Worst Cars Of All Time

[E55BOF]

Coming soon to a TV channel you never heard of: "Pump My Ride"...

 

[tron]

Owned 'em all.
Reliant Kitten. Nippy but not very good.
Yugo. Cheap Fiat 128. Brilliant. Fast comfy frugal and reliable.Fun to drive.
Skoda Estelle. None of the above.
Maxi 1500. Dire
Allegro 1100. Better than the Maxi, a bit.
Landcrab, three of them. None were any good.
2CV. Horrid to live with but sold for an obscene profit soon afterwards.
Never sank to a bolshie Fiat or Lada and never had a Wartburg
but I did suffer a Taunus 17M of which I would rather not be reminded.

But the worst car of the lot was also the best. The wonderful magical blend of woeful flaws and incredible genius that was the beautiful CX.

 

[E55BOF]

Depends on your definition of 'worst'. If it's cosmetics, almost anything by Tatra. Same goes for the Fairthorpe Atom and Atomota.

 

[Red C220]

I once drove a Land Rover Discovery diesel (non turbo) it was so slow that it was dangerous, you'd pull out of a junction, floor the throttle and it wrote a letter to the engine. It made Defenders look like sports cars.

However for all round general unattractiveness the Rhodius is a tough act to follow which is why it's cropping up time and time again in this thread.

 

[Blucher]

Peugeot 206 gti 180 ...worst car I ever owned.
Too many electrical and mechanical issues to mention.

Put me off French cars for life.

 

[brucemillar]

Even after industrial quantities of beer and wine the Rhodius is not attractive. That is dangerous territory.

Sent from my iPhone using sausage fingers.

 

[markjay]

The worse car I have driven personally was a brand new 1998 Kia Shuma 1.6L automatic (rental) .

I generally love to drive all sort of cars, big and small, fast and slow, but this one was just bad in every possible way....

 

[MercedesDriver]

Ami 8




I always had a feeling I'll fall out of the window whenever it turns.

 

[Yugguy]

I had a Yugo 45 as a student back in the early 90s. At the end of its life it couldn't do more than 45.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Morris Ital: the power of Nationalisation

IMHO the Morris Ital trumps (parp) both the Allegro and Marina.

Nationalisation at it's best. The result of £8 billion (1970's money) worth of Government subsidy, and 523 walkouts in 78/79 alone

Ideally specified in Puke orange and Merde brown vinyl roof and dashboard, as well as cloth interior.

We should have saved more for posterity, but sadly not many seem to have lasted. Glory days

 

[219]

I knew we wouldn't have to wait long for that one.

"Oooh it was so bad it even had a square steering wheel". And ? Modern Audis have even stranger steering wheels and no one seems to mind.

Yes, the styling was odd for its time but it shared its mechanical underpinnings with its hugely successful 1100 / 1300 predecessor but suffered less from rust.

And whilst the build quality may have often (but not always) been questionable, it was actually no worse than contemporary Escorts / Vivas / Fiats / Renaults etc.. And whilst 1970s Japcrap may have been more reliable, many of their cars had dissolved within a few years in a way that the Allegro didn't.

Hardly the British car industry's finest hour but far, far better than its undeserved reputation.

I actually had a brand new one , WLS 422R , in 1976 . It was the most unreliable car I've ever owned ( even beating my S203 ) - one of the foglamps under the front bumper fell out on the way home from collecting it , and then I noticed one sidelight not working , and the light fitting was half full of rusty water - this on a new car with 15 miles on the clock ! It went from bad to worse with something going wrong on a weekly or fortnightly basis , and I got to know other customers in the dealers reception area where we would compare notes on who had had which fault .

After six months I'd had enough and traded it for a 1 year old Audi 100 , which was faultless and a pleasure to own - it stayed in the family for about 15 years .

 

[rf065]

However for all round general unattractiveness the Rhodius is a tough act to follow which is why it's cropping up time and time again in this thread.

I think we've found the winner, Rhodius means King Of The Road apparently and the design brief was to mimic a luxury yacht, so a massive fail all round.

Russ

 

[Bodge-it]

I think we've found the winner, Rhodius means King Of The Road apparently and the design brief was to mimic a luxury yacht, so a massive fail all round.

Russ

What's a Rhodius?



The Reliant Kitten has been mentioned but the Reliant Regal III must be high up in the 'worst vehicle I've ever owned' category.

 

[SW18]

I actually had a brand new one , WLS 422R , in 1976 . It was the most unreliable car I've ever owned ( even beating my S203 ) - one of the foglamps under the front bumper fell out on the way home from collecting it , and then I noticed one sidelight not working , and the light fitting was half full of rusty water - this on a new car with 15 miles on the clock ! It went from bad to worse with something going wrong on a weekly or fortnightly basis , and I got to know other customers in the dealers reception area where we would compare notes on who had had which fault .

After six months I'd had enough and traded it for a 1 year old Audi 100 , which was faultless and a pleasure to own - it stayed in the family for about 15 years .

According to the dvla database, WLS422R soldiered on until the end of 1984...

 

[219]

According to the dvla database, WLS422R soldiered on until the end of 1984...

Thankfully , not in my ownership .

It was traded in to Lyndhurst Motors in Tillicoultry ( VW dealers ) against the Audi 100 - RLS 767P , and I never saw it again

Sadly , I don't have any pictures of the All-Aggro ( never kept it long enough , nor became at all fond of it ) , but here's one of the Audi - which was just such a good car , and ran alongside my Ponton and my 280E .

 

[kid-jensen]

So that All-agro was 8 years old when it hit the great scrapyard in the sky (Coventry more likely).

That would be the first flush of youth for a Mercedes...

Sadly, I bought an Allegro for my Mum and she really liked it.

Still happy to see it go though, spending too much time under it.

But for me, the "worst" car ever was the widowmaker BMW 3 Series 70/80's vintage, that had completely unstable rear suspension design. Involved in more single-car crashes than any other car (by a long way).

Ultimate driving machine? My Ar*e!

 

[horatio]

This one pops up all the time and it's usually concluded to be the Allegro or Marina but they really aren't even remotely close to being the worst.

My vote would go to the Ford Pinto

https://www.cs.rice.edu/~vardi/comp601/case2.html

 

[219]

So that All-agro was 8 years old when it hit the great scrapyard in the sky (Coventry more likely).

That would be the first flush of youth for a Mercedes...

Sadly, I bought an Allegro for my Mum and she really liked it.

Still happy to see it go though, spending too much time under it.

But for me, the "worst" car ever was the widowmaker BMW 3 Series 70/80's vintage, that had completely unstable rear suspension design. Involved in more single-car crashes than any other car (by a long way).

Ultimate driving machine? My Ar*e!

Of course , even uglier than the Allegro 'saloons' were the estates , which even the dealers referred to as 'little hearses' .

In fairness , my old one might just as easily have been written off in a crash as rotted away or suffered some terminal malfunction - but I suspect the latter .

 

[219]

What's a Rhodius?



The Reliant Kitten has been mentioned but the Reliant Regal III must be high up in the 'worst vehicle I've ever owned' category.

Is it not the Rodius ; nicknamed the odious

A more modern contender for ugliness might be the Nissan Puke :bannana:

 

[Lit91]