Supercars used to be the world’s fastest hairshirts: hot, restrictive, smelly and uncomfortable. They were also completely unreliable and as dangerous as a Cape buffalo (with roughly similar handling). On the right road, under the right conditions, with all cylinders firing, they still sucked. I burst that bubble the first (and last) time I got behind the wheel of a Maserati Bora. But hope (coil) springs eternal. Until I drove enough icons to think, oh God, here we go again. What’s the rattling under the hood the Lotus Espirt? A loose rubber band? At some point, supercars cleaned-up their act. They’re now as docile as most modern Audis– if not actually being a modern Audi. Suits me fine. Now when I get into a bad ass car, I expect everything. And get it. BUT there are a few machines I’ve owned that started-off offering me everything and ended-up giving me Arpege. (’70’s joke.) The Jeep Grand Cherokee was a bad ass hot rod that got cheaper every ten minutes, rattling more than a church full of snake handlers. And I couldn’t wait to get rid of my 4.3-liter TVR Chimaera, a bad ass hot rod that got crazier with every drive. So what car did you start off loving– whether from near or afar– that ended-up like the first wife from Hell?
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Hate is a strong word, but last year I bought a CJ-5 out of nostalgia for my daily driver back in high school. I didn’t realize/remember how scary they are to drive. Now, I’m glad I have it for the upcoming financiapolkalypse, but it only leaves the driveway a couple of times a month because it’s just too taxing to drive.
The Bugatti Veyron, of course. Fun for a while, but just so over it now. It’s like driving Darth Vader’s helmet.
Yawn.
My first car…an Alfa GT6. The engine was the only thing in the damn car that wouldn’t quit.
miked, I have a cj7, and I love driving it because it is scary. 15 mph corners feel like 75, haha.
Pretty much any “sporty” front wheel drive car. Back in high school a ford probe with a body kit was the bees knees. Glad I grew out of that.
1993 Ford Escort.
We have one in my family that we got in 1995. I always liked it because it was always super reliable. I got it this summer, and I have not been able to make ONE round trip in it without something breaking. It is headed to the shop for new struts and springs because one snapped on the way to take it in for an oil change. After I fix it, I will try to convince my parents to let me sell it and get another car. I see LOTS of nice beaters on craigslist for just around $1,000, which I assume is what I can fetch for it.
Mercedes Benz-The whole company.
The 300SL started it all, but the dismal reliability in recent years leaves me cold.
Grumpilly,
Bunter
My current ’83 911SC. I swear Porsche engineers in the early ’80s were still in trade school, and engineering 911s was a class project. This is a car that dies in a thousand ways if some wierd ground strap goes bad. A ground, for godsakes. When was the last time you had a car that died because some mysterious strap between the transmission and the bodypan got a little corrosion?
911s burn up because of a variety of unfused circuits, they have ignition switches that routinely fail every 10 years, the camchain tensioners quit and the engines are rubble, shifting the 915 transmission is an art as demanding as playing the lute…the list goes on and on, but I’m always amazed that these ass-engine Nazi slot cars–famous P. J. O’Rourke quote–are so idolized.
Just before I came to Car and Driver, a top-rank redneck Nascar driver of the time–his name escapes me at this instant, but the article he wrote is so notorious that somebody is sure to come up with it in minutes–tested the IROC 911RS that he was to race and concluded that it was the biggest POS he’d ever been forced to drive. Porscheniks were horrified, but I should have listened.
The Suburban! A rugged work-truck model (what else was there? Painted interior with a little plastic panel on each door.) With a six and a four-speed, MAYBE a small eight, and the snow plow on the front. But not now… Not a leather-lined $50k excess. I’m talking the 60’s and early 70’s, when they were TRUCKS! And everyone else drove cars.
My son’s GF’s 99 CRV. Got about 5 hrs into a valve job and the manifolds are still on. No room to work on it, Just to remove the AC belt requires removing the LF wheel and a mount. Hirohito’s revenge.
My 1999 black ws6 trans am. An aesthetically beautiful piece of art,unfortunantely a fundamentally flawed piece of engineering. From ls1 piston slap to rear end issues, no wonder they scrapped the platform back in 2002.Sold it a while back. However with its menacing looks,and with the t-tops off it made playing batman on halloween a piece of cake. Good times :0)
In the mid 90s, as a 20-something entry-level pencil pusher I used to always have to rent “economy class” cars for travel. So of course I got the best of the worst, and requested Corollas. After driving enough of them, I realized they completely sucked. From a bad ground that caused whirrs and loud pops from the speakers, to a complete breakdown… those problems were nothing compared to the general shittyness of having to drive them. I still hate seeing the damn ugly things.
Oh, and a Wrangler. Putting up a roof on a convertible shouldn’t be such a knuckle-buster, and driving a vehicle should feel like being inside a bass drum.
1994 Isuzu Trooper. Solid as a rock when purchased used in 1999, but…’nuff said.
Just about any mainstream car from the mid to late nineties. Someone, somewhere, thought that ass-on-the-floor seating was appealing. It’s not. Maybe I’m getting old (and I was barely around when Elvis kicked it) but driving anything from this era worries me.
Sportscars are ok. Sitting two inches from the ground in a 1998 Corolla is no fun.
Vee-Dubs. So much potential wasted. I got tired of my friends telling me how their glass just suddenly fell, irretrievably into the door, or how they held ther doors shut with bungee cords in the winter, or how the rear hatch corroded so badly the rear wiper motor fell out…
I always despised VW’s from the 1990’s for their exceptionally cheap interior parts, annoying door and key buzzers, and the piss poor powertrains. But from like to hate…
Chrysler PT Cruiser. When they first came out there was nothing like it on the road. Within a year we were seeing them coming back to the auctions with peeling paint (Chrysler repainted silver ones black as a result) and rattles aplenty. Chrysler could have invested in it come 2004 since it made money but… nope! Instead what came out was an increasingly cheaper and cost cutting version of the same old 1990’s Neon-based vehicle.
Out of all the vehicles out there, the PT Cruiser likely represents how NOT to manage an already successful model. VW on the other hand represents how image is no substitute for substance. I would exempt the GTI from that description though.
As a high schooler, I always liked the mid-to-late 90s Camaros and Firebirds. Hey, big V8, nice sound … and what I thought were good looks.
Then I realized they were terribly small on the inside, but big on the outside. They weren’t really fast for all of that engine, and they seemed to fall apart. (Seems 9 out of 10 left on the road today are in the condition roughly akin to “1995 Dodge Neon.”)
I also grew to view the Firebird as gaudy and the Camaro as boring (especially after 1997).
In a reverse, I grew to really appreciate the “IROC” body style of the previous Camaro. But I’d never buy one.
Mustang.
Back when I was in high school it was, of course, the car to have. I drove a V6 pony car through my young driver’s test and on my road test. That was the first taste of how awful that car was. But I held out hope that perhaps the GT was a fundamentally better car… One day dad and I went to a dealer and took a brand new GT convertible out for a ride. I remember telling him to floor it. He responded with “Um, I am.”
Nuff said.
I LOVED the last gen Santa Fe to death… it was so quirky looking.
Also LOVED the S-type. It was quirky looking too, and really fast. REALLY FAST. Looks weird and Kiaish now.
Back in the day, when it first came out, I thought the Chevy Vega was pretty cool. I even liked the Chevy Monza Towne Coupe. Then I went through several painful phases of liking, oh, Fiats and Lancias, Renaults, the Austin Marina, the Sterling 827S. And then, finally, I discovered Honda and I never looked back.
’97 Benz S600. “Gray Market” car, imported (probably as a wrecked hulk) and converted to Federal spec…
…but at least I got to know a lot of tow truck drivers. And guys at mechanics shops, parts suppliers and junkyards that specialize in Mercedes.
Ferrari Testarossa. From the 80s. When I was a kid this thing was the epitome of cool–now I just look at it as a big, goofy looking flat thing with a bunch of slats on the doors.
Of cars I haven’t owned, I agree, the Ferrari Testarossa is right up there. It looks as dated as a Chrysler Cordoba now.
Amongst cars I have owned, it was my one and only Mercedes, a C220. I got it because I believed in Mercedes rep, it was comfortable for a tall person, the fuel mileage was excellent, and the dimensions made it a great city car.
Anything and everything went wrong. By the time I got rid of it I was hoping for a lottery win; not so much so that I could get a new car but so I could pay a Sikorsky Skycrane pilot to drop it on MB headquarters.
That’s an easy one:
1984 Corvette
Revolutionary design with Third-world build quality.
The photo above is a Cherokee, not a Grand Cherokee. Personally I wish I had bought an XJ (Cherokee) back in the day. I was shopping for a used XJ recently, but most of them have been heavily used due to being a Jeep. The good ones that are left are quickly bought up which says a lot about them. XJ’s are easy to lift with a lot of aftermarket support.
The KJ (Liberty) which replaced the XJ was a great seller for Jeep (I even own one that is very well built), but it would have been nice for Jeep to keep the old Cherokee around (simple yet tough 4×4 with front and rear solid-axles).
Back on topic… two Civics that I use to own. Great cars, but boring and not a car that I would want to drive to a high school reunion. And I am currently buying another one as a third vehicle. LOL
A Mustang 5.0 litre coupe. A girlfriend that I was crazy about drove one. She dumped me for another guy, and I was devastated for about a year. 20 years later, I hate those cars and any woman that drives one. Issues? You bet.
Mercedes Benz since 2000. When they went to a v-6 in the E and then restyled S series they lost the magic that made previous models special. This is about the time they started including more electronics and their reliability dropped like a rock.
My ’98 Audi A6- when it was delivered, the car took my breath away. New-it was a stunning machine. Overtime, it took my wallet away- the gas gauge didn’t work for the first 2 years, it leaked oil, the windows didn’t go down, the door handles failed, the tie rods went bad, turn signals frequently wouldn’t work and I can’t remember all the other stuff there was so much. I was on a first name basis with my service manager. I was never so glad to sell a car.
MB: MB has moved from being the most serious and sophisticated car manufacture in the world to a maker of over-wrought, poor quality puesdo-luxury cars. MB used to hands down make the BEST cars in the world. MB luxury used to be born out of MBs superior quality. It was the fact that a Benz was the best engineered car in the world that propelled MB to the top of the heap. Today Lexus is where MB used to be in it heyday. MB is now the car company that Cadillac has always wanted to be!
VW: Volkswagons used to be simple, fun to drive, useful cars, The reason they worked (kinda like MB) was because VW did not install anything that could breakdown. Today VW was adopted the stupid image of “so-called” affordable German luxury and the cars have become absolute disasters. For the sake of some nice feeling vinyl interiors VW appears to have short-changed engineering.
Toyota: While I still own a 93 Camry wagon I have come to hate the direction that Toyota has moved in lately.
Toyota IMO has become GM but they are to full of themselves to see it yet. Their cars are boring, the once rich, high quality is gone, the over-engineering is also gone. Toyota used to lead the Japanese in terms of introducing new technology and sophistication into their cars now they are fightings on volume and price. There was once a time were an Accord was like the Camry’s very eager little brother now the Camry is a joke compared to the Accord.
Does anyone else remember when Toyota used to have that print add with all of their performace models in it. You had the Supra Turbo, The Celica All-trac, the MRs Turbo, and the Corolla GTS. Toyota is going to wake up 5 to 10 years from now and realize that marketshare and volume are not what makes for the best/ most successful car company in the world.
My 1978 Datsun 280z 2+2. My second car of four in high school. No AC in Florida(pew) and the dash lights didn’t always work. Which didn’t matter because I was usually doing my level best to peg the speedo anyway. Oh and no radio either just the sweet sound of an inline 6 being caned within an inch of its life. I loved it until the electrical system began to make regular, large withdrawals from my savings account. Then the flywheel shattered……sigh. Up next to bat was my 1980 Accord hatchback. That cracked its block. ugh.
Toyota Corolla:
I bought a new 1989 Corolla SR5 in late 1988 when I graduated Ga Tech and was commissioned as a 2ndLt in the USMC. This was my Lieutenant-mobile. The 1.6L 1 bbl carbuerated engine was smooth, a high rever, and the 5 speed manual was a hoot to drive. This car had that (sometimes intangible) feel of quality to the rich interior and with the engineering. I had fun with that car, and only sold it in ’94 when I got caught up in the 90s SUV craze and bought a Mazda Navajo (Ford Explorer).
Fast forward to 2005: I bought a new 2006 Corolla CE (Classic Edition – stripper). I needed wheels fast as the previously mentioned Navajo died hard. I assumed the Toyota Corolla was still the way to go based on my pleasant experiences with the ’89. I have grown dissappointed in the ’06. Yes, I test drove it, but as mentioned earlier, I needed wheels fast and was not being too picky at the time.
This car is the most boring appliance on 4 wheels. The interior is chintzy and cheap with the hard plastic and the tupperware feel to it. The 1.8L engine and the NVH in general is rough and crude. This is not an easy car to bond with or even like. This thing will drive me to drinking with how damn boring it is! Like driving a clothes dryer.
1989 Corolla SR5 in late 1988
That era of Corolla was awesome. A friend had one and we used to cane it all over the roads near there cottage.
Funniest experience I ever had driving was in that car. We were exiting the highway and my friend, who was truly an outstanding driver, had it a controlled 4 wheel drift with all four of the all-weather tires howling.
There was a guy on the inside of the curve trying to remove a flat. He heard, then saw, us coming. He had this look of abject terror in his face, he literally threw his tools in the air, and ran and hid behind his car. I can still see his face and even now I am laughing out loud thinking about it.