By Jim Brennan
Virtually every car blog seems to have a top ten listing of the worst automobiles ever offered for sale to the public, and the guys over at Autopia took things a little higher, with the top fifteen Agonizing Automotive Atrocities. Some of them have been discussed in the past, while others are rather questionable.
This piece was posted on May 10th, and the author, Keith Barry, was quite candid in his choices. The usual suspects were covered including the Yugo GV, the Pontiac Aztek, and the Cadillac Cimarron. According to the article:
Not all cars rose to level of infamy embodied by the Yugo. To paraphrase Shakespeare, some cars were born awful while others had awfulness thrust upon them. Some automotive atrocities were the result of automakers trying something new and falling far short of the mark, while other cars failed from a lack of effort. Still others were perfectly adequate cars but came to represent a regrettable moment in time.
I wanted to highlight a couple of questionable entries. One was the 1911 Reeves Octoauto, in which the M.O. Reeves Co., located in Columbus Indiana simply attached 2 more axles, and four more tires to an existing Overland. It was a failure.
Then there is the 1974 Highway Aircraft Corporation Fascination. It was suppose to be powered with a propeller, but was instead powered by a VW engine and a transaxle. Five vehicles were built before the company collapsed.
Why not read the entire article at Autopia here.
Hat Tip to my California based brother Patrick. Image Credits are all buried within the original article at Autopia.
Kamil Kaluski
I hate that they chose the Panamera.
It is such a lame choice… The Panamera may be ugly in some folks eyes, but it is far from an atrocity. It is in fact one of the most exciting luxury sport sedans you can buy.
I had the pleasure to drive a Turbo model on a track and I still think about it from time to time…the car was excellent.
I don't see where the hate comes from in the Panamera, besides the problem that it doesn't look like every other sedan. (Boo-hoo), I've seen a few on the road, and I'd prefer them over any bange-bimmer any day.
Exactly.
I am seeing more and more pop up around Newport/Huntington Beach/Costa Mesa…
I am one of the few who actually liked this car from the beginning (style wise) and I still love it. Though I finally saw a Rapide in person… yowza.
Kristen Bell is attractive
Heidi Klum is stunning.
Figure out which is which.
Isn't Kristen Bell a little too petite to be a Panamera?
I had just watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall… she looks GOOD in that movie.
Just that alone usually generates a knee-jerk "yuck!" reaction even if it's not warranted. I remember very clearly the first time I saw then brand new Ford Focus and thought that they'd finally gone off the deep end. Especially since the (Euro) Escort was so conservatively styled.
Now it's been 10+ years and I have to say that the original Focus was a brilliant design that still looks fresh vs. PT Cruiser which looked good at first but went bad like a bowl full of guacamole.
Well said. We had one on the Ehra fast track and handling course yesterday and i was really impressed. None of the other super sedans feels as exciting and solid/safe/easy as the Panamera. Ugly? No. Your opinion mellows, when you find it easy to change from radio to Ipod at 300 km per hour. Now, if there would be a four door Bentley Intercontinental Speed……
I've never seen one in person, nor have I been lucky enough to drive one. From what I understand they're outstanding cars, however, absolute powerboats. It just seems like it's trendy and hip to hate these things, like everybody is a Porsche know-it-all with a 911T parked in their driveway. If it had any other badge, I think the bloggers would salivate over these things.
I agree, the Panamera is no atrocity. It just seems to be an easy target to say "ugly!" I sat in one this weekend, and would rather spend my days looking at a Panamera over a Accord Crosstour.
Saw like 4 or 5 this weekend.
More than anything, they are enormous. I don't think they're particularly ugly, but I wouldn't call them handsome, either. As a fan of ugly but functional vehicles…I guess I'll have to wait until Porsche loans us one 😉
I question the choice of the Gremlin and the Mustang II. The Gremlin was a pretty decent car made weird of of AMC's cheapness, to still pretty decent results (I have an aunt who loved hers, and my future father in law says his $50 Gremlin was the best car he owned). And the Mustang II may have been a product of the Malaise Era, but it was also a conscious decision to return the Mustang to its compact-based roots – then again, some people only remember what they want from the past, and blindly renounce what they don't care for.
Also, if there's a Porsche that's an atrocity, it's the Cayenne. Sure, it and the Panamera are both created in the pursuit of sales, but at least the Panamera's nothing more than a 4-door 928 in spirit. I want to call the Cayenne the Poochie of the automotive world, but that's not quite right. The Aztek's the Poochie of the automotive world.
+1 on the Gremlin and Mustang II. My Gremlin was a GREAT car, and I'd love to have a Pinostangcobra any day. A '78 King Cobra II would complete my dream garage!!
The whole exercise (10 Worst Cars! Crap Cars! Worst Cars Ever!) definitely amounts to a horse that's been beaten one too many times.
Kudos to the Hoon who recently referred to the typical Worst Cars books as "bargain-bin remainder coffee-table books" — that's exactly what they are. I have one! (It's not bad, actually.. I learned more about Ladas and the Amphicar than I knew before.)
It doesn't take a lot to put such a list together. Forbes is particularly lazy about assembling "Top 10 Car" lists– their website has the Slideshow function ready to go at a moment's notice, so they assign an intern to slap a few stock photos together and roll one out. It's been going on for years. If a list is published that's just controversial enough, then (1) it gets picked up by blogs and other sites, (2) they get more hits, and (3) … profit.
Picking the Porsche Panamera as one of the "Worst Cars in the World .. Ever", is just super lazy, knee-jerk journalism. Let's be real, there isn't an automotive journalist in the world that would turn down a free Panamera (let's just say, not to make it an ethical problem, it was the prize at a charity raffle supporting children's literacy, malaria prevention, and the hand-wrapped organic cheese industry.) Of course they would like one. What do you want a four-door Porsche to look like, an '88 Chevy Malibu? You can debate all you want whether the Aston Martin Rapide is more desirable than a Panamera, but calling the Pana the worst of anything is just unfathomable.
After reading, I conclude that it might as well have been called "15 things I can ridicule to take my mind off the fact that all of my girlfriends turn gay after a month or so". Seriously, this guy must have some major self-esteem issues.
I tend to take offense to the inclusion of the Trabant, Yugo and Gremmie, but I guess that I have to expect such slander as the cars I love tend to be hated by others.
Boy, should have put a "72 AZ 600 Honda in that list. While I love mine, in it above itself screams, "Craptastic!"
Or a Fiat Cinquecento. I'd love to see your car drag race one. I'll bet you could make a ham sandwich and eat half of it while waiting for the result.
Not all of these are atrocities, in fact only a few deserve mockery. 15 Automobiles Worth Saying Something About would have been a more appropriate title.
One of these days we'll throw together a Ten Worst Top Ten Lists List.
And the internet will collapse in upon itself.
Before you make that post, give us all about 24 hours notice so we can clear our calendars. I for one, would really like to watch the web become a black hole. Wait, that's not right, it pretty much is already… maybe it'll go super nova?