WORST CARS OF ALL TIME

Malcolm Bricklin was Yugo's old importer in the U.S., and he wants to bring the vehicles back. Malcolm Bricklin also built a vehicle called the Bricklin SV-1 in New Brunswick, and they say that if he ever sets foot in New Brunswick again they will shoot him on sight. Yugos, priced below $4,000 when first introduced, came to America as a great benefit to comedians, and at the expense of value-conscious customers. The GV was Yugo's bread-and-butter model, and owners complained constantly about engine problems, steering problems, problems with the stereo, problems with the floor--basically, everything. What worked in a Yugo worked as poorly and cheaply as possible.




With names like Borgward and Wartburg, some cars made in postwar Germany just seem to shout "junk." The name Trabant carried connotations of greater ignobility; it was a poor man's Volkswagen, and Volkswagen itself used to cater to budget-minded buyers who expected quality problems. Trabants were built of a material called Duraplast, basically because its Sachsenring factory couldn't afford steel. Duraplast was resin reinforced with cotton fibers, and it made the Trabants look, feel and last like Soviet appliances.




you want to know what sank Renault in the U.S., look further back in history than Le Car. The Dauphine, one of the first postwar Renaults, was analogous to the first Hyundai Excel: high volume, newfangled and bad. Renault used to be one of the biggest car companies; the Dauphine, a populist vehicle that sold neck and neck with Volkswagen's Beetle for a time in the late 1950s, started a pattern of unacceptable engineering that almost killed the company. Here are some sample horsepower figures from Dauphines of the 1950s: 19, 32, 38. Folks, we're talking about taking half a minute to do 0-60 mph.




the time Pontiac killed its unprofitable Fiero after a four-year run, the vehicle was quite good. But GM spent a lot of money fixing a car that was billed originally as a fuel-efficient commuter car, when buyers expected it to be a high-end sports car. Whatever they may have been expecting, Fiero customers got a car that was initially unreliable. Pontiac issued 403 service bulletins on the '84 Fiero, plus a recall for engine fires. The vehicle had particular problems with driving in reverse--the gear would engage suddenly, or it wouldn't engage at all, or it would just do it very, very slowly.



GM had two famously bad engines in the early 1980s: one that could operate on four, six or eight cylinders, and an Oldsmobile diesel. While the "variable displacement" engine was a pioneering idea that is just coming back on cars, the worst it usually got was that owners would have to clip undercarriage wires to get away from malfunctioning four- and six-cylinder modes. Oldsmobile's 5.7-liter diesel, which appeared from 1979 to 1984 on the Delta 88, was a bigger problem--a converted gasoline engine that was just a disaster. It would "smoke," demonstrating "rough idle" and "reduced performance," according to service bulletins




There's a good reason that rotary engines never really caught on. Rotaries--which run in circles, unlike pistons, which run up and down--are like diesels; they had major problems early in life, creating a buying populace that to this date does not fully trust them. Mazda's RX-2, one of the first rotary-engine cars, had problems with catching on fire. It also raised the classic problems of rotary engines: bad fuel economy and emissions. Rotary seals would wear out early in an RX-2's life, leaking fuel and emissions along the way.




Early Honda Accord buyers were delighted to have a small car that looked and drove better than comparable American offerings. What they weren't so happy about were young Honda's Fiat-like quality problems; had they remained unaddressed, Honda may have gone the way of Fiat in this country. The first Accord's fenders would rust from the inside out. Pieces of interior trim would change color or fall off. An Accord owner might change his transmission five or six times, as he watched his primitive aluminum engine blow its gaskets.




"You don't want to talk about the Pinto," said a Ford official. "Leave that one in the cemetery." Apparently, Ford has not forgotten the lawsuits and the public relations disasters forged by its Pinto hatchback and sedan. The Pinto's famous safety flaw, of course, was that it was prone to blowing up if rear-ended. When people talk about how bad American small cars created an opportunity for the Japanese to come in and clean house in the 1970s and '80s, they are referring to vehicles like this (and see Chevrolet Vega, second slide).




The Edsel is an automotive punch line, but its mechanical underpinnings were pretty decent; the car just never sold. It was overly laden with features and overpriced; i.e., Ford asked customers what they wanted to see on cars, but not what they were willing to pay for. Then, of course, we have the fact that the vehicle's polarizing styling drove it off the market two years after it appeared. Think of the Pontiac Aztek in an era when cars were mechanically inferior to the way they are now.




For its Strada subcompact, Fiat was issuing service bulletins--instructions that manufacturers send to dealers about recurring problems--before the vehicle ever went on sale. Lawsuits over rust--and that must be some serious rust--helped drive Fiat out of the U.S., and the Strada was a particular stinker in this regard. Its floors, suspension, wheel arches and engine mounts had rust problems--to name a few parts. Not that the engines were even worth saving; the Strada's "range" began at 60 horsepower and topped out at 75.




Here was a car that had the potential to be totally awesome. The Citroën SM's half-covered rear wheel prefigured the look of Honda's Insight hybrid coupe, and while the SM's bizarre hydro-pneumatic suspension was years ahead of its time, it was poorly engineered and designed. The suspension would collapse. Its nitrogen and mineral oil would leak, and rubber seals on the suspension would wear down over time. Had you pressed the car to its absolute limits, the SM might have ended up riding on its axles




Early Vegas were poorly designed, and their aluminum engines failed constantly. The first time General Motors tested this car on the track, its front end reportedly broke off from the rest of the vehicle. When the Vega did reach the market, it was one of the most unabashedly no-frills cars in history. Starting at $2,090, the Vega offered little space with its 97-inch wheelbase (the distance from the center of the front wheel to the center of the rear) and had disturbingly little horsepower, 90, out of its four-cylinder engine.



Like the Chevrolet Vega on our list, AMC's Pacer was supposed to be fitted with a rotary engine--but both rotaries had technical problems late in their development (read: after incurring heavy research costs) that prevented them from seeing the light of day. Of course, both vehicles had plenty of problems that did reach production. The Pacer was a dud in terms of quality, execution and particularly styling. Make your own assessment about its bizarre proportions, but don't miss the one door that's bigger than the other