Practically Classics Forum

how long before the thread is locked?

Perhaps I was missing the point - I thought Bob was intending the thread to be objective and not subjective! If it's cars I have driven, it would be difficult to say what the worst was as some were pretty carp! It could have been my Rover 60 - the front mount for the front suspension disintegrated on the way up our drive, the brakes leaked (in spite of many new parts) and the body was in a rare old state! It might have been the Land Rover that was an inch longer when towing something or father's first Maxi that turned out to be a bodged rust bucket.

If I was being objective, there were some dire imports in the 70s - before the manufacturers started rust proofing. I remember a three year old Mazda with massive holes in the wings in the Mazda garage next door to where I was working in the very early 80s - about the time when they were saying how much better Jap cars were than British ones!

Who else remembers the Mazda advert that covered a full page in Car, among other monthlies, back in the '70s?


Really? That explains how it is that you can't go anywhere without seeing hundreds of the things!

I wonder if the dealer who said that still has a part time job in motoring journalism? Other things s/he might have said include "That large journal Triumph 1500 engine is the best built and longest lasting petrol engine ever made in the UK.."

TerryG wrote:I quite like Trabants.

Well you are easily pleased, in production it was easily the longest car in Europe.
Seven metres, including the smoke.
Maybe the thread should have been titled: Cars I wouldn't be seen dead in.
My list in such a category would definitely ruffle a few feathers.

GHT wrote:...
My list in such a category would definitely ruffle a few feathers.

Man, or mouse? Go for it, and I promise not to cry - when several of Two Gates' finest products and several other makes and models that I, as a died-in-the-wool Autoshiter, am bound to have owned - feature in that list.

Subjective and just for fun.

I once had the misfortune to have to repair this absolute shed of an Alfa sud. The bonnet fell off.

Lancia Beta remember the rusty bulkhead saga.

Bob

More recently, Renault Clios were regularly seen by the sides of the roads, windscreen cracked and bonnet responsible. I hadn't seen one for a while and had thought that they'd all been fixed so that the bonnet catch worked properly but two mornings ago, cruising into Berwick on my way to an appointment, there, by the side of the A1 at Scremerston, was a silver Clio with screen and bonnet damage. I didn't laugh at the time, but as I haven't heard anything on the local news about anyone being hurt, I'm having a wee chuckle now.


Funnily enough, I don't think that failing bonnet catches can be a reason for a car being considered worst in the world, the car's driving position, looks and Frenchness will manage that just fine.

I vaguely remember that bonnet clio thing. Didn't Renault try to blame owners. Maybe front hinged bonnets like the Alfa dud only allowed by law.

I had bonnet come open on a mk 3 Zodiac. It dented the wings and bent the bonnet frame. Second hand stuff fixed it. A great car all soft squidgy with a bench seat. I should think a Nice mk3 Zodiac is worth about the me as my car. ANOTHER car I really like is the knee capping Creasta. A lovely bit of Americana. PC I think. Right drive as well.
The AMC Pacer sometimes I think its not good then I think its cute. Its that sort of car. Didn't the Pacer have a longer door one side. Green house on wheels.

Marinas were a truimph of parts bin design the body shell was new the rest was bits of other cars. However the Marina wasn't as bad as has been made out. I drove a 1800 TC version and it was quite good. Excellent mid range overtaking ability in its day. The 1300 although obviously slower still never less was OK on motorways at 65 to 70 mph. The estate version was quite useful as well. They were as reliable as any other car of the day. The allegro is equally dissed. Again better than most think. Clever suspension nearly as smooth as Citroën. I quite like that old A series engine. A dependable faithful servant. The B and C engines also good.

Picking out a worst car is difficult. The Moshvich ( spelling) has been ruled out because its so bad that its good and everyone likes ugly dogs. ☺☺☺☺. And want to take it home.

I really cannot think of a candidate I did think of the Bond 3 wheeler with the engine that turns with steering. But thinking about the design a front wheel drive 3 wheeler is safer than a Robin, not sure why, call it mechanics intuition. Now I want one.

Before the Austin Seven (ruby etc) there were cycle cars some of which were seriously badly designed and made even then someone must have brought the cycle car and presumably liked it.

The worst car doesnt exsist.

Bob

JPB wrote:Man, or mouse? Go for it, and I promise not to cry.

Well let me put it into perspective first. If this was an art appreciation forum, would I dare to say that I find Picasso, and his cubist art,
not to my taste. It sells at auctions, on the rare occasion that one comes up, for absolute squillions. Still don't like it.

So translate that into the automotive appreciation. A car that never sold in America, yet appeared as a work of art in The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ladies & Gentlemen, I give you the Ford Ka. And you are most welcome to it. Ugly? Ford do ugly spectacularly well. The last Granada they produced, first time I saw it I said: "Agh! My eyes!" And they don't reserve ugly for Europe. When they were trying to get the late Bob Hope interested in the hideous Edsel, asking him for his thoughts, he said: "Looks like it's sucking a lemon." Couldn't have put it better myself. But the Ford that I hate most is the 105E Anglia. That gross inward back window, innovative they called it, not what I called it.
I drove no less than three Anglias, all company cars. One day in London, I came up behind a police panda car, an Anglia. The Police officer stopped in the traffic, I pulled up behind him, slipped the gear lever into neutral, alas, the gears didn't do the same and the car leapt forward as I disengaged the clutch, slamming into the back of the police Anglia. Shame it didn't write them both off.

It's not always the car itself that puts me off. Similar to that of the Ford Ka, the French were so taken with the aesthetics of The Range Rover, (the very first model, the two door one,) that they displayed it in The Louvre in Paris. Have you ever seen the equipment in a Range Rover, from the British Leyland era? Plastic, trashy door handles, windscreen wipers, cannibalised from a kiddy's pedal car, the most appalling trim. And the same can be said of any car that the dead hand of BL touched.

In the 1960's, Jaguar enjoyed a three year waiting list, come the 70's and BL ownership, the joke among Jaguar owners was that you needed to buy two, long before John Prescott had the handle two jags, reason was, one or the other was always in the workshop. I've owned a few of those BL disasters. Had an Allegro for a year, what a crappy car. Did you know that they were referred to as a biscuit tin? Those assorted biscuits that you get at Christmas that come in a metal tin. When you take the lid off the tin distorts, but straightens up when you replace the lid. The first Allegros did much the same when they were underslung and crane lifted onto a ship for export. The windscreen popped out.

So you get the gist. There's ugly, there's easily forgettable and there's BL.