Worst Cars

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dwasson said:
Cosworth was one of the engine builders in Formula One and had a long relationship with Ford in Europe. I Was driving a BMW 3 series in Germany and was passed by a Cosworth Escort. I was driving at about 95 and the Escort was at 120 mph at least. I think that they also worked with Lotus.

There was a Euro edition for sale in Canada in 1995 of the Contour that had a V6 24v DOHC built by Cosworth. Holy Carp! is all I'll say about that car. My Uncle had one. We could easily take a Mustang.

Cosworth still builds many engines for F-1 F-4 F-3000 and Indy Car (Cart) I believe. I think they also did some design for the Harley V-Rod.
 
the pack rat - I was thinking about joining the Toronado chapter. I haven't done so to date. I belong to approximately 20 organizations so I had to cut back a little. :up:
 
the_pack_rat - I was thinking about joining the Toronado chapter. I belong to approximately 20 organizatons so I was trying to cut back. :rock:
 
In a nut shell!

TripleTransAm said:
Two words: Cadillac Cimarron... (pimped out Cavalier)

About the Edsel... what REALLY happened? I've heard about that "fiasco" all my life but no one ever told me what really happened. I know it had special styling but what was it that made the car such a sales dud?

The short story is the Edsel was a head of its time!

Public did not care for the front grill works.

Price was a little more than then top of the line Fords.

Lower than the base Mercury.

A "nitch" car before the public was ready for the idea.

Price and timeing:eek:
 
Good post!

RCSignals said:
The Edsel itself wasn't a bad car. In fact it really wasn't much different from the Ford and Mercury models, and shared much of the same parts.
Edsel wasn't just a new model car, it was a whole new "division" at Ford Motor company.
From some of what I've read, HF2 actually changed his mind about launching the division, turning his interests elsewhere, but at that point it was too late to stop, too much time and money were in it, so Edsel Division was allowed to continue for it's minimum run.
I've read testimonials from Edsel division Engineers and executives that were were "cut off" from cooperating with existing info, such as "shared" technical data etc, and had to write all their own Service and other manuals from scratch.
The best looking Edsels were actually the last ones

Thanks RC. Right on the money!!:up:
 
I was real surprised to see a mazda in that 'all time worst' list....

I am very well of the issues of the rotory engine, they're even plagued (with issues) today. I don't see the RX-8 going much over 120k if it makes it that long. But growing up with rotary's, I was aware of this, and learned how to work with them, and found they were really easy to rebuild, and even easier to pump mass quanities of power and torque.

Atleast mazda's build was more successfull than fords attempt:flamer: !

The pic in the article did no justice....here's a juiced 8 second RX-2
watermark.php
 
CRUZTAKER said:
I was real surprised to see a mazda in that 'all time worst' list....

I liked one of their early jingles- something like "piston engine goes boing, boing, boing, Mazda engine goes hmmmmm....." :lol:
 
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2003 MIB said:
Where's the Chevy Citation and its siblings????? Worst car ever!:bigcry:
Ah, yes, the Citation. WAPOS! I had a burgundy X-11 for a demonstrator back in the days I sold medium duty trucks for a Houston chevy dealer. It had what you could call a growl, but when you got on it the torque steer was terrible and the thing kinda squatted down on it's butt. I'm ashamed to admit I sold a number of these beasts to the citizenry of Harris County, Texas, two of which were X-11's. Dealers didn't usually stock them because they were more expensive than the regular Citations and people buying Citations bought them because they were cheap, once dealers had discounted the hell out of them to get them off their lots. My dealership had an inventory of Citations that were TWO MODEL YEARS old.:depress: One of the X-11's I sold to a Vietnamese guy, young dude, worked in his family's restaurant. He came in looking for an X-11, and I told him he'd be damn lucky to find one on any lot anywhere, and if he did, there'd be a good chance it had been sitting there for months. So, he wanted to ORDER ONE!!! Cool! I loved ordering cars, and this was a first. Only my sales manager and the dealer insisted the guy put down a $1000 cash deposit NON REFUNDABLE before they would take the order. I can still hear the dealer saying to me "Carlson, I get stuck with this f***ing X11 and it's YOUR A*S! He took delivery and was thrilled with the car, but utimately there was some kind of weird problem with the suspension that never got resolved to his satisfaction. It made some odd "bonnnngggg" sound at speed when you would run over an expansion strip on the freeway, but the service manager nor the Chevrolet rep could find anything wrong with the car once it was on the lift. The other X-11 sale was an inventory unit that had been dealer traded to us a year and a half before I sold it. It was an incredibly ugly beige color :puke: At the time it was the oldest car in inventory, two model years behind the current cars. I can't imagine what the dealer had lost on this turd in floor plan alone, but there was a $500 spiff to anyone who sold it regardless, so I put this guy in it who traded this clapped out Pontiac. He was hard to get financed, had little to put down, and we had to take it in the shorts on the car to qualify him with GMAC. There was an enormous loss on this car, so if it weren't for the spiffI would have made only the $25 minimum fee. At the last stop in the finance department he starts renegotiating the deal, throws a fit, demands his trade back, gonna go somewhere else, yadda yadda.I calmly ask him what is the problem, how can I make him happy with his new car? He says he wants a cassette player in the stereo and the car rust proofed. I say no problem, I'll have make ready take care of it right now. Sales manager blew up when I told him how I fixed the deal, saying no way are we gonna lose more money on this deal. I say, hey, deduct it from my spiff. So, delivered the car and still walked away with $300 cash that day.:cool:

Some day I need to tell the story about the Z-28 and the female porn star who bought it....:pimp:
 
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Interesting that they picked a car that was poorly regarded, but actually a decent car, like the Edsel.

Interesting that they picked a particular car, based on it's engine, when other GM products had that same engine, and it was the engine that was junk, not the car itself.

All GM diesels that were based on gas engines were junk.
 
worst cars

I had an Edsel 8 yrs ago or so..it was BY FAR the BEST CAR anyone could want for an old cruiser. I was a gleaming two tone Orange and White 2 dr Pacer with the E400. It cost 2500.00. It was sold for 3500 with a rebuilt motor 20k miles later. Thats all they were/are worth. It was a rock solid driver that we cruised everywhere. It turned heads like No Other Classic car I have ever driven, and I have driven some wild stuff. People would just look and look until they figured out what it was....and then start smiling. A well cared for Edsel just makes people happy. I hope that someone is enjoying that car today.

The sole achilles heel of the Edsel was the push-button steering wheel tranmission relay system that would fail as they got old, and leave the cars stranded. A 54 corvettish floor shifter solves the issue, or just fix the relays and have it work..dumb 50s design to have those relays under the car..

They were a marketing failure ..period...anyone who says otherwise is wrong................................sound familiar?

the one other one on that list I have a little issue with is the Citroen SM...no big francophile but that car was/is just neat..a big, heavy car with a unbelievable smooth ride...nothing even comes close in ride quality...a lever on the floor gave it 12 inches of ground clearance when needed and dropped it flat on the ground for high speed ...it was so complicated it was cool...so many things about it just for instance the brakes (if I remember correctly)the Weight of the car pushing down on the suspension was the braking system, the brake pedal was an Orb on the floor that released the hydralic through the lines to the calipers to stop the car....
probably a poor commuter but a definate milestone of sorts...and that maserati motor would wind through the gears like you wouldn't believe
 
LCpl Retired said:
The sole achilles heel of the Edsel was the push-button steering wheel tranmission relay system that would fail as they got old, and leave the cars stranded.

I drove an Edsel, lovingly kept, once. It was in my wet-behind the ears mechanic days, before I knew what an Edsel was.

No word of a lie, I was given the keys, told to drive it into a bay around back. It took me 5 friggen minutes to find out how to put the thing in gear :). I thought the
P
R
N
D
2
1​

on the dash were indicators. I couldn't find the friggen shift! I even looked under the seat for one :)
 
LCpl Retired said:
They were a marketing failure ..period...anyone who says otherwise is wrong................................sound familiar?

It seems I herd Ralph Nader had some thing to do with it too. (Or am I thinking about the Corvair?)

I also herd that there was a little uncertainty in who would service the cars, Ford, Lincoln, ETC....

Either way, I have seen a few of them, and they were not bad looking cars.
 
teamrope said:
It seems I herd Ralph Nader had some thing to do with it too. (Or am I thinking about the Corvair?)

I also herd that there was a little uncertainty in who would service the cars, Ford, Lincoln, ETC....

Either way, I have seen a few of them, and they were not bad looking cars.

I know I will probably be viewed as a heratic but I think the Corvair Monza Spyder was a damn fine looking car, or for that matter the coupe also.

Yeah it was Nader that trashed the Corvair.

Let the flames commence !!
:bounce:
 
I've seen a few Corvairs that looked nice too. I still say the East German Trabie is the winner at being the looser hands down.
 
It seems I herd Ralph Nader had some thing to do with it too. (Or am I thinking about the Corvair?)

Yes, it's the Corvair. Ralph Nader was to cars as Abraham Lincoln was to gourmet cooking. He was clueless... The early Corvair had some issues, but so did the early Beetle, in fact, it had the SAME issues. Chevy fixed them and it turned out to be a decent car, at least as decent as any air-cooled car can be.
 
teamrope said:
I also herd that there was a little uncertainty in who would service the cars, Ford, Lincoln, ETC....

Initially it was Edsel Division. They had their own dealer network too.
 
usgecko said:
Yeah it was Nader that trashed the Corvair.

Nader went after the Corvair because it's handling at the limit could get ... let's say "Sporty". Like most rear engine cars, suddenly lifting off the gas in a high speed corner caused an interesting phenomonon called "trailing throttle oversteer". Properly handled, this trait allowed you to get around a race course or down a twisty road pretty briskly. The Corvair was no worse than a Porsche 911.

A buddy of mine collects Corvairs (I think that he was dropped on his head as a child) and he tells of the Corvair Club meeting in the Detroit area a few years back. The speaker at the banquet was Ralph Nader. Part of his speach about how bad GM was involved how dangerous the Corvair was. (His book was titled "Unsafe at Any Speed") After the speach he was invited to watch dozens of people safely cornering at high gees in the autocross going on less than a mile away. He declined. He probably didn't want any reality to intrude on his prejudice. :banana2:
 
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Losers (Nader)

Funny how Nader's name should come up again so soon. (See "Panther platform Not Guilty" thread in the Lounge.) As far as I'm concerned he's a waste of good oxygen. :shake:
 
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