10 Crappy Cars

Misc / February 19, 2010 / 147,599 views / Comments (39)

Man has been using cars for nearly two hundred years, and in that time, has created some of the sleekest, most beautiful mechanical creations in human history. The following cars are decidedly not those.

The Trabant

No list of bad cars can be started without the Trabant. It might be the most beloved bad car of all time. It took ten years to make one, it was partially made out of cotton, and had a gas tank you had to take out, fill with gas AND two-stroke oil, and shake it to mix it up. It had a two-stroke engine that smoked like a tobacco convention. If you wanted one object to prove Communism wasn’t awesome, it was this one.

They’re still viewed affectionately as the junker everybody in East Germany and parts of the Eastern Bloc drove. Except you had them for years.

the trabant01

the trabant02

The VW Bug

Wait, why does the fuel-efficient, light and cheap triumph of Western German engineering make the list? What’s next? Toyota…errr, Honda? Well, back in the ’60s, VW used to make its engine blocks and other parts out of magnesium alloys.   This is relevant because:

A) magnesium is really horrible, nasty s**t when it burns and

B) when it DOES burn…ever see somebody add water to a magnesium fire? It doesn’t end well.

the vw bug01

the vw bug02

The Chevy Corvair

The Chevy Corvair is why people made fun of American engineering for decades. It really had it all: it dumped exhaust into the heating vents. It had the engine in the back, making it terrible to drive on the highway, and if that wasn’t enough, it had the gas tank up front. So basically you were driving a bomb on wheels being pushed from behind. And even if you didn’t blow up when you ran into something, the hard chrome dashboard with lots of protrusions wasn’t the greatest place to hit.

The Corvair sucked so hard, Ralph Nader made it the subject of his book “Unsafe at Any Speed”, which resulted in major changes to consumer protection laws, and also a bunch of miserably failed Presidential runs.

the chevy corvair01

the chevy corvair02

Ford Pinto

Come on, like you didn’t know this one was coming. The Pinto is a legend for the easily ruptured gas tank. So much so that it pretty much finished the hatchet job the Corvair started on American carmakers. Although the Pinto’s “rolling bomb” qualities were a bit exaggerated, it still makes the list because of how much the image of the exploding Pinto endures. And, really, it’s kind of hard to argue with this:

ford pinto01

ford pinto02

Chevy Vega

The Vega really had it all. Rushed into production and designed to be dirt cheap, it had an aluminum engine that barely worked, and a whopping 90 horsepower. So it not only looked bad, it was wussy, too! Yay American manufacturing!

chevy vega01

chevy vega02

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Comments

http://www.zentastic.com/ Shannon Larratt

BOOOOOO! The VW bug is FAR from a “crappy” car. It’s brilliant, and surprisingly timeless. It’s simple and a great piece of elegant engineering, and still stands up against modern cars in its class with surprising amounts of room, good gas efficiency, and low cost of both manufacturing and maintenance.
http://www.zentastic.com/ Shannon Larratt

BOOOOOO! The VW bug is FAR from a “crappy” car. It’s brilliant, and surprisingly timeless. It’s simple and a great piece of elegant engineering, and still stands up against modern cars in its class with surprising amounts of room, good gas efficiency, and low cost of both manufacturing and maintenance.
http://www.zentastic.com/ Shannon Larratt

BOOOOOO! The VW bug is FAR from a “crappy” car. It’s brilliant, and surprisingly timeless. It’s simple and a great piece of elegant engineering, and still stands up against modern cars in its class with surprising amounts of room, good gas efficiency, and low cost of both manufacturing and maintenance.
T.M.

Hey, the Trabant is not made from cotton. It’s made from a mixture of epoxy casting resin, cellulose and plastic. This remarkable undestroyable and low-weight stuff is a predecessor of modern carbon materials but has been developped in the early 50s!

The engine was a 2-cylinder 2-stroke, 600 cm^3, 19 kW. But the car had only 600 kg. You could carry (!) this car with about six strong men.

You could fill in the gas mixture directly on every filling station. The gas pumps did mix petrol and oil. There was a knob on them for the mixing ratio.
T.M.

Hey, the Trabant is not made from cotton. It’s made from a mixture of epoxy casting resin, cellulose and plastic. This remarkable undestroyable and low-weight stuff is a predecessor of modern carbon materials but has been developped in the early 50s!

The engine was a 2-cylinder 2-stroke, 600 cm^3, 19 kW. But the car had only 600 kg. You could carry (!) this car with about six strong men.

You could fill in the gas mixture directly on every filling station. The gas pumps did mix petrol and oil. There was a knob on them for the mixing ratio.
T.M.

Hey, the Trabant is not made from cotton. It’s made from a mixture of epoxy casting resin, cellulose and plastic. This remarkable undestroyable and low-weight stuff is a predecessor of modern carbon materials but has been developped in the early 50s!

The engine was a 2-cylinder 2-stroke, 600 cm^3, 19 kW. But the car had only 600 kg. You could carry (!) this car with about six strong men.

You could fill in the gas mixture directly on every filling station. The gas pumps did mix petrol and oil. There was a knob on them for the mixing ratio.
SKJ

Ugh, the Bugatti was indeed crazy/insane, but it was far from crappy.
SKJ

Ugh, the Bugatti was indeed crazy/insane, but it was far from crappy.

jp

Do you even have a drivers permit?You certainly know nothing about cars.

SKJ

Ugh, the Bugatti was indeed crazy/insane, but it was far from crappy.
aloina

What about Renault, They are all junk, owners just abandoned them along the road. LeCar was mini-junk, and Alliance was Motor Trend 1985 car of the year, motor trend’s biggest embarrassment.
aloina

What about Renault, They are all junk, owners just abandoned them along the road. LeCar was mini-junk, and Alliance was Motor Trend 1985 car of the year, motor trend’s biggest embarrassment.
aloina

What about Renault, They are all junk, owners just abandoned them along the road. LeCar was mini-junk, and Alliance was Motor Trend 1985 car of the year, motor trend’s biggest embarrassment.
finntroll

you never had to take the gas tank out of a trabant .. thats bullshit i have been driving one for years
you just have to fill the oil first and the gas afterwards
and the car never had problems … and it cant rust cuz its made of cotton

Me

And in the eastern world there were gas taps that automatically mixed the two-stroke-oil in, thus one didn’t have to mix it oneselves. Though these taps might no longer exist …

finntroll

you never had to take the gas tank out of a trabant .. thats bullshit i have been driving one for years
you just have to fill the oil first and the gas afterwards
and the car never had problems … and it cant rust cuz its made of cotton
finntroll

you never had to take the gas tank out of a trabant .. thats bullshit i have been driving one for years
you just have to fill the oil first and the gas afterwards
and the car never had problems … and it cant rust cuz its made of cotton
Alien from Planet X

Another lame article with poor research. The Cord was an extremely popular car and every car guys has heard of it. used often in old movies and highly desirable and expensive. The Corvair had many draw backs but you mention none of the positives that made it popular, it got great gas milage for it’s time and was a surprising comfortable car for it’s size. It was fast and fun to drive. I had the pleasure of driving one for a year with my brother and a friend and we always fought over who got to drive because it was such a fun sporty car with great handling.

You seemed to pick mostly on American cars but every car maker had clunckers. I’ll mention my favorite clunker the Russian Lada. Hailed as Russia’s answer to Toyota and pushed world wide it was a piece of crap, it leaked in the rain, doors often got stuck, it randomly started and was a death trap.

In modern times I think the smart car will be added to the list of stupid cars. It’s so PC that no one dares to be critical of it, but it too is a death trap and is not much more than a motorcycle with a cover on it. Give it ten years and it will not be remembered so fondly.

You left of FIats, and Triumph also well know crappy cars that looked okay. At the same time that America was building crappy cars the Brits were equally known for junk as were the italians. Then you left of AMC all together. A company who once made great cars but in the end every model they made was uglier than the last one. How about the Pacer, the Gremlin. Dodge had a number of clunkers too like the k-car, or chevy’s citation a wimpy and ugly car or the more modern aztec.

Your list is too one sided and leaves off far too many actual clunckers to be taken seriously.

Rt Pittman

I think you’re right on with the Smart. In the fifties, the Renault Dauphine was the Smart. People raved about its beauty. It was bought as a cute toy. Consumer Reports rated it superior to the Beetle because it was water cooled and got better gas mileage. It sponsored the ’58 winter Olympics and the “winter wonder car” was the darling of the television screen. By 1960 you couldn’t give away a six month old example. They are remembered for their awfulness.
damystery1

They also left off the infamous EDSEL, and the old SKODA.

Alien from Planet X

Another lame article with poor research. The Cord was an extremely popular car and every car guys has heard of it. used often in old movies and highly desirable and expensive. The Corvair had many draw backs but you mention none of the positives that made it popular, it got great gas milage for it’s time and was a surprising comfortable car for it’s size. It was fast and fun to drive. I had the pleasure of driving one for a year with my brother and a friend and we always fought over who got to drive because it was such a fun sporty car with great handling.

You seemed to pick mostly on American cars but every car maker had clunckers. I’ll mention my favorite clunker the Russian Lada. Hailed as Russia’s answer to Toyota and pushed world wide it was a piece of crap, it leaked in the rain, doors often got stuck, it randomly started and was a death trap.

In modern times I think the smart car will be added to the list of stupid cars. It’s so PC that no one dares to be critical of it, but it too is a death trap and is not much more than a motorcycle with a cover on it. Give it ten years and it will not be remembered so fondly.

You left of FIats, and Triumph also well know crappy cars that looked okay. At the same time that America was building crappy cars the Brits were equally known for junk as were the italians. Then you left of AMC all together. A company who once made great cars but in the end every model they made was uglier than the last one. How about the Pacer, the Gremlin. Dodge had a number of clunkers too like the k-car, or chevy’s citation a wimpy and ugly car or the more modern aztec.

Your list is too one sided and leaves off far too many actual clunckers to be taken seriously.
Alien from Planet X

Another lame article with poor research. The Cord was an extremely popular car and every car guys has heard of it. used often in old movies and highly desirable and expensive. The Corvair had many draw backs but you mention none of the positives that made it popular, it got great gas milage for it’s time and was a surprising comfortable car for it’s size. It was fast and fun to drive. I had the pleasure of driving one for a year with my brother and a friend and we always fought over who got to drive because it was such a fun sporty car with great handling.

You seemed to pick mostly on American cars but every car maker had clunckers. I’ll mention my favorite clunker the Russian Lada. Hailed as Russia’s answer to Toyota and pushed world wide it was a piece of crap, it leaked in the rain, doors often got stuck, it randomly started and was a death trap.

In modern times I think the smart car will be added to the list of stupid cars. It’s so PC that no one dares to be critical of it, but it too is a death trap and is not much more than a motorcycle with a cover on it. Give it ten years and it will not be remembered so fondly.

You left of FIats, and Triumph also well know crappy cars that looked okay. At the same time that America was building crappy cars the Brits were equally known for junk as were the italians. Then you left of AMC all together. A company who once made great cars but in the end every model they made was uglier than the last one. How about the Pacer, the Gremlin. Dodge had a number of clunkers too like the k-car, or chevy’s citation a wimpy and ugly car or the more modern aztec.

Your list is too one sided and leaves off far too many actual clunckers to be taken seriously.
Ubel

@ VW Beetle: Magnesium is still used in many sports cars today, as it is incredibly light. BMW Z-series have engine blocks partially made from magnesium, if memory serves.

@Corvair: Rear engine is still used in many sports cars, such as the Porsche 911. It's renowned for improved handling characteristics.

@Bugatti Type 41: I can't believe this is on the list. It's such an awesome, good-looking car.
Einherji

Absurd to put VW “Bug” on this list on the grounds mentioned… No more than blaming the gas for being flammable. The VW “Bug” deserves its right as a revolutionary car which traces its roots far back to 1929, yes it has made it for 81 years now.
Guest

Very badly researched – nearly all technical details concerning the european cars are wrong – boooring
Methylik

If Trabant is a crappy car, then the logical consequence is that the author of this “article” is a moron.
The fact that he presents Trabant as a crappy car shows that he has no f**ng clue about what the Trabant is and can do. I had a Trabant for 20 years, it had low fuel consumption, I drove it to places where only 4×4 could go, used to carry weights 2 times the allowed weight.
Aba

Messerschmidt was NOT a bad car. And I don’t see anything wrong with the Vega either. It’s good-looking, and 90 hp was a decent figure during that time. The old rear-engined Skoda should have made the list though, and probably the DeLorean as well
http://canuck45.myopenid.com/ andrea

VW Magnesium alloys don’t burn all that well and VW is one of the best selling, longest lasting cars ever made. Gas tank in the front like the corvair and my porsche. Guess what, never heard of one blowing up when hit. Methinks someone watches too much hollywood movies.

Corvair: since then it has been proven the Corvair was no more dangerous than any other american car of the type. It shows how a lobbyist screaming loud enough can make people believe anything. Don’t know why engine in rear makes it hard t drive. I drive my Porsche no problem. And most dashboards of the time were hard.

Pinto:bit exaggerated???? How about ridiculously over exaggerated, welcome to media hype, anything to sell newspapers.

Messserschmitt ugly as hell but guess what, the design seems to be reappearing today. Inline seating, aerodynamics. Maybe it was ahead of its time.
Vairluvr

The author of this list is either demonstrably ignorant, simply trying to garner attention, or is Ralph Nader’s 12 year old skateboarding nephew.
Soviet1942

The person who wrote this is seriously one of the dumbest people alive.
Debrizo

The author of this is an idiot! There are so many errors, myths and half truths its just crazy ! To make things worse, his sources were written by people that didnt know what they were talking about either!!!
Bbobb

“Man has been using cars for 200 years” WOW!
I remember driving my 1821 Whatchamobile on one of the Interstates and how well it handled at
4 mph.
The guy who wrote this garbage better bo on the lookout for the mental police.
Wabbitkiller

This article proves that they’ll let pretty much anyone write and publish articles, regardless of how ignorant and stupid they may be.

The Corvair as been proven to be as safe as any other car of the era. As far as handling goes, I’ll take my 1965 Corvair against the author’s car, and not only will the Corvair hold it’s own, it’ll probably kick his butt in the turns.
Alecvmb3

of course…. all american old cars are famous and great and (shitty) but old european cars are crappy… f**k u !
really dumbest person alive…
these cars are still running a**hole !
http://www.rayskillmanautomall.com/page/finance_department/en/ Leisa Dreps

Whoa! Look at that Travant! I think I saw one in one of those local used car dealerships here in Indianapolis. I doubt you’ll find any of these cars nowadays tho – well, except for the popular ones like the Beetle.
Anton

The trabant was very reliable, durable and consumed very little gasoline. No, you did not have to take out the tank to fill and did not have to mix fuel with oil…so stupid! Trabants were cheap to maintain and I would say they were the most economical car on the planet. The body was ultra light and there was no corrosion. Trabants were easy to maintain and if ever needed a fix, any owner could do it, it was so simple. I wish the same mentality would exist today. We need cheap, reliable and durable cars, instead of the throwaway models we are told to buy.
Same for the Bug. One of the best cars ever made. The writer of the article is a fool!
Test

This is by far the most stupid article.
http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/QHRUML5XFH7AMSWH63TQH7F7E4 MalikTous

They should take the VW KDF (Beetle) and the Corvair off this idiot list and put the Russian Lada and the French Renault on it! Ralph Nader was a fraud and liar, his lies are ‘Unsafe in Any Context’, and his lies about the Corvair are why I’ve heckled and rejected the idiot for decades. While some early German prototypes of the VW KDF had magnesium-aluminium alloy versions of the engine, the production models had aluminium blocks and were still one of the most reliable and economical cars made that actually worked.
Kapten

Oh, yeah, they all suck indeed.
If you find any of these vehicles on your driveway or any place near you i will (for a small amount) help you remove them to give room for any tasteful piece of crap you think the space deserves better.

10 Crappy Cars

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