Not every motorcar that is design , manufacture and market to the public is a winner . In fact , self-propelling companies are as likely to roll a bomb off the assembly business line as a achiever .
Whether it is an vile invention , piteous engineering or aplain sure-enough lemonthat work off consumers , the history of the motorcar is litter with some substantial stinkers over the days . Many of them now infamous and forever burn in the collective memory of the world .
Here are 25 of the sorry cars ever manufacture and purchased by people .
25. Bricklin SV1
24. The Trabant
The Lada is the car most often associated with Communist Russia in the 1970s and 1980s . But call for any Russian who live through those totalitarian times , and they ’ll likely tell you that it was the Trabant that most comrades drove during the Communist regime in Eastern Europe . And many automotive experts exact that it was the Trabant that render Communism a uncollectible name throughout the Western cerebral hemisphere . power by a weak two - stroke engine that maxed out at a paltry 18 H.P. , the Trabant was a car construct alone of recycled materials . The body was made out of a recycled fiberglass . Designed in the 1950s , the Trabant was billed by the government of the clip as East Germany ’s reply to the Volkswagen Beetle on the other side of the Berlin Wall . It was known throughout Eastern Europe as a “ people ’s car . ” Sadly , Trabants smoked like a trash can give the sack – that is , if they ran at all . Oh yeah , this car also did n’t have bracken lights or turn sign . ( contingent , details ) . If you may regain it , archival news footage exists of chiliad of East Germans driving their Trabants across the border when the Berlin Wall fall in 1989 . Most of these cars were quickly abandoned by their owners once in West Germany . mayhap they went stag for a Volkswagen ?
23. The Chevy Chevette
Where to begin with this self-propelled crisis ? essentially a crown of thorns between a Pinto and a Gremlin ( yuck ) , the Chevy Chevette descended on unsuspicious motorist in 1976 and was apace vilify by anyone with expert taste . Designed as a hatchback with a snout , the Chevette is widely viewed as one of the most unloved and ugly cars to ever flap off an assembly line . While some other automotive misfire such as the Pacer and the Yugo actually have devotee club give to them , the Chevette is considered by most the great unwashed as a automobile that is best left forget . A three - door hatchback that never quite caught on with the public , the Chevette had a 51 HP locomotive engine and a four - speed manual transmission system , and not much else . The locomotive engine was loud and cheap , and always sounded like it was about to heave its last gasp . While the Chevette may be remembered fondly by some the great unwashed who drive one in college in the late 1970s and early eighties , most people commemorate this car for spending more clip in the repair shop than on the road .
22. Plymouth Prowler
There have been some great hot rods and speedsters over the years . The Plymouth Prowler , released in 1997 , is not one of them . By the mid-1990s , car designers worldwide had admission to powerful new computer tools that enabled them to design new cars quickly and easy using a computer computer mouse and not much more . From this quantum leaping in design engineering come the Prowler , a retro - buggy / speedster loanblend that was meant to look futurist with an open - wheel frontend and low - slung hot - rod fuselage . While this invention might have count cool on an sometime Mac computer screen , it did not translate well to the saleroom . Chrysler went all - in on the Prowler in the mid-1990s and stuck its stock 3.5 l V6 locomotive engine under the hood . Unfortunately , this engine was only capable of produce a lackluster 250 horsepower , which disappointed people who expected so much more from the motorcar . The Prowler also lacked a manual transmission system , which made it almost unsufferable to lay down hot caoutchouc . The result was a car that looked weird and disappointed everyone who prove drove it .
21. Pontiac Aztek
A truly reviled crossover fomite is the Pontiac Aztek , which was so badly designed that it illicited gasps from the bunch when it was unveiled at the 2001 Detroit Auto Show . stand for to be a intercrossed car / SUV , the Aztek succeeded in being neither and proved to be a major countenance down in every imaginable way . regard by General Motors as one of the caller ’s biggest blooper ever , the Aztek was revise , monetary value - shaved , and changed so many time before it was eject that what was in the beginning a cool looking crosswalk ended up being a bulky , plastic mess . The design was labeled despicable , and the fomite was cursorily brush off , which was a bit of a ignominy as there may have been a useful crossover somewhere in that debacle .
20. King Midget Model III
The name of this car alone should be a clean indicant that it was a stinker . Released in 1957 , this odd looking car was design by Claud Dry and Dale Orcutt , two protagonist from Athens , Ohio who had an approximation for a unfinished boned utility car that anyone could afford . They saw the King Midget as the counterpoison to the increasingly sophisticated and expensive automobile that were emerging in the tardy 1950s . The designer likened the King Midget to an update Model T or a U.S. version of the Russian made Lada . version of the King Midget were even sell as dwelling house - build kit for $ 500 . That ’s veracious , for 500 clams the car would be mailed to people in pieces so that they could set up it themselves like a barbeque . Parts that were shipped include the soma , axles and sheet metallic element dead body panels . The upright news is that any individual - cylinder locomotive , sold severally , would power the car . The death effect was basically one of those toy railcar that masses buy for their five - year - old at toy dog radius Us . Weirdly , the Midget Motors troupe survived and continue to develop cheap mini - cars until the late sixties . The King Midget Model III was the company ’s most popular nameplate , that is until government condom standards in the belated 1960s blackball it from use of goods and services on main road . Bummer .
19. Zundapp Janus
For all their automotive and engineering successes , the German ’s have produced some truly lousy cars over the decades . Few match the incubus that was Zundapp Janus built in 1958 . Coming out of Nuremberg , Germany , this really strange looking tiny car was based on a Dornier epitome and powered by a 250 cc , 14 HP railway locomotive like to those institute in small motorcycle . Not surprising , this auto had a top speed of only 50 miles per minute . Its alone selling lineament , and the one most heavily marketed by the manufacturing business , was the can - facing bench hindquarters , which meant passenger could watch the drivers in cars behind them make ugly faces as they screamed in frustration at how slow the Zundapp Janus was motivate . Fortunately , consumer use up a pass on this foreign lilliputian car .
18. The Corvair
Rear - engine cars are peachy until you have to drive one . circumstances of self-propelling maker have experimented with cars that switch the bole and the engine , but these cars have never really arrest on for one independent reason – putting the vehicle ’s heaviest constituent behind the rearward axle tends to cause cars to spin out . During World War II , Nazi officers in engross Czechoslovakia were banned from drive the rapid rear locomotive engine Tatras because so many hoi polloi were killed in the vehicle . But that did n’t try out to be a deterrent to Chevrolet , which launched the Corvair in 1961 . While the engine driver at Chevy made sure to include an air - cooled , flat - six locomotive engine in the back of the Corvair , similar to the engine design in Volkswagen Beetles , they neglect to spend the money needed to make the swing - axle rear hanging more manageable . Ralph Nader singled the Corvair out for exceptional execration in his influential bookUnsafe at Any Speed , noting that the Corvair ’s individual art object steering column could stake drivers in a frontend hit . Other problem with the Corvair included the fact that it leaked oil , its heating plant system released noxious fumes , and it was cramped inside .
17. Chrysler Imperial LeBaron
There are some other cars have on this lean that can be considered boats — one quite literally — but no railcar was a bigger boat than the Chrysler Imperial LeBaron . This car , unblock in 1971 , was the Moby Dick of self-propelling boats , and it set the standard for the really long cars of the 1970s . The unholy child of a Chrysler New Yorker and the Dodge Monaco , the Imperial LeBaron goes down in automotive account for being one of the longest cars ever – measuring nearly 20 foot in length . It also boasted the longest fender in automotive history . Powered by Chrysler ’s massive 440 cubic inch V8 engine , this gondola was also a two room access . Yes , that ’s right . Nearly 20 - feet recollective and only a two room access . The interior was also gruesome and was actually design to prompt people of the interior of a casino , if you may think that . lamentably , Chrysler sustain do versions of the humongous Imperial until 1983 when the example was scrapped for just .
16. Crosley Hotshot
Produced in 1949 , the Crosley Hotshot was billed as America ’s first postwar sport car . American chop-chop realized that they could do better . The Crosley Hotshot proved to be a hunk of detritus . Weighing a ruinous 1,100 pound and just 145 column inch long , the petite - yet - pudgy Hotshot was both dense and dangerous . In fact , this machine was featured in the classic 1961 equipment driver ’s education filmMechanized Deaththat was show in high schools everywhere for a menses of time . We suppose you ca n’t ask much from a railroad car that was designed by a guy who previously cook up radios for a life – that would be inventor Powel Crosley Jr. of Cincinnati . Sadly , the Hotshot bombed and the company that made it was out of business organization by 1952 . Today , historiographer claim that what condemn the Hotshot was its engine , a threefold - overhead cam .75 liter four piston chamber that allowed people to only drive about 50 miles per minute . Not very sporting .
15. Waterman Aerobile
Any time a company typeset out to project and build a “ machine of the future , ” bother is tie to survey . Such was the shell with the Waterman Aerobile ( or sometimes called the Arrowbile ) , a futuristic automobile / sailplane / airplane that looked crazy and served no practical purpose . The inspiration of inventor Waldo Waterman , this car was described by its inventor as a “ roadable airplane . ” In 1934 , Waldo Waterman flew his first successful prototype , the “ Arrowplane , ” a high - wing monoplane that had tricycle steering wheel attached to it . On the terra firma , the wings folded against the fuselage like those of a fly ball Historians credit the Arrowplane as the first flying car . More than two decades later on , Waldo Waterman claim to have perfected his invention , which he then labeled the “ Aerobile . ” It was configure as a car with the airplane propeller engine in the back . as luck would have it consumer had enough vernacular sense not to order an Aerobile , and Waldo Waterman ’s one make railway car - aeroplane finally wound up in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington , D.C. , where it can still be seen today .
14. Overland OctoAuto
Experimentation was the name of the secret plan during the early year of the automotive industriousness . And that , apparently , extend to how many tire a car drive on . While four wheels apace became the average for cable car made in the other part of the twentieth C , some the great unwashed just had to push the envelope and tinkerer with the car design . One such tinkerer was engine driver Milton Reeves , who thought that six or eight wheel might supply a smoother drive than the distinctive four wheels . weld some parts to a 1910 Overland car , and adding two additional axles and four more wheels , Milton Reeves make the “ OctoAuto , ” and proudly showed it off at the first Indianapolis 500 backwash . Of course the railway car testify to be quite a monster at more than 20 foot retentive . Milton Reeves received incisively zero order for his invention , make up the OctoAuto one of the great failure in automotive chronicle . Like all good inventors though , Milton Reeves was not discouraged . A year later , in 1911 , he came out with the “ Sextauto , ” which featured six wheel . This railroad car was ban because its name include the word “ sex activity ” in it . Did we mention that Milton Reeves also invented the car silencer ? So see , crazy mass can do secure affair .
13. The Briggs and Stratton Flyer
Little more than a glorified go - cart , the Briggs and Stratton Flyer made in 1920 looks both ridiculously simple and incredibly serious today . It is the opposite of the opulent Rolls - Royce and Cadillacs that were the craze back in the roaring 1920s . The Briggs and Stratton Flyer , which is little more than a motorized board of woodwind instrument on bicycle wheels , contain no suspension , no bodywork , no windshield and no roof . It was receptive air all the way . It was also a five bicycle vehicle , with a rinky drop shot two horsepower engine driving a traction bicycle on the back , similar to the outboard motor on a boat . The Flyer was claimed to have been an attempt to make the cheapest , most basic cable car possible . We think they come through .
12. The EV1
It may be a case that the EV1 was ahead of its metre . But that does n’t cloud the fact that General Motors made a major miscalculation with this electric gondola when it was issued in 1997 . The early hype was that GM ’s EV1 was the best electric fomite anyone had ever see , and it was brace to transform the automotive industry as we know it . build to comply with California ’s zero - emission vehicle mandate , the EV1 anticipate to be fun to drive , honest and safe for the environment . But … the car did not live up to the hype . The battery applied science at the time was nowhere nigh quick to compete against the tried and true piston - powered railway locomotive . The battery in the EV1 could not supply the range or durability required for the car to invoke to the automotive masses . Plus , the EV1 was exceedingly expensive to make and corrupt , which turn off consumer and led to GM killing the programme . Ironically , General Motors , the company that had done more to encourage electric vehicle engineering than any other car manufacturer , became know , for a time , as the ship’s company that killed the electric car .
11. Amphicar
We ’ve written about the amphicar before , yet it never ceases to dumbfound . Do n’t get us incorrect . We love innovation and crossover vehicles , and we ’re in favour of multitasking . We just do n’t really interpret the fascination of having a automobile that can also replicate as a boat . Perhaps fittingly , the concept of an amphibious car came from Nazi Germany . The SS design the “ Schwimmwagen ” in the 1940s , which was an former prototype of a railcar that could also move around through water . By the sixties , designing an amphibian car was a bit of a holy grail in the automobile industry and an fixation among engineers – kind of like land a humanity on the moonlight . Turns out though that the Amphicar was both a stinking car and a crappy boat . With a top fastness in weewee of just seven land mile per hour , critics claimed they could swim quicker than the gravy boat . Also , the Amphicar was not really watertight and prone to bury ( bit of a deal breaker , sadly ) . Yet despite these plan flaws , nigh 4,000 of these machine were built between 1961 and 1968 . We pick the Amphicar ’ s popularity on the fact that large act of citizenry were taking acid in the sixties .
10. Lincoln Continental Mark IV
When people talk about cars from the 1970s being boats , they are speak of the Lincoln Continental Mark IV . You still see these cars feature in moving picture set in the 1970s . Long , dense and completely impractical , this natural gas guzzler was actually look at a luxury auto back in the seventies , complete with a piece of tail upholstered interior . However , the Lincoln Continental Mark IVs were also known for make frequent mechanical job and cost a luck to satisfy with gas . Over prison term , the car earned the nickname ‘ hunk of dust ’ from the public and press . And just imagine endeavor to twin Mungo Park this thing . Yikes !
9. Reliant Robin
To be fair , we suppose that , at some point , a society somewhere was going to plan a cable car with only three wheels . It just happened to be the Reliant Motor Company in England , which reveal its three - wheeled Robin in 1973 . And while it never caught on as hoped , Reliant did carry on manufacturing magnetic declination on the three - wheeled Robin for 30 age until 2003 . This is due to the fact that the cable car enjoyed a cult follow of sorts among certain British motorist who were willing to look past the elevator car ’s instability . Having only one wheel in the front of the auto made it literally tip over when take a twist at more than 25 miles an minute or on an angle of 45 academic degree . Many driver could be seen on the side of English road force this machine right-hand side up again . The Reliant Robin was modern in other fashion too . It was the first car ever made with a altogether fiber glass torso .
8. PT Cruiser Convertible
The PT Cruiser was never the hit that Chrysler hop . After all , the car ’s nickname was the ‘ PT Loser . ’ This was owing , in with child part , to the fact that the auto looked too big and boxy . It just was n’t coolheaded . The PT put up for ‘ Personal Transport , ’ which is itself a reasonably bland name . Yet , the only thing hater of this fomite loathe more than the original simulation of the PT Cruiser is the convertible interlingual rendition of the auto . In a last ditch drive to give this motorcar some gender entreaty before stop manufacturing of the PT Cruiser in 2010 , Chrysler fetch out a convertible model in 2005 . And both critic and the public hated it . It basically face like a PT Cruiser with the roof cut off of it . This is an illustration where excogitation flaw overwhelmed all other facet of a automobile . Not cool , Chrysler . Not cool .
7. Chrysler K-Car
Another doozy from Chrysler is the K - Car — specifically the Plymouth Reliant and Dodge Aries . These cars became synonymous with the terminal figure “ cheap ” and helped cement Chrysler ’s reputation in the 1980s for cook junky motorcar . Conceived of by then - Chrysler head honcho Lee Iacocca as a way to mass market a trashy gondola that would appeal to John Q. Public and help revive the fortune of the then - floundering Chrysler , the K - motorcar did succeed in this goal — sell more than one million unit of each model in the first year of production . AndMotor Trendmagazine did name the honey oil - car its Car of the Year in 1981 . Still , the chiliad - car was nicknamed the ‘ Poor Man ’s Car ’ and gained a reputation for have a great deal of problems — from knob that literally fell off to wrong transmissions and eat out body . A cheap automobile made cheaply , the K - motorcar has since become part of 1980s nostalgia and self-propelled folklore — for all the wrong reasons .
6. BMW X6
BMW has made few trip over the years . However , the German automobile maker drove off the proverbial cliff with its X6 model . The job with this car is that people are n’t sure what to make of it . Is it a sport public-service corporation fomite , a luxury car , some type of unearthly hybrid ? Nobody is quite sure . In its merchandising push for this fomite , BMW assay to coin a new class of vehicle , calling the X6 a “ Sport Activity Vehicle , ” or SAV for short . BMW executives claimed that this car was meant to drive like a sedan but have the guts of an off route fomite . Sadly , the public was having none of it and the X6 , and SAVs in oecumenical , never watch on with vendee . A 2d coevals of this car debut at the 2014 Paris Auto Show looking much more like a traditional SUV , or sport utility fomite . Yet it remains to be seen if the newest rendering can annul the fortune of the X6 .
5. DeLorean DMC-12
4. AMC Gremlin
free in 1970 , the Gremlin was the car teenagers everywhere wish their parents did n’t own . A blatant attempt by American Motors Company to tucker Ford and General Motors to the subcompact elevator car market , the Gremlin has to go down in story as one of the ugliest design cars ever . feature a farsighted and low front end and a short hatchback door in the rear , the Gremlin look disproportionate from any angle . punk and badly made , the Gremlin also featured void - maneuver windshield wipers , a heavy six - cylinder motor and erratic treatment due to the loss of suspension travel in the back . The Gremlin did have the distinction of being quicker than other subcompact car cars , but that was little consolation to the people who drove this elevator car and had to endure being the butt of jokes .
3. Peel Trident
Looking like something out of the Jetson ’s cartoon show , the Peel Trident is one of those quasi - futuristic curiosities from the 1960s . Designed and ramp up on the Isle of Man in 1966 , the Trident was only four foot , two inch in length , giving it the claim as the world ’s smallest elevator car . That , sadly , was the only call to fame for the Trident , which was completely impractical in every other respect . The Plexiglas roof amplified the re of the sun and cooked the people inside who dared drive this midget , unearthly see car . It was also difficult to drive and a pain in the butt to green . Not to mention the fact that you could not fit more than one somebody in the vehicle . And what was with the name — Trident . Is that not the pitchfork held by the King of Atlantis ? Just plain bizarre .
2. Yugo
The female parent of all lemons has to be the Yugo . This disaster on wheels was spell into the United States from Soviet - controlled Yugoslavia in the mid-1980s as a car for price - conscious Americans . This car was so brassy and shabbily put together that “ carpet ” was listed as a standard feature of speech in the selling brochure . In fact , this car was so prone to break down that there was a warmer on the back windowpane of the Yugo designed to keep people ’s hands ardent while they pushed it . Seriously . The engines were known to blow up , the electrical system routinely shortly circuited , and character would just fall off for no manifest rationality . Many indemnity companies refused to insure this crash of a car . No wonder the Yugo had a short lifespan in the United States .
1. Ford Pinto
Still the butt joint of joke , the Ford Pinto is a authoritative unspeakable automobile . First manufactured in 1971 , the Pinto had the distinction ofbursting into flames during low - speeding rear - end collisions — making it both a safety concern and the punchline of late nighttime comedians everywhere . However , what really seal off the notorious repute of the Pinto was a now - noted “ memo ” pass around within the Ford Motor Company that talk about a cost - welfare analysis that concluded it was more affordable to make up dupe closure refer to the Pinto ( $ 50 million ) than to recollect the cars and reinforce their rearward ends ( $ 120 million ) . The “ Pinto Memo ” as it hail to be known became synonymous with thickened incarnate management decisions and bottom line accounting . A Brobdingnagian thrashing any way a somebody looks at it .
