Four Horsemen - Documentary - Official Version
The 10 most embarrassing dishonorable mention award winners in the history Car.
Here and now, in bright HTML, car and driver apologizes formally to name 10Best Renault Alliance list of cars in 1983 For the past 26 years, he's gnawing our collective gut like an ulcer of shame caused by the car was trash We should have known that the time, and we s took too long to confess our mistake that this frank confession to be the beginning of our penance.
It is the only blemish on our record, and we are not the only publication to recognize some stinkers with great honor the history of automotive journalism saw flaming pile of poo named car of the year as they attract lawsuits product liability per acre-foot and chunks of crud honored as All-stars to buyers even now seek a refund under the lemon laws.
There is always a risk of making judgments based on initial exposure to a car, and sometimes ultimate crappiness a vehicle turns only with the fullness of time, we are all subject to hype for something that looks new , different, and perhaps even better, and in this case, we all feel overwhelming pressure to be fast, fun, and authoritative be evil is always a risk again, here are 10 winners which someone needs to present excuses.
If we had another review, our ancestors wrote in honor of the Renault Alliance as one of the 10Best Cars 1983 it would be our car of the year.
The Alliance was misinterpreted during the period 1982-1987, when France Renault owned American Motors The idea was to take the FWD sedan Renault 9, redecorate with US friendly elements such as whitewall tires and a monochrome interior, and assemble the whole shebang in an old Nash factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin Although the Alliance is mounted and managed well at the moment, the standard motor 1 4 liters croaked with only 60 hp.
The Alliance showed that Wisconsin workers could mount a Renault with the same indifference to the quality that has been a feature of the French automobile industry by the late 80s, the sight of alliances rusty abandoned beside the road America was so common that their resale value dropped to near zero When Chrysler bought AMC in 1987, his first order of business was the mercy killing of the Alliance.
For the record, this other Motor Trend magazine, has made a name makes the Alliance of its 1983 car, we share the shame.
2002 Ford Thunderbird Motor Trend Car of the Year.
restart Ford Thunderbird and 2002 in two places seemed like a good idea The style was beautiful, the concept car won raves at every car show, and nostalgia for 1955 57 Birds in two places was a step fever .
Unfortunately, Ford engineering cheap new T-Bird, seizing most of chassis parts and many interior elements straight out of the halftone trash Lincoln LS sedan parts The result was overweight, softly sprung roadster that looked great on the outside, was excruciatingly boring inside, and was a bit sad to drive and about 40 000, it was stupidly expensive If someone were to drive this T-Bird, it would be women with platinum hair prone to carry small dogs everywhere they go it is there weren t that many of these women there.
Only 19085 Thunderbirds were sold during the 2002 model year, and sales declined from there Compassionate, 2005 was the last year of production of two seats.
The Chevrolet Vega is on the short list of everyone for the worst car of all time He was so unreliable that it seemed the only time anyone saw a Vega on the road belching oily smoke was when it was towed.
This does not mean that the choice of the Vega 1971 Car of the Year didn t make sense in the context it was Ford and Chevrolet year introduced new small cars, and compared to Ford Pinto, Vega at least La Vega seemed better handled more precisely, was available in more body styles, and with a style cribbed straight from the Camaro, had look more attractive the engine block at the same Vega aluminum seemed a technological leap forward.
However, the aluminum block cylinder bores linerless easily marked, and the iron cylinder head usually leave misaligned pour oil in each element of the Vega frame was built about as flimsily as possible, and is generally attacked the metal of the unibody structure with rust mere moments after being exposed out, the air It's been 38 years since the Vega appeared, and the stench still won t wash.
Since the mid 90s, Cadillac was sick of being around kicking by European competitors such as the BMW 3 and 5 Series and Mercedes C-class and E No matter how Caddy tried, it always seemed the Germans were therefore cooler Cadillac looked at the portfolio of international GM products, fell on the rear drive Opel Omega MV6 which was then built in perfect German, and decided that, with a bit of redecoration and a name change Catera it would make a great Cadillac.
Despite an advertising campaign that presented the Cindy Crawford and animated versions ducks found the Cadillac crest, there was no way to hide the fact that the Catera was a snoozer The style was generic and gelatinous, the bland inside, and the frame careless response and 3 liters 0 200 hp V-6s had to strain against a curb weight of about 3900 pounds ads for Catera said it was the Caddy zigs, but what is point zigging without zag about the only What's really interesting about the Catera was his record of calamitous reliability.
In 1985, Merkur was a particular name that whoever wrote the new Europe imported vehicle brand had to resort to the pronunciation guides The Merkur Mare- coordinated XR4Ti is the slickest thing ever to come out of Ford's Lincoln-Mercury dealer showroom, CD written by embedding the car as one of the 10 best, perhaps the slickest thing ever this year out of the Ford Motor Company.
To create the XR4Ti, Ford took Europe three doors bulbous, rear wheel drive Sierra excised its V-6 engine and replaced it with the turbocharged March 2 liter four Thunderbird Turbo Coupe and Mustang SVO SVO s intercooler but the result wasn ta horrible car, but he was sure weird.
With his rear wing biplane and smooth contours, the XR4Ti was slippery and looked European aerodynamically The turbo four raucous 170 HP managed the somewhat playful performance, but no matter how giddy CD publishers were at the time, buyers were very resistible XR4Ti He was, in short, clean.
1997 Chevrolet Malibu Motor Trend Car of the Year.
There has not been a more generic car or irrelevant fact in America as the Chevrolet Malibu Chevrolet 1997 decided that, contrary to its cross-town rivals Ford and Chrysler, wrote Motor Trend as he attributed the Malibu's highest honor he was not interested in pushing the style envelope with its new sedan and push General Motors didn t.
At least Malibu 1997 led blandly as the chassis with front wheel drive has been set for the banality Both engines offered were a Feb. 4 liter DOHC four making 150 hp and March 1 liter V-6 rated at only 155 horsepower and two were stowed in a four sleepwalking speed automatic transmission.
Moments after the Malibu is sold, it became a staple in the fleets; it was the perfect car to buy when you choose to buy 600 It has become a staple with rental companies that when the next Malibu was ready for launch in the 2004 model year, Chevrolet has simply changed the name of the one presented in 1997 conventional and limited sales to fleets classical remained in production for the 2005 model year, it was clear brown wrapping of America.
1990 Lincoln Town Car Motor Trend Car of the Year.
1990 Lincoln Town car was barely more than a reskinned version of its immediate predecessor, blade bathtub designed to wring a few more years of benefits decades old technology course, the 1990 Town Car wheelbase posted an overall growth 10 inch from 117 3-117 4 inches and an overall length was 1 2 inches, but almost all the mechanical elements was report which included the suspension floating adjustment, Nimitz-class flying circle, the 150-hp arthritic 4 9-liter V-8 and sloughy change automatic four-speed transmission at least looks were slightly improved, and you'll spend drunk on the floor of a car, it is hard to think a better machine to do it in a stretched limousine town car.
The Town Car was better in 1991 when Ford then new 190 hp V-8 replaced the old pushrod engine, but after that he remained technologically stagnant until it is again superficially redesigned for 1998 It did not even not try to be again.
Trend 1980 Chevrolet Citation car engine of the year.
When GM compact X-FWD cars - Chevrolet Citation, Buick Skylark, Oldsmobile Omega and Pontiac Phoenix began production in April 1979 everything seemed foolproof The car was X FWD, both engines were available old-school pushrod designs, and the interior was Detroit chic with flat seats and plastic door panels at the time, it seemed like a breakthrough finally, American Honda manufacturing agreement.
Things started to go terribly wrong when the car X between consumer hands while looking down the 60-month payment books, quotes the owners were having trim bits fall into their hands, hearing their transmissions groan and grab, and noting that if they listened to enough, they could closely listen to their car rusting sometimes it seemed suspended in some X-car was not even bolted correctly as the tower movements increased funkier and funkier while management has developed an oceanic dead in the center.
As the first compact front-wheel drive GM X-cars were important vehicles They shot GM's reputation for a generation.
The Mustang II was a direct response to the energy crisis caused by the oil embargoes of OPEC in the early 70s watching the 1973 Mustang bloating, Ford was sure that the way to go 74 was smaller so he slapped a new body atop the Pinto create the Mustang II and V-8 engines skipped altogether.
Even as the Mustang II is on sale, purists cried he represented a betrayal instead of the powerful car the Mustang was, here was a hissing setter four engines and six-cylinder under the hood and with the exception of a little better fuel economy, there was no compensating virtues.
style elements of past ponies dash C along the sides, taillights three sections, and the corral shaped grille was caricatured on the Mustang II misshapen And no other Mustang is just as despicable as the coupe notchback Mustang II Ghia 1975 with the half-vinyl roof shoehorned Ford V-8 in the Mustang II in 1975 a restricted two-body 302 cubic inches measured at a dump 129 hp and that the further structure of the car shown how brittle ridiculously.
Today, the Mustang II is the Mustang that the most socially inept amateurs like.
1995 Ford Contour Mercury Mystique Car and Driver 10Best Cars.
For three years, from 1995 to 1997, the magazine tried to convince the world that the front wheel drive Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique were worthy status 10Best It didn t work.
T replacement are for tempo and Topaz are very different from Cirrus Chrysler, we wrote in the 10Best number 1995 The outline is a smaller, tauter car, it has a tight back seat, but a more aggressive handling In fact, if you have not seen Ford oval logo, you could easily be confused with a European sports sedan a lot more.
Hey, compared to Tempo and Topaz, a wheelbarrow seemed fine The problem was, as we should understand back in 95, the outline and Mystique were really too small for their Priced class alongside the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry the Americanized versions of Mondeo cramped Europe has never had a chance.
For the serious driver who wants a compact sedan, affordable, we have written to justify the selection of the contour and Mystique in the list 10Best 1996, the Ford products deserve a long look so buyers gave them a long look and then whispered to them- same, this thing is just too dinky.
The 10 winners dishonorable mention of the most embarrassing price in automotive history Feature Car, dishonorable mention, most.