Would you believe it that the good folks at Americas buff books make mistakes every once in a while? Well, Car And Driver has decided to air the American motor press’s ten biggest bloopers in a blog post entitled Dishonorable Mention. “We’re not the only publication to recognize a few stinkers with its highest honor. The history of automotive journalism has seen flaming piles of poo named ‘Car of the Year’ even as they attract product liability lawsuits by the acre-foot and hunks of crud honored as “All-Stars” at the very moment buyers are seeking reimbursement under lemon laws,” write C&D’s editors. “It’s always a risk making judgments based on the initial exposure to a car, and sometimes a vehicle’s ultimate crappiness only reveals itself with the fullness of time. We’re all subject to hype for something that seems new, different, and maybe even better, and in this business, we all feel the crushing pressure to be timely, amusing, and authoritative. Being wrong is always a risk. Still, here are ten award winners for which somebody needs to apologize.”
The impetus for the entire piece comes from C&D’s decision to name the Renault Alliance as one of the “10 Best” cars of 1983. “For the last 26 years, it’s been gnawing at our collective gut like a shame-induced ulcer,” admits C&D. “The car was trash. We should have known that back then, and it’s taken us too long to confess our grievous mistake.” Oh, but the fact that Motor Trend named it Car Of The Year means they “share the shame.” Nice.
The 2002 Ford Thunderbird gets a nod as well. C&D admits to being taken in by the styling, only to be disappointed by the cheap interior, yawn-inducing driving dynamics, and outrageous price. “If anyone was going to drive this T-Bird, it was platinum-haired women prone to carrying small dogs wherever they go. It turns out there aren’t that many of those women out there,” admits C&D. But it is Motor Trend, which named the T-Bird COTY in 2002, that receives the brunt of the blame.
Speaking of Motor Trend, did you know that the geniuses at that buff book voted the Chevy Vega as Car Of The Year in 1971? They also named the Chevy Malibu COTY in 1997, the Lincoln Towncar in 1990, the Chevy Citation in 1980, and the Mustang II in 1974. Ouch. Those are some stinkers. But then again, this is Motor Trend we’re talking about.
Automobile Magazine’s hyping of the Cadillac Catera in 1997 also gets a dishonorable mention. An RWD Cadillac that zigs? Uh, no. A bland, unreliable porker that had no place on Automobile’s “All-Stars” list. Busted.
C&D takes a break from blaming their competitors to admit to the shame of touting the Merkur XR4Ti as one of its ten best of 1985. Given the product mix of the day, it’s not that surprising that C&D said the XR4Ti was “maybe the slickest thing ever to come out of the Ford Motor Company.” Of course, it wasn’t. Certainly not sales-wise, anyway. But it was a ray of excitement in a dreary period of automotive history.
Similarly, C&D’s naming of the 1995 Ford Contour/Mercury Mystique is fairly understandable, considering what Detroit was churning out at the time. Their assertion at the time that “if you didn’t see Ford’s oval logo, you might easily mistake it for a much more expensive European sports sedan,” definitely does seem worth apologizing for.
Did they miss any?
There’s been a lot of crap throughout the years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_and_Driver_Ten_Best
The Saab 9000 was on the list for four years in a row, and the Pontiac 6000 was on the list for three years in a row.
My Dad had a first year Contour – four cylinder / 5spd. It was quite a pleasant car in that form. The automatics were hopelessly unreliable though especially paired with a V6. Around here there are more Tempo/Topazs around than Contour/Mystiques.
I think MT also named the Caprice car of the year at some point.
Not in the same class, but Bedard basically apologized earlier this year for giving the Nu ‘Bu a 10 best last year.
It’s a good car, but any vehicle that has been in as many head to head comparo’s as the Malibu without notching any overall victories is not a “best”.
I wish CD would develop a backbone on sport sedans. I think there were three in their 10 best.
Pick one and open a few more categories already.
Bunter
The Lincoln Town Car was a good car in 1990. Not LS400 good, but not so bad to be on a list with the Citation.
When I think of all the reasons C/D has sucked and blown in the past, somehow the selection of the Contour/Mystique or AMC Alliance doesn’t come to mind… it’s more a case of fifteen years’ worth of bottom-drawer writing, indifferent photography, and consistent failure to attract or retain anything resembling “talent”.
The best thing HF could do with C/D would be to lock the doors to the offices sometime after lunch, once everyone’s inside of course, burn the building to the ground, then reissue the Wilkinson/Davis-era output one month at a time in commemorative binders.
Cris Carter could express my thoughts here better than I.
Jordan,
You forget that a Towncar was 28k-33k and a LS400 was 35k. It was a POS compared to the LS400 by all measures.
They Dodge/Plymouth Omni/Horizon were MT’s 1978 Car of The Year. The Corvair in 60. The Neon was Automobile Magazine’s Car of The Year or whatever they called it at the time when it came out.
Autoweek busted Motor Trend many years ago for essentially selling their award to the highest bidder: the one who offered the most perks, loaners, junkets and who committed to buying the most ad pages. Shameful.
The 77 Caprice, was actually deserving of the award. And they still look good. Brilliant packaging, sort of a return to sanity after 2 decades of longer lower wider and more gas hungry.
One thing which is hard to determine is hindsight. Yes, in 2009 we can say a 1983 Renault Alliance wasn’t good. But in 1983, how was it compared to the competition? My 1983 Pontiac J2000 wasn’t good at all.
The 1960 Corvair was a pretty good car. It used to throw fan belts a lot though which is scary for an air cooled car.
tced2: the Alliance got bad real fast. Chevy Vega bad.Consumer Reports black dot Hell bad.
@DweezilSFV: IIRC that was the MT’s 1983 COTY, Mazda 626 (Mk 2) barely won over the Audi 5000 (=100 C3) with some change in points allocated vs. the years prior.
The 1990 Town Car had a 4.9L V8 that made 150 hp. How is that even possible? That’s barely 30hp/litre!
(By way of comparison, according to wiki, the LS400 at the time had a 4.0L (duh) V8 pumping out 256hp. But it probably need premium fuel).
Fair enough, guys. I sometimes forget that I was 8 years old in 1990.
The more things change, the more they stay the same…
The 1990 Lincoln, at $30K was not much of a bargain.
However, the following year, the 1990 Lincoln, priced at $18K, was not such a bad deal! In fact, we were offered just such a deal. Very tempting! Couldn’t have been worse than the Aerostar we did buy for pretty similar money which had a nasty habit of destroying transmissions and losing oil seals.
When a magazine picks these dogs they are no longer relevant and then the problems occur. It does not surprise me that they give the car of the year to the highest bidder because when I see what they pick it blows my mind. The 97 Malibu “car of the year” is the biggest joke of them all. They even say that it went straight to Hertz because it was a POS.
150 HP from a 4.9L V8?
Wahahahaha, you could get more HP out of a Chrysler 2.2L Turbo 2 that existed at the same time.
Who was it that called the ridiculous fenderskirted Caprice the Car of the Year? That one thas was redesigned after one whole year on the market?
@NickR: Caprice was MT’s 1991 COTY. The fender skirts lasted a couple of years.
I don’t think the Contour/Mystique belongs on the list. They were probably the best cars Ford was selling (domestically in the US) at the time. The LS/SE versions were decent, sporty cars, especially the (rare) V6/5-speed manual ones.
In 1991, Chevrolet for some reason decided to bring the Impala and Caprice sales to a halt. To do so, they released the most butt-ugly car ever put before the public up to that time. (Honda matched it a few years ago with some kind of electric turd.)
Motor Trend named it the Car of the Year.
Reacting to a landslide of criticism, Chev opened the rear wheel well opening in 1992 and basically said “Shove it!” The production run of this gastly freak was ’91 to ’96.
From this experience and a few others, many people developed a deep-rooted belief that General Motors does not care about their cars or their customers.
I think it`s kinda bogus that C&D would take back cars from its ‘list’
after all,that was the true ‘state’ of the business at the time.
It should be considered a history lesson.
and no take backs!
Where is Warren Wieth when we need him?
I agree that the Contour marginally belongs on this list. To its credit, its powertrains and chassis dynamics were heads-and-tails ahead of what the rest of the domestics were producing at the time. It was hampered by its nondescript styling, tiny back seat, and price point. And it was cost engineered to where it became the poster child for early component failures. I say this as the long time owner of a ’96 SE with the V6/5sp combo. Still fun to drive, and I have learned to ignore the Check Engine light….
Contour was definitely a fun car to drive. My parents used to get V6 sport models as loaners from Ford. A lot of fun around the twisty hilly roads of Harriman State Park.
Shame about the Contour, besides the small back seat, was the severe penny pinching the interior received for 1998 models. The console was practically removed, and the swatches of cloth that covered the doors was taken out and replaced with plastic.
If C/D truly had stones, they would post a chart showing their 10 Best on one axis and ad revenues by manufacturer on the other.
Relationship? Just maybe.
Also, Ed N: what on earth are you doing reading C/D? Was your Betamax broken?
I’m with Jordan. The 1990 Town Car was a much, much better car than the Vega, Citation, Cimmaron, Alliance, and others. Plus, Ford kept improving it, including the 1991 upgrade of the new 4.6L modular engine (to 210 HP). The car was amazingly popular and sturdy. Should it have been the “Car of the Year?” I don’t know. But it was a good car.
The impetus for the entire piece comes from C/D’s decision to name the Renault Alliance as one of the “10 Best” cars of 1983
The second I got the gist of this post, this car and C/D’s award came to mind. I remember avidly reading that review. If I hadn’t been living in NYC at the time I might have bought one. The interesting thing is that then, as now, lots of people were desperate for a distinctive, quality, small American car. Including the magazine’s editors, even if it was the product of an… alliance.
An open letter to “THE CARANDDRIVER.com EDITORS”:
You all (since apparently no one wants his name to appear on this drivel) seem rather quick to call out other magazines for their poor judgment. There should be quite a collection of C/D back issues in a closet somewhere around your offices. Read them sometime. There are far more embarrassing examples from your own past. You seem to be explicitly calling out Motor Trend. Didn’t AutoWeek expose their bogus award practices/sales long ago? In the minds of car buffs, the MT COTY is worthless. I always thought that their content was embarrassing enough in itself. It almost seems like you guys are bitter that Frank Markus and Art St. Antoine work there now. (Actually, did any of you guys ever work with Markus? For that matter, do you even know who St. Antoine is?)
Anyway, let’s get back to C/D’s own history of malfeasance. You called yourselves out on the Alliance, but I can forgive you for that judgment. In those days, there was a quota for domestic cars in 10Best. As it came off the showroom floor, the Alliance may well have been one of the five best domestic cars available in 1983.
I actually read C/D’s first road test of the 2002 Thunderbird as I sat on the toilet this morning (no kidding). Though you criticized its mission of “relaxed sportiness”, in the end you said “we loved the car” and called it “The first Thunderbird in a while to deserve its name.” Sure, you didn’t give it an award, but you did have positive words for it.
Would you believe that I also have on hand a copy of C/D’s September 1970 Vega preview test? I do. It’s on pages 26-27. You wrote that the Vega “is meant to do everything better than Volkswagens, Toyotas, Mavericks, or anything else you can name. And as near as we can tell, it’s a success.” Again, no award, but the qualities you disliked in the Vega were mainly that it was engineered to a statistics sheet; it was meant to appeal to the most consumers. Ironically, these are now the qualities you now hold against the Contour/Mystique. In 1970, the worst you could say about the Vega was that it wasn’t a sporting compact sedan in the European idiom. Today, your condemnation of the Contour is that it WAS such a car. “Driver” is still in you name, is it not?
About the Catera: So maybe DED liked it. It still kinda bugs me that you’re calling out other magazines. You yourselves said, “Aside from the styling, which will excite no one…this is quite a nice piece of work.” Hmmm…
Don’t apologize for the way the market as a whole felt about a car you liked. Though the Merkur XR4Ti suffered from a rough powertrain transplant, it was the kind of car your readers should have appreciated. I never thought that C/D was written to appeal to a mass audience. If I wanted that sort of analysis, I’d be sucking the teat of Consumers Union.
And the Malibu? I’m not going to claim that you liked it. After all, your January 1997 test referred to it once as the MALLibu. You did say, though, that “by the standards of its class…it deserves to stand in the first rank. Oops? Here again, you dislike the Malibu for not being a driver’s car, but you dislike the Contour because it is a driver’s car.
I can’t fault your judgment of the 1990 Town Car, but if you’ve gone this far, don’t forget that Motor Trend followed up the Town Car as COTY with the Chevrolet Caprice. How could you ever let that go?
I like the Citation. So did you. “GM blows everybody into the weeds with new front-drive compacts!” That was your cover blurb in May 1979, complete with exclamation point. You could have chosen simply to mock yourselves.
In 1973, your first test of the Mustang II found it lacking in acceleration and handling abilities, and generally comes off with a negative tone. Good call.
As for the Contour, you admit that your editors championed its cause for a few years. In short, you said that it was the type of family sedan that you wished American automakers would have been producing for years: sized and developed to compete in Europe. While it was small, “aggressive road manners” were the type of quality C/D had been begging for since “Sports Cars Illustrated” appeared on the cover. While they may have been the wrong size for the market, you should never complain about a mainstream car that remains satisfying to an enthusiast. Never.
Maybe I’m an angry reader. Maybe I wish that your keyboards were still manned by the same kind of minds that once referred to a Yugo’s handling as “theoretical” and weren’t afraid to rank cars based on what they liked instead of a rigid set of points categories. Most of all, I just wish you’d think a little more about what you’re saying when you say it.
Holy moly, according to the Wikipedia entry on the Alliance, that car got 37 mpg—city. Highway mileage “approached 60.”
And in the C/D feature we’re all talking about, when Ford finally shoved a V-8 into the unspeakably hideous Mustang II in 1975, it generated 129 hp! How is THAT possible?
I still think Motor Trend‘s most shameful COTY moment was in 1964, when they gave it to Ford’s entire ’64 line for their “Total Performance” ad campaign. At the time, Ford’s actual performance line consisted of the Falcon Sprint (this was before the launch of the Mustang) and the fact that you could theoretically order a 427 in your full-size Galaxie (or the limited-production Fairlane Thunderbolt, which was a pure drag strip special). That was the same year Plymouth trounced them so badly on the track that Mopar dealers started handing out buttons saying “Total What?”
Some of the awards are justifiable in context, some are not. If I’d been a journalist in 1980, I might have voted for the Citation, too. Why? Because it was a big deal for the domestic auto industry and GM — it was the first front-drive compact GM had built in the U.S., it was genuinely new, and at the time (five years after the Golf, four years after the Accord) it seemed like the first real sign that GM was going to challenge the imports on their own terms. Things like build quality and reliability are impossible to judge at a press preview. (For the record, C/D‘s initial preview of the Citation was typically rah-rah, although their actual road tests of production cars took it to task for things like the godawful brakes.)
I think all you can reasonably expect from journalists in that kind of situation is one of two things: either they make some kind of statement about the Significance of a particular car (its historical, cultural, and market impact in the present moment), or they tell you what they like. Even if their choice isn’t dictated by payola, it’s not like you’re getting an unbiased viewpoint.
The thing that frustrates me about a magazine like Car & Driver is not that it isn’t objective — at its best, it was gleefully subjective, and proud of it — but when it’s lazy, ineptly presented, and/or obviously bought off.
When I was a kid, there was a particular movie reviewer in The Milwaukee Journal that my mother always read and valued highly. She rarely ever agreed with him, but she found that his opinions always made it clear what she would think about a movie. That’s how I once felt about C/D, and it really sucks that they’ve become indistinguishable from the other dying buff books.
People still read magazines like Car & Driver or Motortrend???
I used to read every newstand issue religiously for about 20 years. Then the internet came, and by maybe 2004 not only did I stop reading them, but I even stopped looking inside.
I personally prefer less text and more photographs like the Japanese auto rags, but with the internet, I can’t see how the traditional magazine business model can last.
WRT car of the year awards, when I look back over the last 20 years, I find it’s always been BMW and Lexus that have been the most influential on other auto manufacturers.
WaftableTorque :
….but with the internet, I can’t see how the traditional magazine business model can last.
Oh, I’ve tried it, but you just can’t surf the ‘net with a laptop while you’re sitting on the pot. Just 100% too much hassle. Thus, the only reason for car magazines. And yeah, the more pictures, the better!
1995 Ford Contour/Mercury Mystique? I owned one, a Mystique with a V6. I bought it because it was a very good value. I got 7 years out of it and got reamed when I traded it. But it was a very nice little car, and I enjoyed driving it.
C&D say it was too small. But I thought it was a nice size. The back seat was cramped, but that was a problem that many Detroit cars have suffered from. I have often mentioned how cramped the back seat of the 224″ long 72 Eldorado was. The equipment on the Mystique was fabulous. It was one of the first cars to include traction control and dual air bags. The interior was very nice. I don’t like leather seats. The Mystique had a very nice fabric.
The real problem with the car from Ford’s point of view was that it was too nice to slot into the place they wanted to put it in their line up, which was to replace the Tempo (a real PoS) between the Escort and the Taurus. The latter was still selling very well at that time. The Contour/Mystique needed to be priced more like the Taurus to be profitable, but Ford could not sell a small car for that much money.
They tried to decontent the car inorder to keep the price down, but when they brought out the Focus, the Contour was dead. The Focus was what the Contour should have been.
Received subscriptions as a spiff to several well-known auto magazines for answering surveys from a major polling firm.
After the one year freebie all the mags sent offers to renew, most in the 10 dollar per year range.
Shunned all the offers. Money is tight. Times are tough and getting worse. I can walk to the library and read ’em for free.
A year later and more offers. Car and Driver must be getting desperate; five bucks for a year, delivered to that little box with the flap door next to the road outside the shanty.
Hmmm… okay. Five bucks. My Xmas present to myself. My only Xmas present. Sniff.
Twelve issues at five bucks is 42 cents per issue or, the equivalent of 2-1/2 packs of ramen-type soup stuff, beef, pork or shrimp flavor, per issue.
When the begging for resubscribing time arrived and the five buck offered remained, it took a few moments pondering for a decision to be reached.
Comparing need and desire and the innate satisfaction obtained from each; Car and Driver or a few packs of life-sustaining semi-food, the ramen won.
That decision says something about the magazine or the ramen, or maybe both.
I understand the hate on the regular Alliance, but any of you driven an ’88 GTA? We had one, it was the car I drove in HS, and what a gem. Quick, glued to the road, easy on gas, and oh those seats.
You all may laugh… but I actually owned a 1985 Renault Alliance in high-school. It was white, with a powder blue interior. We called it the “Appliance”. The car deserved it’s reputation for unreliability… but mine was not at all bad. And since I lived in WI the parts were easy enough to get at the time. It did get AMAZING mileage, and it was not at all fast. But a 5-speed manual made it tolerable. It went through the deepest snow with ease and rode like a Caddy. What more could a 16 year old ask for?
I’m still remembering a C&D comparison test from the 90s where the then-new Chrysler Sebring beat out an Accord.
I still see legions of the mid 90s Accords all over town. How many of those 90s Sebrings do you see on the roads today?
Also, the BMW 3s are nice cars and unquestionably fun to drive, but how can C&D continually place them at the top of comparison tests when these cars are usually the only cars in the comparo to have gremlins or parts falling off?
I still enjoy print magazines and subscribe to MT, JP, and Four Wheeler. The internet is great for short reviews, hot news, and forums, but I don’t think it replaces the feel of a magazine (IMHO).
I realize some of MT’s vehicle of the year awards are odd, but as they say sometimes it’s for innovation or something just different… like the Honda Ridgeline that I assume will go by-by.
Not to flog a dead horse but has anyone ever read a case study of how the 91 Caprice actually made it to market? I’d love to read it.
I remember reading that it was so widely disliked that even the police officers shunned them in favour of the older Caprice whenever possible.
I’ll chime in on the 95 Contour as my dad bought one (used) with the V6/auto. The auto I disliked, not only does it suck the fun out of driving you could count on it to do whatever it needed (or was going) to do about 2 full seconds too late. The sound of that 2.5L V6 at full throttle winding from 6k through redline was rather thrilling though. Driving dynamics were great compared to what I was accustomed to…learning to drive in a 1984 Plymouth voyager and using an 88 Dodge truck as my daily driver. My present 2002 Dodge truck has better steering feel and less highway “float” than the Contour did.
Even though it was a lightly used vehicle there were recalls…and recalls…and probably not a button or switch in the thing that didn’t fail or try to. I almost forgot about the water pump failure that happened after I moved out on my own.
It was a low/sleek/light car when people were buying bigger/boxier/heavier SUVs. Sitting in a Contour next to an Escort made the Escort look just a tad short and unbelievably tall (the Escort was definitely taller). I think the low driving position was what sealed its fate as Accords of the era had a more upright and slightly higher seating position that was friendlier to the geriatric set that seemed resistant to the SUV boom. I liked the seating position and low-slung stance. A more taut handling package and another inch or two rear leg room (maybe a hatch/wagon for more rear head room) would have made it perfect, but then it would have been a Focus.
I’m inclined to give Car and Driver and Motor Trend a break on some of their choices. Remember, they were looking at these cars without the benefit of hindsight.
The Alliance, for example, DID have some nice features, was quite economical, and offered a very nice interior for an early 1980s small car (particulary one made in America). I remember riding in one and being amazed at how quiet and comfortable it was at freeway speeds. The problems with lousy reliability didn’t surface until later, but, to be honest, that is not an area that either magazine rates.
And please note that the Alliance was initially a big sales success. If I recall correctly, for 1983 it was the second-best selling small car in the country, behind the Ford Escort. And remember that the domestic competition included the aging Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon and the doddering old Chevrolet Chevette/Pontiac T-1000. It’s not hard to see why, in the context of the times, journalists AND customers were intially excited by the Alliance.
The problem isn’t that magazines gave the Alliance an award or glowing reviews. The problem is that AMC and Renault snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
The Lincoln Town Car is a questionable choice…not because it is a bad car (it wasn’t), but because there really wasn’t anything new or exciting about it. It did what is was supposed to do – provide quiet, comfortable and reliable transportation to an aging customer base. That is hardly earth-shattering or revolutionary, even for 1990. But that doesn’t make it a bad car, or one worthy of ridicule.
The Ford Contour was a decent car that had potential. The problem was that Ford took the typical narrow Detroit view, and dropped it because it wasn’t as successful as the company had hoped. More money was to be made on SUVs.
If Ford had taken the Toyota approach – bring out a new version that improved the weak points and built upon the strengths – that car would still be with us yet, and a strong contender in that segment.
argentla: I still think Motor Trend’s most shameful COTY moment was in 1964, when they gave it to Ford’s entire ‘64 line for their “Total Performance” ad campaign. At the time, Ford’s actual performance line consisted of the Falcon Sprint (this was before the launch of the Mustang) and the fact that you could theoretically order a 427 in your full-size Galaxie (or the limited-production Fairlane Thunderbolt, which was a pure drag strip special). That was the same year Plymouth trounced them so badly on the track that Mopar dealers started handing out buttons saying “Total What?”
If I recall correctly, Ford was offering four-speeds and heavy-duty suspension equipment in the Galaxie line as well. The early 1960s Galaxies are pretty well regarded by collectors today, as are the Falcon Sprints.
While the Hemi blew all competitors off the track at the 1964 Daytona 500, it wasn’t available as a regular production option in a Mopar until the 1966 model year. It didn’t even debut at Daytona until the 1964 model year was well underway. And Ford still claimed the NASCAR Manufacturer’s Championship for 1964.
NickR: Not to flog a dead horse but has anyone ever read a case study of how the 91 Caprice actually made it to market? I’d love to read it.
The GM committee that approved vehicles for production did not like the partially covered rear wheels. But the chief stylist, Chuck Jordan, held firm, and the car went into production as he styled it. Which was a mistake, as the partially covered rear wheels and resulting narrow track were the two main objections to the design. Once GM widened the rear track and opened up the rear wheel wells, the car looked good. The Impala SS based on this body is a very attractive car – and one that is already being collected.
From what I’ve read, police officers loved the power and handling of their Caprices, and were quite upset when GM discontinued it.
As a used car purchase the Contour was a gem. For 40% of it’s original price, in 98 I picked up a 3 year old 95 Contour SE which was lucky enough to have the European suspension on it as they softened it up for Amercian tastes the next year. I’d never driven a FWD car that came from the factory with such neutral handling without an LSD, and the engine was a worthy partner to the SHO motor in the Taurus at that time. In fact I picked it over an SHO because of the more compact size and tidier handling. I used to run it to redline just to hear it sing and missed it when we traded it in for a Jetta 1.8T in 04.
I’ve recently picked up a 99 Contour SVT that Steven Lang would be proud of – 50k miles, full maintenance history for $3k and I’ve fallen in love wtih the Contour all over again.