It’s human nature to always be searching for – and awed by – the latest and greatest. That tendency certainly extends to the automotive world, where the best new cars get all the headlines. But there are some important lessons to learn if we reverse course and look at some of the worst cars in history.
There was a good idea hiding somewhere within all of these vehicles, but in each case those good intentions were betrayed by ulterior motives, fueled collectively by a calamitous combination of greed, frugality, ego and short-sightedness. The result is five of the worst cars ever.
DeLorean DMC-12
It may be strange seeing the DeLorean DMC-12 on this list of the worst cars in history considering its fame and popularity. But off the silver screen, the car fell far short of expectations.
Former General Motors executive John DeLorean touted the DMC-12 as the sports car of the future. With its gull wings and sleek metallic look, it certainly has the aesthetics to meet that boast. But behind that façade was a heavy, underpowered and overpriced vehicle.
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Download Now!Originally, the company expected to sell 12,000 cars per year. In the end, only about 9,000 vehicles were made during its two-year run and the company was shut down in 1982. Ironically, the DeLorean became iconic just a few years later with its prominent role in 1985’s “Back to the Future.” The movie franchise ensured that the car’s legacy would extend well past its seemingly destined fate as an automotive footnote.
The Yugo
The Yugo was a decades-old Soviet-era Yugoslavia automobile imported to the U.S. in 1985. The decision to sell the car in America was the brainchild of entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin and was destined for failure from the start. In an interview with Car and Driver, Bricklin recalled tasking his employees to find the cheapest car in the world. They did so at a 50-year-old factory in Yugoslavia that was manufacturing a 30-year-old car. “We took this piece-of-crap car and within 14 months had set up 400 U.S. dealers and made 528 changes to the car,” Bricklin said.
Yugoslavia had been manufacturing the car for years. Bricklin’s plan was to spruce it up and bring to America. There was no amount of changes that could overcome the vehicle’s poor quality, however. The Yugo’s engine generated a measly 55 horsepower, making the car dangerous to drive on American roads. The car was notoriously unreliable (the rear window defroster was reportedly there to keep your hands warm when you needed to push the vehicle), had many parts made of plastic, and oddly enough, featured carpeting as a standard feature.
But for the people selling the Yugo, the car was all about one thing: profit margin. The vehicle only cost $2,000 wholesale and was sold stateside for nearly twice that. Consumers quickly realized that even $4,000 was too much for the Yugo.
Pontiac Aztek
For as much grief as the Aztek got, it was actually at the forefront of what would prove to be one of the top automotive trends of the past two decades. When the car was first introduced in the early aughts, SUVs were surging in popularity and the idea of crossovers – vehicles with the space and power of an SUV combined with the on-street abilities of a sedan – was just beginning to take hold.
In fact, if you look the Aztek concept car, it doesn’t look all that dissimilar to some of today’s crossover models. Time magazine may have put it best, saying, “The shame is, under all that ugliness, there was a useful, competent crossover.”
Clearly, the idea behind the car was good, but the execution was not. The problem was that the Aztek was designed by committee. No singular, coherent vision took the lead and just about everybody got a say in the design process. Even the bean counters made their mark involved. GM accountants reportedly ordered the Aztek to be built on an existing minivan platform in order to reduce costs. This platform, however, was not long enough to hold the Aztek, forcing designers to create a box-like tail end.
The Aztek was in production all of five years, from 2001-2005. But showing that everything comes full circle, the car got a significant popularity boost when it was prominently featured as Walter White’s vehicle of choice in the uber-popular television show “Breaking Bad.”
Ford Pinto
While most of the cars on this list are here due to aesthetic design fails, poor craftsmanship or lackluster sales, several of the worst cars ever made were actually dangerous to drive. These vehicles had such fundamental mechanical and design flaws that they posed a serious risk to the occupants of the car.
Chrysler’s PT Cruiser had a unique look, which many people derided, but it’s most notable for its mercurial nature. The car was known to shut off in the middle of driving, completely out of the blue. The 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, meanwhile, had an engine that exploded when it made 90 horsepower.
But the most infamously dangerous worst car in history is the Ford Pinto. The only feature that needs to be discussed about this 1970s vehicle is its fuel tank. The Pinto famously featured an exposed fuel tank. Cars involved in rear-end collisions, even at slow speeds, tended to burst into flames. Later on, the “Pinto memo” was publicized, which proved the company concluded it was cheaper to settle victims’ lawsuits ($50 million) than to recall and fix the cars ($120 million).
Aptly, the coda to the Pinto’s story is the car’s presence in American Museum of Tort Law.
Ford Edsel
We’ve reached the pinnacle of the worst cars in history. For decades, the terms “automotive failure” and “the Edsel” have been all but synonymous. So what went so wrong?
In the mid-1950s, Ford came to the conclusion that it should expand its product line. Specifically, it needed a new, mid-priced brand to go in between its flagship Lincoln and mid-level Mercury. Studies predicted that “by 1965 half of all U.S. families … would be buying more cars in the medium-priced field, which already had 60% of the market,” according to Time magazine. And so the Edsel was created, named after Henry Ford’s son, no less.
It’s not so much that the Edsel was such a terrible car – although it certainly had its faults, namely its price. It’s that it suffered the unfortunate fate of being hyped up as the greatest thing on four wheels. Believe it or not, Ford booked an hourlong prime time television slot on CBS to unveil the car, claiming the broadcast day as “E Day.” “The Edsel Show” included performances by Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney and Louis Armstrong. By this time, however, the push for compact cars was well underway. Just two years after its prime-time debut, the Edsel’s run was over after less than 120,000 were sold. Ford had estimated it could sell up to 400,000 cars a year. In total, the company spent roughly $350 million on the Edsel’s research, design, tooling and production facilities, the equivalent of nearly $3.2 billion in 2021.
To add insult to injury, while the Edsel was cementing its place as the biggest automotive flop ever, “The Edsel Show” was nominated for an Emmy.
What do you think are some of the worst cars in history? Let us know in the comments below!
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In today’s world I dumped NEW GM vehicles .. new GM is in 2007 … old GM went bankrupt in 2007. new GM co. now has engine,transmission,electrical failures of the GM trucks .I was prior to the new GM company and I always owned all old GM vehicles .. I then bought a Toyota truck vehicle and bought it in 2016 new , and I only had the air bag recall.. never brought it back to dealership no defects .. the dealership replaced the air bag with the NHTSA …RECALL
new GM foot dragged on the air bag NHTSA recall and this year the GM has to change out these defective air bags. over hundreds of thousands of recalls on the air bag.
EQUINOX has engine damage.. then many had failures and some had the engine blow up .. GM foot dragged then, the Lawsuit was in court . GM failed and GM had to replace these engines …
GO ON INTERNET auto forums to see what vehicle you want . read how owners are posting the vehicles quality and how the vehicle companies are fixing these failures ..
good luck
This list needs to include the following cars:
Chevrolet Corvair 1960-1963 (Nader’s “Unsafe at Any Speed)
Chevrolet Vega
Ford Mustang II 1974-1978
Subaru 360
Loved my 71 Pinto. Same color as the one in the article. But that guy that slid down the rain soaked hill in Newark, NJ and took out the front left fender prevented the passenger door from opening. My girl friend hated it because she had to climb across the driver seat & manual shift to get in. She was a good sport though, she married me!
The Chevette, the Gremlin and the Plymouth Horizon surely must rank at the bottom. My Mom’s Chevette rusted out to total dysfunction before 60K miles (struts broke through rusted-out front wheel wells). Interesting that all these candidates but the Yugo were American. Oh yes, the Russian Lada was another surefire winner from behind the Iron Curtain!
80 Chevrolet Citation. The clutch would engage while you were waiting at a light while you had it pushed all the way to the floor. The pistons rattled in the cylinders. Rear brakes would suddenly lock causing uncontrollable fishtailing. Steering wheel assembly was not anchored to the dash and would move side to side while you drove. The carburetor starved the engine so it ran very roughly. The worst and most dangerous vehicle GM ever assembled.
1971 Jensen Interceptor III. A collection of good parts assembled in the worst possible way.
How about the AMC Gremlin? Between my cousins and me we owned 4 of them – because they were cheap! Sourcing parts was complicated because AMC seemingly built this car with parts from every American auto manufacturer. Rear wheel drive with zero weight over the rear wheels meant it was un-driveable in the snow!
Had a 2001 Nissan Altima purchased used in ’05 from Nissan Dealer. Just after purchasing it, was on I95 and it stalled on the ramp. Luckily other drivers could see and go around. It started up again after restarting it. Dealer had it in for repair for about two weeks, and complained when I wanted the full two weeks of rental car costs paid. Over the years the engine light came on costing a couple of thousand dollars each time. However, I still liked it enough to consider having it repaired again. Decided not to do that.
I have a Ford Escape and it is the worst car I ever owned. Every month it is in the shop for repairs. I like American cars, but I might have to buy a Toyota.
I had an old bug where the back seat went up in flames like that. I drove into a snow back, and threw snow in the passenger door to put out the flames. Rolled started it down a hill, replaced the voltage regulator and washed the smoke off the inside of the windows. About 2 months later the motor developed massive oil leak on mid cape highway and the engine seized.
I have so many Saab stories it would bring tears to your eyes. My first was a 1960. It had a 3 cylinder, 2 cycle engine. Had to mix oil in with the gas at the pump. If you didn’t get the right ratio of oil to gas mosquitoes would die in it’s wake. It left rubber twice. The windshield wipers fell off and it dropped a fan belt.
We had two Saab two-strokes and I had two 99’s and two 900’s. Loved every one!
The 1970’s International Harvester Scout II- rust came standard. Many memories of driving through puddles and having my friends scream as they were soaked-lol. My dad renamed it, “ El Pigo” which he wrote with a marker on each front side panel. Every repair conceived of, but my favorite was my dad’s improv repair of the broken accelerator cable. He ended up fishing a wire from the engine compartment to the front console that he could pull on to accelerate. Shifting became an art.
My first “hunk of junk” was a Plymouth Reliant K car. It barely ran, and would put, put, put down the street. I detested that car by the time I got rid of it.
My best friend and I drove cross country for 2 months in a 1980 Ford Bobcat (basically the same as a Pinto). Threw all our clothes, tapes and a cooler in the hatchback and had the time of our lives! This little sucker even climbed Mt Washington and drove through the Rockies. Best car ever….
The first new car I ever owned was a 74 Vega-GT. It was awesome. Road & Track said it was equal to the BMW 2002. Of course they had not driven it the 5K miles required to score the aluminum cylinders and see the fenders rusting away. Qt of oil with every fuel fill. AT 30K miles I put it out of its misery in Quebec when big sedan plowed into me. After a hospital stay I hitchhiked back home.
Its a tie between the Chevrolet Chevette and the Plymouth Horizon/Dodge Omni. Anyway does not matter. Drove me into buying Japanese cars for years
It’s funny to read these comments. I had a 1976 Chevrolet Vega. I bought it from my Dad. He bought it new. What an absolute piece of garbage. At the time my Dad was a “Buy American” guy. Eventually he tried a Toyota Corolla and never bought anything but Toyota’s ever again. I learned the same lesson after buying my first new car a Plymouth Reliant K. Another American piece of junk. I started buying only Japanese cars after that misery. Haven’t bought American made since 1987. And never will.
Chevrolet Corvair. Ralph Nader’s book said it well, “Unsafe at any Speed”
What about the Renault Encore? Worst car we ever owned!! went lemon law with it and then to the trash heap!
1977 Dodge Aspen was the worst car I owned. It was in the shop more than on the road. It used to stall out while I was driving. Catalytic converter was replaced several times.
Yes I remember the Dodge Aspen/Plymouth Volare twins. And yes Consumers raved about them. They followed the Dodge Dart, which was a good solid car! But Chrysler couldnt upgrade the slant 6 for emission controls(or they said), only thing that saved Chrysler later was Iacocca and the Mini Vans! Now only thing saving Chrysler(owned btw by a French/Italian conglomerate) is the Jeep.