thing that GM didn't come out with Oldsmobile, Buick, and, heaven forbid, Cadillac versions of this Daewoo subcompact. Can you imagine the ad copy, "And now for you happy Cimarron owners who would prefer something even smaller, for your urban driving needs, Cadillac is proud to introduce the all new Cadilette. Now available at your local Cadillac dealer, at prices starting at $9,995...*or just $10,495 for the Premium, leather edition."
I'd been out of the country for several years, and had finally come back to the states in 1990. I flew in and went to the rental car counter to pick up a car. The 19 year old girl at the counter said to me "We have a brand-new Pontiac LeMans for you tonight". I said, "Oh, good.", thinking that I had been upgraded because they were out of low-end cars at 10 pm. The girl gave me the most peculiar look... I didn't understand why until I tried to find the car and couldn't. When she finally showed my my "LeMans", I finally understood that look.
The headlight switch knob came off in my hand when I turned them on the first time. Another demonstration of GM's death-wish, to my mind. They weren't satisfied with killing Cadillac - no! They had to start killing off the great names from their past too.
Of course they weren't the only ones. When I get to Hell, I'm going to ask to vist the circle where they keep the guy who OK'd the "Mustang (sic) II. The cruelest thing about that abomination was that it really wasn't any smaller than the original 65 Mustang. It just did everything worse.
Now, back to the Daewoo LeMans. My local mechanic of choice one time showed me a De Mans that had hit one of those reflectors that they put along the interstate. You know, the little reflectors that they put up on metal stop-sign posts? It darn near totaled that little Daewoo. He was horrified by the lousy sheet metal in that thing. That fact that one still exists is merely an example of the law of big numbers. One in a million survives the rust, one in a million doesn't blow up, one in a million doesn't hit anything.. Sometimes all those one in a million odds come together in the same car. Somewhere there is a museum quality Yugo, is it not so? :P
"When I get to Hell, I'm going to ask to vist the circle where they keep the guy who OK'd the "Mustang (sic) II."
I was at a car show in Cincinnati when they first displayed that thing. Get this - they had a whole display bragging about how it was close to the size of the original T-Bird! What a bunch of IDIOTS.
Nobody's mentioned the Ford EXP - at least they didn't ruin another great old name with that rolling disaster, a car about which Iacocca said "the young folks will just eat this up." Oops! :sick:
Ford EXP is one of the ugliest cars ever in my opinion. Especially the bugeyed example shown above. Looks like a cross between a Dodge Charger from the 80s (front end), and Escort (cabin), and a Mustang (rear).
I think the wheels were off a Mercury Linx or a Topaz too. :sick: :lemon:
Come to think of it, I think the Chevette and T-1000 were based on the Opel Kadette too.
You have it backwards, there were Opel Kadetts long before there was a Daewoo Industries but the T-Cars were descended from a Brazilian-built Chevy Chevette which eventually spawned the Opel Kadett C (1973-79). Daewoo's version was the comically named Daewoo Maepsy (a clone of the Isuzu Gemini).
I don't think the Daewoo/Pontiac LeMans (Asuna GT/SE in Canada) ever had an Opel variant.
while Cadillac never offered one, thankfully, there was some aftermarket company back in the 70's that would take a Chevette and outfit it with a pretentious little grille, nip and tuck the rest of the sheetmetal here and there, and try to stuff in a leather interior and some other appointments that were supposed to give the illusion of a luxury car.
I forget the name of the company or what they called the car, but I do remember seeing one on eBay once. Horrid little thing.
I believe you on that. Around 1990 when the Sonata first came out, me and my sister went to a Hyundai dealer so she could look at a cheap excel to get her through school. It was the middle of winter, although we do live in Southern Ca., so it doesn't get that cold. A guy came in to test drive a new Sonata and the car would barely start. Then when he finally got it started it died like three times. But, I guess they have come a long way. My cousin has a 2004 Sonata and it has been bulletproof.
some aftermarket company back in the 70's that would take a Chevette and outfit it with a pretentious little grille, nip and tuck the rest of the sheetmetal here and there, and try to stuff in a leather interior and some other appointments that were supposed to give the illusion of a luxury car.
I remember that one. I think it wa sposted in one of Fintail's eBay time posts on the Classic Cars forum. It was indeed ugly.
The Opel Kadett E was the basis for those hoary Daewoo/Pontiac LeMans insults we had on these shores...but I have to believe they didn't share much other than body shape.
Wikipedia claims 1973 for the Kadett C, 1974 for the Brazilian Chevette.
As often happens, Wikipedia contradicts itself, the article on the "Chevy Chevette" contains this line: The T-car was actually first launched in Brazil under the Chevette name in 1974, as a two-door sedan.
The '76 and early '77 Aspen/Volares were indeed horrible cars. But once they cleaned up their act, they actually weren't too bad. They became pretty obsolete once the downsized Malibu et al hit the scene, and the Fairmont/Zephyr, but the basic platform managed to hold on through 1989, as the Diplomat/Gran Fury/5th Ave.
I think this is one of those cars that's kinda like the 1980 GM X-body or the Vega...it seemed like a good idea at the time, but was just poorly executed and didn't hold up. If it had the quality to back it up, it would've been a decent car from the get-go.
Also, this is probably more of a sad commentary on police cars at the time, moreso than a defense of the Aspen/Volare, but in 1979, believe it or not, these things were the quickest cars out there. With the 360-4bbl (which not all of them had...some just had 2-bbls or 318's), they'd do 0-60 in 8.7 seconds and 0-100 in something like 22.7. I found some police car tests from around 2003 or 2004, and those cars (Impala, Intrepid, Crown Vic) weren't even that fast!
Okay, I'll stop defending the thing now. I do like some of its offshoots though, like the 1980-83 Mirada/Cordoba and '81-83 Imperial. The M-body versions (LeBaron/Diplomat/Gran Fury/5th Ave) are pretty nice, too.
The thing I don't understand about the Aspen/Volare is why didn't they simply rebody the nearly indestructible Dart/Valiant twins instead of coming up with brand new cars that weren't nearly as good?
My dad had two of them. I think they were first introduced in the late 1980's. The first one was hit in the rear and totaled when it had 2,000 miles on it. Its replacement was with us for a year or two. All I remember is that it was very unreliable. After experiencing enough "driving excitement," Dad went back to buying Hondas.
Another one to consider isn't simply the early Hyundai Excel - but the "Mitsubishi Precis" badged clone. When I was in high school the same friend of mine who had the gutless Bronco II had a Precis in his family. It was only a few years old then, and already unreliable. I remember this guy's mom had remarried, and my friend's stepdad was a bit older than usual - a WW2 vet no less, and when I nicknamed the car the "Zero" he got a laugh out of that. That car got claimed in a 30mph accident which completely destroyed the car, and it was replaced with a period Escort.
The thing I don't understand about the Aspen/Volare is why didn't they simply rebody the nearly indestructible Dart/Valiant twins instead of coming up with brand new cars that weren't nearly as good?
Having owned two Darts, I've often wondered the same thing. I remember an old comparison test done by some consumer magazine (not Consumer Reports, but something else, like Consumer Advocate or something?) where they tested the new crop of 1975 compacts. About the Dart, they said that it felt more like a well-preserved 1965 car than a brand-new 1975 car...but that wasn't a bad thing! I can't remember if the Dart won that comparison, but if it didn't, it still came in towarads the head of the pack.
The only thing I can really think of is that by the mid-1970's, they were trying to make small cars handle and ride more like big cars, and maybe the Dart just couldn't do that? The Aspen/Volare had transverse-mounted torsion bars, which were supposed to isolate vibrations. They also started isolating the subframes from the cars in those days. Instead of having the subframe bolted directly to the structure of the car, they put these big, donut-sized rubber bushings in between. Years later, when those bushings go bad, it creates quite a driving experience, as the subrame, which carries the front suspension and the engine/transmission, sort of gets a mind of its own, and doesn't always handle quite in unison with the body!
The Aspen/Volare were also wider than the Dart/Valiant. They had a wider rear track as well, but I think up front was about the same. Still, I wonder if they just opened up the rear wheel openings on the Dart/Valaint, if they couldn't just slip a wider rear under there? You can certainly put wider rims with more offset under there, which is sort of the same thing. Also, while they were wider on the outside, they weren't any wider inside...about 56" of shoulder room, which was about as wide as a compact got in those days. The Nova was about that, and I think the '78 Fairmont was as well. The Granada, Maverick, and Hornet were a bit narrower I think, more like 54-55".
They might have had to make the cars wider though, to accommodate the more sloping windows. The Dart's actually did have a slight curve to them, but weren't that noticeable.
I also wonder how hard it would have been to integrate proper 5 mph bumpers onto a Dart? They sort of skirted the issue by putting big rubber blocks on the bumpers, but I don't think they ever got around to using shock absorbers that would let the bumpers compress and then pop back out.
Another issue with the Dart/Valiant is that the 2-door models were pillarless, and that might have been an issue when it came to rollover protection. GM actually eliminated all of its hardtop and convertible models from the 1973 midsized lineup in response to proposed government rollover standards, which ironically never materialized. I don't know how hard it would have been to just weld a B-pillar in there? The Duster/Demon/Dart Sport also lacked a B-pillar. They weren't true hardtops as the back windows flipped out rather than rolled down, but the column they were hinged on was just a thin chrome strip, and didn't provide any structural support. You can actually take it out and remove the window, and make the car look like a hardtop.
I've also heard some people say that the '76 Aspen/Volare was essentially a heavily rebodied Dart, but I can't see how that could be true. Unless maybe some of the floorpan or rear subframe or something is still shared, or at least loosely related?
It would be interesting to see how long the Dart would have been viable, if they kept it going with a major restyle, instead of replacing it with the Aspen/Volare? If they had, then I guess the LeBaron/Diplomat, Cordoba/Mirada, and even Imperial would have been based on it.
Considering how quickly Chrysler was running out of money, I'm sure they still would have found a way to muff it up, somehow.
Gentlemen, keep it coming. I have been laughing my [non-permissible content removed] off reading all the accounts. My favorites: babying a Vega and still having 2 engines go in 60K miles, the Pontiac LeMans rental story, especially the first paragraph, and the mentions regarding rebadged crap like the Cimarron and the Mitsu Precis, yuck! Sorry, I know most of you went through great pains with these lemons, but looking back, I'm sure a lot of you just have to laugh at what passed for automobiles back in the day.
I have some experiences with 80's POS's. FYI, I turned 17 in 1992:
My first car was a 1982 Citation 4-door, blue. No matter how much I washed, waxed, and compounded, besides when it was wet, it looked like I had driven through the Sahara. It's undercarriage was so rusted, that at 6'3" tall, I sat lower than anyone in the passenger benchseat; it was so bad, it would scrape on speed bumps in parking lots. At one point, I had to stop on the side of the road, and rip a chunk of it off because the scraping noise was driving me mad! Can't forget the vertical radio, with aftermarket Panasonic tape deck, so you had to tilt your head to see the numbers well, and the cloth seats that each held about 4 pounds of dust and dirt. Here's the best one: the auto transmission practically gave you whiplash during the 1-2 shift if you attempted to drive the thing before the car was warmed up. One day, I made it from my sister's house to mine (1.5 miles, most of it up hills), caught all the green lights in light traffic, and never ONCE stepped on the accelerator, SWEAR TO GOD. But you know what, it cost me $200.00, less than that in repairs, and it lasted 14 months......until my brother-in-law borrowed it while I was away at college and it caught fire while he was driving it!
Dishonorable mentions go to my sister's 1987 maroon Hyundai Excel, complete with its laughable power and steering that made you wish for the steering feel of Sega's great "Out Run" video game from that era! As a kid that was always on my bicycle, I went with 2 wheels more often than borrowing this heap.
And of course, my oldest sister had a 1986 Chevy Spectrum (brand new-my dad bought it for my mom for a little under 10K, and then it was handed to my sis 2 years later). This POS had pads and rotors that needed replacing every 10K miles, negative acceleration, if that's even possible, and radiators, what radiators?
By the way, when my mom was so nice (or not) to give my sis the Spectrum, she herself ended up with a used, 1984........Renault Alliance, the upgraded one with the Motor Trend Car of the Year window sticker! Wow, that was another crapbucket.
I was wondering if anyone had mentioned the Renault Alliance, then I read ldl20's message, above.
Did anyone mention the the Eagle Medallion ('88-??), another Renault badged car that came with Chrysler's purchase of AMC?
Incidentally, the Alliance and Medallion were decent designs, with some appealing attributes, such as excellent ride and fuel economy. Unfortunately, they were dreadfully executed, in terms of build quality, durability and reliability. They were very fragile cars, in their respective categories. The same could be said of the Eagle Premier, except in this case the fuel economy was only average.
Chrysler also introduced a Dodge version of the Premier, the Monaco (a name Dodge had used in the '70s for its large cars).
The Dodge version of the Eagle Premier was called the Monaco. One of my cousins had a Premier. They'd had a 1985 or so Chrysler 5th Ave before that. His wife got into an accident with it and it got totaled, and they replaced it with the Premier.
Now, when that car was new, he loved it. It was roomy, comfortable, and handled well. I thought it was good looking too, in an angular, boxy sort of way. It was a dark blue, and I think it had gray lower body cladding. I don't know what ultimately happened to the car though, as I didn't keep in contact with them that much. I think it did start to get troublesome though, and I don't think it was around for long.
The local Pontiac/Dodge dealer (Bob Banning, you might know the name HP, since you're local) had a Monaco on their used car lot ages ago that I drove. I liked the car, but had heard enough about them by that time to still stay away! Plus, the first-gen Intrepid/Concorde was out by then, and we all knew how much better those cars would be.
I thought the Medallion was a neat car. I drove one of them once too, that was on a used car lot in Laurel. I thought it was packaged really well...roomy inside, given its external dimensions. And it was just offbeat enough that I thought it was kinda cool. Probably would be a pain to keep one of them running nowadays, though.
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However, Cimmeron was just a bad idea, from start to finish. Isn't Mercedes the developer and the manufacturer of the "Smart" car? I predict that one will go down in the automotive annals as a great blunder, too.
And honestly, are there really that many differences between a VW and an Audi (at least base models)? Speaking of VW/Audi, how's about the Phaeton?
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Yeah, from what I've heard, by 1983 the X-cars were pretty much up to "average" in the CR ratings, which was about as good as it got out of a domestic in those days. And for some reason, the Buick Skylark didn't suffer the same stigma that the others did. The Phoenix and Omega became such losers that they were dropped a year earlier, in 1984, their names never to rise from the ashes again. The Citation did make it through 1985, but once it was gone, its name was retired as well. The Skylark managed to sell about 100,000 units in 1985, which was fairly impressive considering the stigma the X got. And the name still had enough equity to get carried over to the 4-door version of the Somerset Regal. And before too long, they called the coupe Skylark as well.
And when you figure the A-body (Century, Ciera, 6000, Celebrity) was based on it, and some of those made it up through 1996, that showed the platform had potential.
Aluminum block, cast iron head, for cost-cutting reasons. Good cars have the reverse. The Vega's block had no cylinder sleeves, just treated aluminum.
Exterior surface rust showed within the first 90 days.
By 1974, they had cured the engine problems (sleeves added).
The next GM car I bought was a ..., uh, no, I haven't yet bought a GM car since then.
In contrast, I knew a Chevette owner with more than 100,000 miles, and one with over 150K.
The early Vega with its tissue-paper engine must surely be one of the 50 worst cars of all time.
With all the Vega talk here, I have to say I thought the wagon version wasn't a bad piece of styling, its unreliability aside.
after these -
1979 Mercury 4-door Zephyr
1982 Ford E150 Triple E travel van modification ( after 7 years the doors and window trims rusted out)
1992 Ford Taurus long-stroke 6 (forever in for wiper motors, brake jobs)
2002 Honda Odyssey EX (current) (had a transmssison go at 180,000 kilometers)
I don't know that the car buying public has really forgiven Hyundai just yet, there is a reason why they continue to have to discount them (and warranty them) heavily, and why their resale values are crappola. Same thing has been happening with the US manufacturers - big discounts and big warranties. The car buyer usually has a long memory and little tolerance for unanticipated problems/expenses on something they generally pay so much for. It is the 40+ folks that remember what Hyundais were or FTM what the Vega/Pinto/Chevette were, for example. The next generation would not have those memories (or experiences) , and are not nearly as likely to swear off Korean or 'American' cars - which undeniably have both improved to some point of acceptability even if it is still short of those 'Japanese' standards.
Didn't the Fiero have similar engine failure problems? I seem to remember an exsalesman telling me about having 15 of them behind his Pontiac dealership waiting for engines at one point. This little fact was the determiner in his leaving the car sales business - forever.
The Pony was actually imported to Canada and sold here in the mid 80s.
I guess we were used as a gunea pig for the North American market. The cars here were junk too, and some people I know will still not touch a Hyundai because of the memories they had with the Pony.
This is from Wiki about the Pony in the Canadian market:
The Canadian version of the Pony had to be changed slightly to meet standards of that country. the Pony was released for sale in Canada for the 1984 model year and ended in 1987. Differences between the Canadian Pony versus its European counterparts were left hand drive, 8 km/h bumpers, sealed-beam headlights, different locations of marker lamps, and slight alterations in interior instrumentation and trim application. Initial projections for 1984 called for 5,000 sales, but the final total was an astounding 50,000, and it incredibly became Canada's best selling car that year.
Now that I look at it, it had very similar looks to the European market Volvo 300 series:
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Up until a few years ago I would still see a Pony on the roads (or parked) now and then in the lower mainland...they could be all gone now. Same for the Stellar.
But, I guess I can't throw a car on this list just because of a battery that (I think) dates back to the Clinton administration!
I did read somewhere though, that when these cars were new, the line workers joked about taking the next-to-the-last R-body off the assembly line, and taking sledge hammers to it as a celebration. Dunno if they ever did that though, or what fate, if anything special, awaited the last one off the line? It was sort of an end of an era...the last full-sized car Chrysler would ever build. But at the time, I don't think anybody cared.
I was a little extra-irritated on Monday night too because I had to work late, so the parking lot was almost deserted when I walked out into the cold, almost-freezing rain. To make matters worse, I couldn't get cell phone reception in that particular part of the parking lot. And just to make a trifecta out of it, my keycard wouldn't let me back into the building to use my office phone! How could something so pretty be so evil? My creme NYer would never do this to me. In fact, the creme NYer gave up its battery to start the blue one.
I figure most entry level Hyundais were throwaway cars. Once they broke nobody bothered to fix them, it wasn't worth it.
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Wow, that's actually inspirational! Which engine does it have? The 3.3 V-6? That was supposed to be an excellent, sturdy engine, and they still use them in minivans. It's low-tech by today's standards, but has stood the test of time. Has your friend ever needed to rebuild the transmission?
Front suspension came off the Chevette, and the rear suspension was from the Citation, turned backwards. :sick:
After building / selling ONE marginal model Hyundai is now peddling reasonably decent rides.
The 'Big 3' have built crap for thirty years over and over and over again, -- THAT'S WHY!!!
My friend ultimately settled for a '91 or '92 Corolla.
Hyundai really has come a long way.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Chevy Chevette. A friend of mine had one; it could barely make it up a hill without a running start.
the 1980 or '81 Ford Escort. Same problem.
1979 Ford Fiesta. Had to replace the water pump almost every year. Strangely I see lots of these in Europe; they must be made better there.
The Pontiac Aztek could be the ugliest car ever made.
'24 Chevy Blazer EV 2LT
That's one of the reasons I get a bit nervous about all these European transplants Ford is bring over. GM Opel or Ford of Europe, they don't have a good track record holding up in America. Hopefully things have changed.
The fact that I still see one on the road now and then, though, and as recently as last month - which is pretty unbelievable to me - suggests that it may not be bad enough to be one of the 50 worst. Maybe it's just the 51st worst car of all time.
I'm sure some of you remember these rather awful cars. It was yet another failed attempt by GM to compete with the Japanese. The Opel (Kadette) on which the LeMans was based would have had to be a much better car than its Daewoo built counterpart, in terms of build quality, at least.
Come to think of it, I think the Chevette and T-1000 were based on the Opel Kadette too. It's a good thing that GM didn't come out with Oldsmobile, Buick, and, heaven forbid, Cadillac versions of this Daewoo subcompact. Can you imagine the ad copy, "And now for you happy Cimarron owners who would prefer something even smaller, for your urban driving needs, Cadillac is proud to introduce the all new Cadilette. Now available at your local Cadillac dealer, at prices starting at $9,995...*or just $10,495 for the Premium, leather edition."
The headlight switch knob came off in my hand when I turned them on the first time.
Another demonstration of GM's death-wish, to my mind. They weren't satisfied with killing Cadillac - no! They had to start killing off the great names from their past too.
Of course they weren't the only ones. When I get to Hell, I'm going to ask to vist the circle where they keep the guy who OK'd the "Mustang (sic) II. The cruelest thing about that abomination was that it really wasn't any smaller than the original 65 Mustang. It just did everything worse.
Now, back to the Daewoo LeMans. My local mechanic of choice one time showed me a De Mans that had hit one of those reflectors that they put along the interstate. You know, the little reflectors that they put up on metal stop-sign posts? It darn near totaled that little Daewoo. He was horrified by the lousy sheet metal in that thing. That fact that one still exists is merely an example of the law of big numbers. One in a million survives the rust, one in a million doesn't blow up, one in a million doesn't hit anything.. Sometimes all those one in a million odds come together in the same car. Somewhere there is a museum quality Yugo, is it not so? :P
I was at a car show in Cincinnati when they first displayed that thing. Get this - they had a whole display bragging about how it was close to the size of the original T-Bird! What a bunch of IDIOTS.
Nobody's mentioned the Ford EXP - at least they didn't ruin another great old name with that rolling disaster, a car about which Iacocca said "the young folks will just eat this up." Oops! :sick:
I think the wheels were off a Mercury Linx or a Topaz too. :sick: :lemon:
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Come to think of it, I think the Chevette and T-1000 were based on the Opel Kadette too.
You have it backwards, there were Opel Kadetts long before there was a Daewoo Industries but the T-Cars were descended from a Brazilian-built Chevy Chevette which eventually spawned the Opel Kadett C (1973-79). Daewoo's version was the comically named Daewoo Maepsy (a clone of the Isuzu Gemini).
I don't think the Daewoo/Pontiac LeMans (Asuna GT/SE in Canada) ever had an Opel variant.
Wikipedia-Daewoo LeMans.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
I forget the name of the company or what they called the car, but I do remember seeing one on eBay once. Horrid little thing.
I remember that one. I think it wa sposted in one of Fintail's eBay time posts on the Classic Cars forum. It was indeed ugly.
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Wikipedia claims 1973 for the Kadett C, 1974 for the Brazilian Chevette.
I had one buddy who traded in his crappy Chevy Vega Wagon for...would you believe..a Dodge Aspen, both were stick-shift wagons.
Did I mention he was very cheap.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
I think this is one of those cars that's kinda like the 1980 GM X-body or the Vega...it seemed like a good idea at the time, but was just poorly executed and didn't hold up. If it had the quality to back it up, it would've been a decent car from the get-go.
Also, this is probably more of a sad commentary on police cars at the time, moreso than a defense of the Aspen/Volare, but in 1979, believe it or not, these things were the quickest cars out there. With the 360-4bbl (which not all of them had...some just had 2-bbls or 318's), they'd do 0-60 in 8.7 seconds and 0-100 in something like 22.7. I found some police car tests from around 2003 or 2004, and those cars (Impala, Intrepid, Crown Vic) weren't even that fast!
Okay, I'll stop defending the thing now. I do like some of its offshoots though, like the 1980-83 Mirada/Cordoba and '81-83 Imperial. The M-body versions (LeBaron/Diplomat/Gran Fury/5th Ave) are pretty nice, too.
In other "Worst Car" news, Zastava has ceased production of the Yugo after 30 years.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
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Having owned two Darts, I've often wondered the same thing. I remember an old comparison test done by some consumer magazine (not Consumer Reports, but something else, like Consumer Advocate or something?) where they tested the new crop of 1975 compacts. About the Dart, they said that it felt more like a well-preserved 1965 car than a brand-new 1975 car...but that wasn't a bad thing! I can't remember if the Dart won that comparison, but if it didn't, it still came in towarads the head of the pack.
The only thing I can really think of is that by the mid-1970's, they were trying to make small cars handle and ride more like big cars, and maybe the Dart just couldn't do that? The Aspen/Volare had transverse-mounted torsion bars, which were supposed to isolate vibrations. They also started isolating the subframes from the cars in those days. Instead of having the subframe bolted directly to the structure of the car, they put these big, donut-sized rubber bushings in between. Years later, when those bushings go bad, it creates quite a driving experience, as the subrame, which carries the front suspension and the engine/transmission, sort of gets a mind of its own, and doesn't always handle quite in unison with the body!
The Aspen/Volare were also wider than the Dart/Valiant. They had a wider rear track as well, but I think up front was about the same. Still, I wonder if they just opened up the rear wheel openings on the Dart/Valaint, if they couldn't just slip a wider rear under there? You can certainly put wider rims with more offset under there, which is sort of the same thing. Also, while they were wider on the outside, they weren't any wider inside...about 56" of shoulder room, which was about as wide as a compact got in those days. The Nova was about that, and I think the '78 Fairmont was as well. The Granada, Maverick, and Hornet were a bit narrower I think, more like 54-55".
They might have had to make the cars wider though, to accommodate the more sloping windows. The Dart's actually did have a slight curve to them, but weren't that noticeable.
I also wonder how hard it would have been to integrate proper 5 mph bumpers onto a Dart? They sort of skirted the issue by putting big rubber blocks on the bumpers, but I don't think they ever got around to using shock absorbers that would let the bumpers compress and then pop back out.
Another issue with the Dart/Valiant is that the 2-door models were pillarless, and that might have been an issue when it came to rollover protection. GM actually eliminated all of its hardtop and convertible models from the 1973 midsized lineup in response to proposed government rollover standards, which ironically never materialized. I don't know how hard it would have been to just weld a B-pillar in there? The Duster/Demon/Dart Sport also lacked a B-pillar. They weren't true hardtops as the back windows flipped out rather than rolled down, but the column they were hinged on was just a thin chrome strip, and didn't provide any structural support. You can actually take it out and remove the window, and make the car look like a hardtop.
I've also heard some people say that the '76 Aspen/Volare was essentially a heavily rebodied Dart, but I can't see how that could be true. Unless maybe some of the floorpan or rear subframe or something is still shared, or at least loosely related?
It would be interesting to see how long the Dart would have been viable, if they kept it going with a major restyle, instead of replacing it with the Aspen/Volare? If they had, then I guess the LeBaron/Diplomat, Cordoba/Mirada, and even Imperial would have been based on it.
Considering how quickly Chrysler was running out of money, I'm sure they still would have found a way to muff it up, somehow.
I have some experiences with 80's POS's. FYI, I turned 17 in 1992:
My first car was a 1982 Citation 4-door, blue. No matter how much I washed, waxed, and compounded, besides when it was wet, it looked like I had driven through the Sahara. It's undercarriage was so rusted, that at 6'3" tall, I sat lower than anyone in the passenger benchseat; it was so bad, it would scrape on speed bumps in parking lots. At one point, I had to stop on the side of the road, and rip a chunk of it off because the scraping noise was driving me mad! Can't forget the vertical radio, with aftermarket Panasonic tape deck, so you had to tilt your head to see the numbers well, and the cloth seats that each held about 4 pounds of dust and dirt. Here's the best one: the auto transmission practically gave you whiplash during the 1-2 shift if you attempted to drive the thing before the car was warmed up. One day, I made it from my sister's house to mine (1.5 miles, most of it up hills), caught all the green lights in light traffic, and never ONCE stepped on the accelerator, SWEAR TO GOD. But you know what, it cost me $200.00, less than that in repairs, and it lasted 14 months......until my brother-in-law borrowed it while I was away at college and it caught fire while he was driving it!
Dishonorable mentions go to my sister's 1987 maroon Hyundai Excel, complete with its laughable power and steering that made you wish for the steering feel of Sega's great "Out Run" video game from that era! As a kid that was always on my bicycle, I went with 2 wheels more often than borrowing this heap.
And of course, my oldest sister had a 1986 Chevy Spectrum (brand new-my dad bought it for my mom for a little under 10K, and then it was handed to my sis 2 years later). This POS had pads and rotors that needed replacing every 10K miles, negative acceleration, if that's even possible, and radiators, what radiators?
By the way, when my mom was so nice (or not) to give my sis the Spectrum, she herself ended up with a used, 1984........Renault Alliance, the upgraded one with the Motor Trend Car of the Year window sticker! Wow, that was another crapbucket.
Gotta love the 80's
Did anyone mention the the Eagle Medallion ('88-??), another Renault badged car that came with Chrysler's purchase of AMC?
Incidentally, the Alliance and Medallion were decent designs, with some appealing attributes, such as excellent ride and fuel economy. Unfortunately, they were dreadfully executed, in terms of build quality, durability and reliability. They were very fragile cars, in their respective categories. The same could be said of the Eagle Premier, except in this case the fuel economy was only average.
Chrysler also introduced a Dodge version of the Premier, the Monaco (a name Dodge had used in the '70s for its large cars).
Now, when that car was new, he loved it. It was roomy, comfortable, and handled well. I thought it was good looking too, in an angular, boxy sort of way. It was a dark blue, and I think it had gray lower body cladding. I don't know what ultimately happened to the car though, as I didn't keep in contact with them that much. I think it did start to get troublesome though, and I don't think it was around for long.
The local Pontiac/Dodge dealer (Bob Banning, you might know the name HP, since you're local) had a Monaco on their used car lot ages ago that I drove. I liked the car, but had heard enough about them by that time to still stay away! Plus, the first-gen Intrepid/Concorde was out by then, and we all knew how much better those cars would be.
I thought the Medallion was a neat car. I drove one of them once too, that was on a used car lot in Laurel. I thought it was packaged really well...roomy inside, given its external dimensions. And it was just offbeat enough that I thought it was kinda cool. Probably would be a pain to keep one of them running nowadays, though.
Sure do; I bought my '86 Grand Am from that dealership. They had a Pontiac and Dodge franchise back then. Is Bob Banning still in business?
The next time I see you I'll share an interesting story about my experience with Bob Banning, that's easier to tell verbally than in writing.