13 Car Fails So Bad They Went Down in History
The history of the automobile is littered with some fine machines, be they fast and powerful supercars or practical, spacious daily drivers. However, not everything produced can be a qualified success.
In fact, the history of the automobile is littered with some truly terrible machines. While this is unavoidable, you can avoid these cars if you know what to look for.
This list contains 13 of the absolute worst stinkers of the automotive world, which went down like a lead balloon. Slow, unreliable, and badly built, these are indeed some of the West’s creations in the history of the automobile.
Ford Pinto

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As far as the American automobile goes, the Ford Pinto has to be one of the worst and most tragic ever created. Designed in the late 1960s and put on sale in 1971, it was the first subcompact vehicle produced by Ford in North America.
However, its reputation was ruined when it became apparent that the design of the fuel tank was causing Pinto’s involved in rear-end accidents to catch fire. At least a dozen people died in these accidents, and a damning NHTSA report revealed Ford knew about the problem but elected not to fix it.
Third-Generation Chevrolet Camaro

The 1980s were a particularly bad time for fans of muscle cars. The gas crises of the 1970s seriously affected power levels and performance, and the third-generation Chevrolet Camaro was one of the most prominent failures of the decade.
The Camaro had gone from producing bundles of horsepower to having as little as 90 horsepower in the base models. Build quality ranged from iffy to simply depressing, and the fourth-generation model couldn’t come soon enough. The third-gen Camaro is a significant blot on the muscle car’s copybook.
Chrysler PT Cruiser

Sometimes, a car company decides that retro magnificence is what we all need to spice up the automotive market and offer something different. That is what Chrysler did with the PT Cruiser, creating a compact car styled like the hot rods of the 1920s and 1930s.
Unfortunately, despite its best efforts, Chrysler produced a bit of an ugly duckling. The PT Cruiser’s performance was woeful due to its various inline-four engines, and its reliability and safety record were also questionable. Remarkably, Chrysler produced over one million of them for sale in the United States.
Rover CityRover

Few cars can claim to be as terrible as the Rover CityRover. The CityRover was introduced to the British market in the mid-2000s, but despite appearances, in reality, it was just a rebadged version of the Indian Tata Indica.
The price tag when new was £6,495, which Brits soon came to realize was daylight robbery for such a basic, slow, and poorly built car. The press was so bad that Rober refused to let BBC Top Gear test drive it. So, to get around this, the show sent present James May in as an undercover reporter to test out what he would call “the worst car I have driven on this program.”
Fiat 500X

The modern revival of the Fiat 500 is famed for its poor build quality and questionable quality control and reliability. If you love those things, then great news! Fiat has integrated that into the 500X, the SUV version of the regular Fiat 500.
The Fiat 500X has inherited all of the poor reliability issues associated with the standard car, plus a few more problems. Inside, space isn’t as much as you would expect, and the trunk offers surprisingly low amounts of luggage space. In the SUV segment, the Fiat 500X is one of the worst offerings on the market.
Chevrolet SSR

The Chevrolet SSR is far from the worst car on this list. But it might go down in history as one of the most pointless creations in the automotive world. Chevrolet decided to make a convertible pickup truck with retro styling.
While it certainly looked striking, there were some significant issues. The SSR weighed up to 5,000 lbs, and even its massive LS2 V8 engine couldn’t provide enough power. The asking price was high at $42,000, and the folding roof took up much of the room in the rear bed. Rendering the SSR useless as a pickup truck.
DeLorean DMC-12

The DeLorean DMC-12 has likely been on many lists of truly terrible cars, but that’s only because it is one of the worst in human history. It was launched for the 1981 model year and was the brainchild of John DeLorean and his new company, DeLorean Motor Company.
But it didn’t take long for things to unravel. The DMC-12 was subject to severe quality control issues, and all it had under the hood was a 2.85-liter Peugeot-Renault-Volvo engine that produced just 130 horsepower. Its poor performance and the scandal around DeLorean saw production end in 1983, despite its starring role in Back to the Future.
Alfa Romeo Arna

Few cars conjure up such horror and dread quite like the Alfa Romeo Arna. The Arna was a collaboration between the Italian manufacturer and Nissan, with the latter attempting to find a back door into Europe during the 1980s. The Arna was Nissan’s way of entering that market.
Sadly, the Arna fell far short of what both manufacturers had hoped for. Unlike other Italian cars, its design was drab and dull, and the poor Nissan handling of the era was carried over into the Arna. The aging Alfasud Boxer H4 engines were underpowered, and all the cars were, in reality, Nissan Cherry with an Alfa Romeo badge.
Citroen C3 Pluriel

In the early 2000s, Citroen attempted to make one of the wackiest and most outlandish convertibles we had ever seen. Yet the biggest problem with the Pluriel was, ironically, its folding roof, which required an engineering degree to remove and reinstall.
Worse, the roof was too big to take with you, so you had to be certain you would not get rained on if you took it out for the day. The slightly unusual design of the Pluriel also didn’t resonate with the consumer.
Mitsuoka Orochi

The ungainly Mitsuoka Orochi has gone down in history as one of the ugliest cars ever created. Yet remarkably, its creators that this horrible-looking ‘sports car’ was based on the same platform as the Honda NSX.
The Orochi was produced from 2006 to 2014, and under the hood, it had a 3.3-liter Toyota 3MZ-FE V6. However, that engine produced just 233 horsepower, and its 0-60 mph speed was seven seconds. Unsurprisingly, reviews for the Orochi don’t present the sports car in a great light.
Vauxhall Frontera

The Vauxhall Frontera is making a comeback, but it’s best to remember just how terrible the original Frontera was when it launched in the late 1980s. Originally, the Frontera debuted as the Isuzu MU before Vauxhall decided to bring it to the UK, thanks to Isuzu and Vauxhall’s owners, General Motors.
Despite the British company’s best efforts, the Frontera was never a success. Despite being sold as a rugged and dependable SUV, it had a terrible off-road performance. The handling was also poor, and its performance was awful thanks to its 2.0-2.4-liter petrol engines and the 2.3-liter turbocharged diesel.
Bricklin SV-1

If you squint hard enough, you might mistake the Bricklin SV-1 for a Lamborghini. Sadly, there wasn’t anything supercar-like about the Bricklin SV-1, a car that was born from the company owned by American businessman Malcolm Bricklin. Bricklin built the gull-wing sports car and placed it on sale in 1974.
Notable features included the composite bodywork of color-impregnated acrylic resin bonded to fiberglass, but that wasn’t enough to get people to buy the car. Poor quality control, supplier shortages, and absenteeism among workers meant production halted in 1975, with just 3,000 made.
AC Ace

British manufacturer AC Ace hoped to recapture the glory days of its success with the Cobra and create a new sports car to rival the Aston Martin DB7. Their answer was the modern version of the AC Ace, which had a Ford V8 under the hood, producing 228 horsepower.
Sadly, the new AC Ace never lived up to the hype. There were plenty of delays getting the car into production, and as it was the same price as the DB7, buyers gravitated to the bigger name: Aston Martin. AC produced just 58 Aces, making them extremely rare.