Repairing an unreliable car can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and the social stigma that comes with owning an ugly car can make you feel ostracized. A poorly performing car can be dangerous on the open road and a pain to drive around town, while a poorly constructed car can fall apart while you’re driving it. So, what are the worst cars in the world? These awful machines combine the worst aspects of design, performance, style, and reliability.
CarYanams readers will notice that many of these worst cars in the world date from the 1970s and early 1980s. This Dark Age was known for manufacturers delivering piles of junk that were inappropriate, poorly designed, poorly built, unattractive, and unreliable. Luckily, with unprecedented advances in design, engineering, and manufacturing, it’s very hard to buy a bad car these days.
Worst Cars in the World
Read on as we introduce 10 junk cars that has a shot at the title of the world’s worst car.
1958 Ford Edsel
Potential buyers recoiled in intense horror at the sight of the vertical grille. Despite a $400 million investment, the lukewarm response to the car cost the manufacturer up to $350 million in losses and drove Ford dealerships into bankruptcy.
One of the reasons the car flopped worse than a French atoll in the South Pacific was its upright “horseshoe nose.” Potential buyers were frightened by the vertical radiator grille on a horizontal front section. The word “weird” doesn’t quite fit Edsel’s front section. The sad thing is that the Edsel had some real game-changing features.
It just became synonymous with corporate failure.
1963 Lightburn Zeta: Small Car, Big Problems
Would you ever want to drive a small car with visible fuel lines on the dashboard? This little black car was built by a South Australian washing machine manufacturer who wanted to capitalize on the small car trend of the early 1960s.
With its 324cc two-stroke engine, the Zeta couldn’t get up hills and was reportedly less stable at high speeds than a hippo on roller skates. But what makes it one of the worst cars in the world is the gravity tank under the dash.
There was no fuel gauge, just a glass tube on the dash where the driver could see how much gas was left, but only on level ground. Would you voluntarily drive a small car with a visible fuel line on the dash?
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1971 Ford Pinto: It’s Not Good to Be Stingy
Ford introduced the cheap and cheerful Pinto four-cylinder compact sedan in the early 1970s, just as the American oil crisis was hitting and buyers were starting to move away from the big boys to get around the engine.
The Blue Oval was a huge hit, but the Pinto’s major problems only became apparent when it was involved in a major crash. Ford had discovered that the Pinto was prone to bursting into flames in rear-end collisions but they didn’t fix it. They famously circulated an internal memo claiming that it would be cheaper to have customers burn their cars than to spend $1 per car to repair the fuel tanks.
Poor design and near-criminal negligence on the part of the company made the car one of the worst cars in the world.
1971 Morris Marina:
This bloated junkie failed to live up to expectations from the start The 1970s were a bad time for the British car industry. It was dashed by new cars from Japan that showed clean styling, comfortable handling, lively performance and reliability that British lobsters could only dream of.
Britain’s problems were exacerbated by car factory strikes, forced mergers and budget cuts. During this exciting time, Morris released the Marina, a mid-size sedan, to great acclaim. But this bloated junk failed to live up to expectations from the start. It had sloppy handling, lacklustre performance, a clunky design, and terrible build quality and was completely unreliable.
It’s hard to nominate the Marina over other poorly built, slow, ugly and unreliable British vehicles of the time, such as the Austin Allegro or Vauxhall Viva, but in an era filled with awful jackasses, the Marina reached new depths of horror.
1973 The Dependable Robin: Unstable, unloveable
It’s almost impossible to drive a Robin around a bend without it rolling over. When ranking Monday’s cars, it’s hard to ignore the Reliant Robin. This three-wheeled city car had an engine that displaced less than a litre, making it perfect for sledging around the country, except that it would flip over if its driver tried to go around a corner.
These freakish speedsters gained notoriety through appearances on Top Gear and Mr Bean for their tendency to kink marks, even though their 748cc (later 848cc) engine was close to the speed limit. That at least helped Robin’s owners hang on a little longer. Ugly, clumsy and completely dwarfed by superior small city cars like the Mini, the Robin is a comical footnote in automotive history.
Pontiac Aztec, 2001: Uglier than a monkey’s armpit
Honestly, who gave the green light here? Pontiac was General Motors’ performance brand, full of risqué designs, fast-paced colours, and wild graphics. But in 2001 they hit a rough patch. Declining sales, terrible designs, and having to sell shoddy Chevys as their models for decades meant they had to take a big risk to get the company back on track.
So they released a car that was so ugly and hated that it essentially bankrupted them, and eight years later the venerable brand ceased to exist. To its credit, the Aztek was the first attempt by a domestic manufacturer to practically invent the American crossover SUV market.
But that didn’t change the fact that the Aztek was uglier than a fallen shepherd’s pie covered in burnt dog poop.
1981 Delorean DMC-12: Broken Dreams and Promises
Under the hood of the DeLorean was a double-Y chassis similar to the Lotus Esprit. America’s most famous car executive, John Z. DeLorean gave us some of the best cars of the 1960s, but the car that bore his name was a total flop.
Development problems delayed its release until the mid-1970s or early 1980s. The French-made V6 engine was prolonged, but the car was hideously expensive and the build quality was surprising, as Northern Irish workers had no experience in car building.
And we have yet to mention the non-existent reliability, chronic rust problems, a stainless steel body that would get dirty at the first sign of weather, and the fact that the occupants couldn’t get out of the DMC-12’s gullwing doors—the events of the accident. John Z was subsequently arrested in an FBI cocaine investigation.
Peugeot 505 STI: Terrible in French
Excruciatingly slow, thanks to an asthmatic and severely underpowered four-cylinder engine. The Peugeot 505 was a big 1980s sedan with a comfortable ride, edgy 1970s styling and a spacious interior.
But it was also painfully slow, with an asthmatic and severely underpowered four-cylinder engine, made worse by an automatic transmission that couldn’t decide what gear to be in or when to downshift.
They even used metric-sized wheels (only two companies made tyres), but the wheels were made of a softer alloy than those used by the French infantry, so they had to be rolled straight every few months.
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Holden Camira:
A huge flop Less than and they replaced the Torana with this pile of mediocrity. And they replaced the Torana with this pile of mediocrity. In 1982 Holden introduced the front wheel drive Camira to Australia. It was built on the J body platform and was primed to disappoint buyers worldwide.
Despite being named Wheels magazine’s Car of the Year in 1982, the Camira quickly proved to be poorly designed, severely lacking in build quality and still had reliability issues. Issues included engines that smoked like Auntie Doreen after 12 glasses of Chateau d’Anbauld at Christmas, paint that discoloured in the Australian sun, air conditioning that caused the engine to overheat and doors that rusted due to a lack of drainage holes.
Monash University also found that the Camira was below average in terms of crash safety compared to other mid-size cars of the time. And to think they replaced the Torana with this mediocre one.
1970 VAZ-2101: From Russia with Hate
When it comes to the worst cars in the world, the VAZ stands head and shoulders above the rest. When it comes to terrible cars, the VAZ stands head and shoulders above the rest. The VAZ-2101 should look somewhat familiar to anyone who likes Italian cars from the 1960s, as the Russian goldsmith was based on the beautiful Fiat 124.
It lacked everything that made the Fiat an interesting, charismatic, and technologically advanced design. When it comes to awful cars, the VAZ is head and shoulders above the rest. The Fiat’s great overhead cam four-cylinder was scrapped and a small farm boat anchor, probably stolen from a worn-out concrete mixer, was used instead.
These boxy sledges brake poorly, corner poorly, and don’t stand up to rust, all due to the terrible quality Soviet steel used in their construction. Known abroad as “Lada”, their horrible reliability and poor performance have poisoned the global market for Russian cars.
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