1. 1899 Horsey Horseless

This bizarre vehicle was intended to soothe the nerves of horses that shared the road with automobiles. From the crackpot mind of inventor Uriah Smith of Battle Creek, Michigan, came a buggy with a wooden horse head attached to the front. Hoping that this would cause the buggy to resemble a horse drawn carriage. Smith even recommended that the horse head be hollow and full of fuel, because that wouldn’t be dangerous or anything right? “The live horse would be thinking of another horse,” said Smith,”and before he could discover his error and see that he had been fooled, the strange carriage would be passed.” History isn’t 100% clear on whether or not the Horsey Horseless was ever built or if it was just a pipe dream from a nut job, either way it’s a terrible idea.

2. 1911 Overland OctoAuto

Designer Milton Reeves rejected the general consensus that automobiles only needed four wheels, feeling that six or eight wheels was a better idea. Under the auspice that more wheels would equate to a smoother ride, Reeves began modifying a 1910 Overland. Welding in some parts, adding two more axles and four more guncart-style wheels, Reeves gave birth to the OctoAuto. He displayed the Frankenstein monster of a car proudly at the Indianapolis 500. The OctoAuto measured over 20ft long. Zero orders for this hideous vehicle were made, but Reeves didn’t let that stop him. The following year he tried again with the Sextauto, which was a six wheel, single axle design. As evidenced by the lack of six wheels on normal cars today, the Sextauto was also a flop.

3. 1913 Scripps-Booth Bi-Autogo

The Scripps-Booth Bi-Autogo was a massive 3,200 lb motorcycle with training wheels, a V8 engine, and copper tubing everywhere. This crazy idea is the brainchild of James Scripps-Booth, an heir of the Scripps publishing fortune and a self taught auto engineer. The two-wheeled Bi-Autogo carried the weight of the vehicle on 37-in wooden wheels. When going slow, the driver could lower smaller wheels on outriggers to stabilize the vehicle, preventing it from tipping over. Even for 1913 this was a bizarre vehicle. One good thing that came out of the creation of the Bi-Autogo is the V8 engine. This was the first vehicle to come out of Detroit with a V8 engine in it, making it at least somewhat important to history.

4. 1920 Briggs and Stratton Flyer

By time 1920 rolled around we had started to get the hang of building automobiles. Rolls-Royce, Cadillac, and Voisin were all producing luxurious automobiles and pushing forward with technological advancements. On the other end of the spectrum was the Briggs and Stratton Flyer. Compared to other automobiles you could hardly call the Flyer a car, it was pretty much a motorized bench with bicycle tires on it. No body, no suspension, no windshield, and no style, this vehicle was an attempt to make a very cheap automobile. The Flyer was powered by a tiny 2 horsepower engine driving a traction wheel, similar to a boat with an outboard motor. No actual power went to the Flyers axles.

5. 1933 Fuller Dymaxion

Designed by R. Buckminster Fuller, the Fuller Dymaxion was initially conceived as a flying machine. The plan was to install jet engines and inflatable wings, so you could drive it like a car and then inflate the wings and fly away when you want a plane. The wings never became a part of the production model, and without them the Dymaxion looked like a goofy pill rolling down the road. The Dymaxion was a three-wheel vehicle, with a levered A-arm carrying the rear wheel, which swiveled like the tail of an airplane. The first model had a terrible wobble from the rear wheel, the next two built were bigger and heavier, while the third model had a stabilizer fin on the roof. A fatal accident involving the Dymaxion ( due to unknown causes) killed the vehicles chances of public acceptance.

6. 1934 Chrysler/DeSoto Airflow

Truthfully the only reason that the Airflow is labeled as a “worst” car is that it was ahead of its time. The design of the Airflow is similar to cars that were developed in the 50’s. Aerodynamic body, steel subframe, 50-50 weight distribution, and light weight are all features of the Airflow. For whatever reason though, in the 30’s Americans did not get on board with the Airflow’s dramatically different design style. Some of the issue likely was derived from the major problems that plagued the Airflow. It’s never good when an engine falls out of a car. The radical construction techniques used to craft the Airflow had yet to be perfected. Chrysler and Desto tried to restyle later models, but there was no coming back from the bad taste already in the consumers mouths and sales never took off.

7. 1949 Crosley Hotshot

The Crosley Hotshot was the first postwar America sports car, and it was a pile of garbage. The Hotshot was slow, dangerous, and weighed very little for a steel car, clocking in at 1,100 lbs. The Hotshot can be seen in the 1961 driver’s ed video Mechanized Death, where it appears mangled and smashed up. The Hotshot was designed by Powel Crosley Jr., of Cincinnati. Crosley had radio fame, but he wanted to build cars, which he did, poorly. It had CIBA (Cast-Iron Block Assembly) which was average at the time. There was good things too… A Super Sport (Hotshot with doors) won the Efficiency Index at the 1951 LeMans race.

8. 1956 Renault Dauphine

The Renault Dauphine is a french made vehicle that originally was to be named the Corvette. Luckily that name was used for a much better vehicle. The Dauphine was so rickety and the metal used was so paper thin that rust was guaranteed. The design was similar to other cars of the time, it just used low quality materials. Worse than the shoddy construction was the Dauphines performance. It took the drivers of Road and Track 32 seconds to reach 60 mph. That’s slower than even the weakest vehicles sold today. Somehow this super cheap, poorly built vehicle managed to sell over 2 million units around the world. Just goes to show that at the time people would buy any car, just to say that they had a car.

9. 1957 King Midget Model III

In the 50’s, Caud Dry and Dale Orcutt, of Athens, Ohio, decided that they were going to create cars that everyone could afford. They started with the Model I, offering the vehicle as a home-built kit. The kit contained a frame, axles, and sheet metal patterns that needed to be crafted by someone with fabrication skills. Any single-cylinder engine would power the vehicle. It was like a giant do-it yourself model that you could drive down the road after you built it. Somehow they remained in business until the late 60’s, with their crowning achievement being the Model III. The Model III was a folded steel box with a 9 horsepower motor. Thankfully government safety standards caused the King Midget to become nothing more than a memory.

10. 1957 Waterman Aerobile

Waldo Waterman once heard aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss remark how he would like to drive and airplane away from the airfield. After hearing this Waterman went to work and spent years developing the Aerobile. In 1934 he flew a prototype, the “Arrowplane”, which was a high wing monoplane with tricycle wheels. The wings folded against the fuselage when it was on the ground, like an insect’s wings. The fact that the wings folded backwards is terrifying to think about, considering a failure in the air would just fold the wings back and plunge you to your death. Decades later in 1957 Waterman perfected his design, the Aerobile. No one wanted to tempt death by buying one of these machines, so the one working prototype resides in the Smithsonian as the first flying car.

11. 1958 Ford Edsel

The Ford Edsel was doomed once the hype machine surrounding the car got rolling. The marketing department at Ford led everyone to believe the Edsel would be a fantastical car of the future, a plutonium powered scientific wonder. What they delivered was a Mercury. The Edsel wasn’t that bad a car. Sure it looked kinda plain, it drank gas, and it was far too expensive, especially during the 50’s recession, but it wasn’t as bad as it’s made out to be. Some critics blame the Edsel’s failure on the grille,which resembled a vagina. Apparently 50’s America was really phobic about the female nether regions. In truth it was probably a mixture of all of the above as well as the public jumping on the bandwagon with critics.

12. 1958 Lotus Elite

Back in the 50’s, fiberglass was used as an alternative to steel when building sports cars. It was durable, versatile, lighter than steel, and cheaper than aluminium. Fiberglass was the carbon fiber of the 50’s and Colin Chapman, the founder of Lotus, was all about using it. The Lotus Elite was built primarily out of the material. Weighing 1,100 lbs and powered by a 75 horsepower engine, the Elite was a very successful race car. It was also a very popular little coupe, that was until the suspension mounts couldn’t handle the strain of the vehicle and broke through the body. Weight reduction is a good thing in race cars, there is a line that crosses into the unsafe and the vehicle is no longer structurally sound. Chapman found this out the hard way with the Lotus Elite.

13. 1958 MGA Twin Cam

The original motor offered in the MGA was a fine engine, but someone at MG decided that the MGA needed more power and the company offered an optional high-performance engine with dual overhead cams. This motor was not the upgrade that MG wanted it to be. The engine leaked, burned pistons, fouled spark plugs, and caused all kinds of headaches for owners. Unless you were a gearhead and routinely checked timing, fuel octane, and made sure to stay within RPM limits the Twin Cam motor would break apart and puke oil all over the place. Long after the vehicle was retired, the problem was narrowed down to the carburetors. At certain RPMs the fuel would froth, causing a lean condition and burning the pistons.

14. 1958 Zundapp Janus

Zundapp was a well known motorcycle manufacturer based in Nuremberg, Germany. During a low point in motorcycle sales the company decided to try its hand at building a car. Based on a Dornier prototype, the Janus was powered by a 250cc 14 horsepower engine, with a top speed of 50 mph. If you actually wanted to go 50 mph, you needed plenty of road and time on your hands. The backseat had a rear facing bench seat, so passengers could watch traffic go around this slow moving pile of metal. The Janus’s design resembled a trapezoidal shaped VW Bug, with less charm. Sales were dismal, and the Janus was discontinued, ending this rolling hazards life as an automobile.

15. 1961 Amphicar

The Amphicar was designed to be a car and a boat, the problem was it wasn’t very good at either of these jobs. As a car the handling was average but the engine wasn’t particularly great and it wasn’t much of a looker either. As a boat the Amphicar was incredibly slow, with a top speed of 7 mph. It maneuvered through the water rather well considering it was a boat-car, but the biggest problem was that the Amphicar was not water tight. The car leaked from various places and the only reason the car stayed afloat was because the bilge pump was able to keep up with the leaks. If the bilge pump wore out, or was unable to keep up, the Amphicar would cease to be a boat and turn into a sinking car.

16. 1961 Corvair

One of the main reasons the Corvair was such a terrible car was due to Chevrolet neglecting to put a decent rear suspension in the vehicle. Due to the power of the rear engine 6 cylinder the Corvair was packing, it was very easy to spin out. This is a common issue with rear engine vehicles, and the best way to counter it is with a good suspension to make the issue manageable. On top of being hard to control, the Corvair was prone to oil leaks and there were claims that the single-piece steering column could impale the driver in a frontal crash. The heating system had a tendency to pump fumes into the car as well, due to a gasoline-burner heater located in the front “trunk.”

17. 1966 Peel Trident

The Peel Trident looks like it belongs in a low rent science fiction movie. Shaped like a flying saucer, the Trident was designed and built in the Isle of Man in the 1960’s. It was the second three-wheeled microcar developed by the Peel Engineering Company. The Trident had a clear bubble top made of plexiglass, and as much as it looked futuristic, it was a terrible idea. The sun beating down on the plexiglass made the interior uncomfortably hot. The engine was a 49 cc DKW engine, and had a top speed of 28 mph. The trident was also cramped, turned out being one of the smallest cars in the world was a negative feature. One the plus side the Trident did get 83 mpg.

18. 1968 Subaru 360

The Subaru 360 was a tiny, adorable, bubble-shaped car that resembled the Volkswagen Beetle. The 360 looks cute, but don’t be deceived by looks, this car is terrible. Less than ten feet long and powered by a 25 horsepower two-stroke engine, the Subaru 360 goes nowhere fast. Top speed of the 360 was 55 mph and it took 37.5 seconds to go from zero to 50 mph. The doors are hinged at the rear edges and open into the wind. There are no burst-proof latches and the drivers door cannot be locked from the inside. God forbid you didn’t fully latch the door before you started driving, as a burst of air at as low as 20 mph would fling your door open with ease. If you encountered a vehicle you needed to pass (which would probably be a feat in itself) it took over 30 seconds to go from 30 to 50 mph.

19. 1970 Bond Bug Three-Wheeler

The Bond Bug is the product of car designers being captivated by the idea of making cars with fiberglass. Since they didn’t have to deal with the expensive process of bending sheet metal, or be held down by the limitations of sheet metal, they could make a vehicle look however they wanted. The result was a vehicle that looked like the nose of a spaceship from a sci-fi movie on wheels. In order to save money, the manufacturer used only three wheels, because British tax law made it cheaper to license a vehicle with only three wheels. The Bond Bug came in only one color: neon orange, further adding to the bizarreness of the vehicle. If the goofy looks weren’t enough, the three wheel design made it easy for the Bond Bug to roll over, making it an ugly car that was also unsafe.

20. 1970 AMC Gremlin

Richard Teague designed some cool cars like the Oldsmobile Rocket and the AMC Hornet, he also designed the horrible AMC Gremlin. Trying to beat Ford and GM to the market with an affordable subcompact, AMC created the Gremlin. The Gremlin had an odd shape to it, with an elongated front end and a stunted rear end. This lead to weight distribution issues and caused handling problems. The six-cylinder motor was heavy and choppy, but had some power behind it. The Gremlin was faster than the others in its class, but a rubbish suspension and poor handling made it dangerous to go too fast. The Gremlin is a good example of a car manufacturer trying to cut corners to save a buck and ending up with a subpar vehicle.

21. 1970 Triumph Stag

Debuting in 1970 the Triumph Stag was marketed as “A Different Kind of Triumph.” They weren’t wrong, the Stag is different all right, just not in a good way. Previous Triumphs were regarded as handsome, while the Stag was awkward and rather ugly. The Stag was a convertible, but because the chassis was weak, a fat roll hoop was attached to the windshield header in order to give the chassis more rigidity. This took away the convertible look and turned it into something unique and weird. A newly developed V-8 engine was used in the Stag, which was more powerful than the V-6 usually seen in Triumphs. Unfortunately the V-8 engine was terribly unreliable. Timing chains broke and main bearings were known to seize. The Stag marked the beginning of the end for the Triumph brand.

22. 1971 Chrysler Imperial LeBaron Two-Door Hardtop

The Chrysler Imperial LeBaron Two-Door Hardtop was a ugly as it was unreliable. The exterior was boxy and plain, with some of the longest fenders in automotive history. The LeBaron Two-Door handled like you would expect a 19 foot road boat to handle, poorly. Steering was very floaty, adding to the turn radius of the over-sized vehicle. The suspension did an admirable job of absorbing road feel, resulting in a comfortable ride at least. It was powered by Chrysler 440 V-8 engine, which had a history of problems ranging from leaks to engine failure. For a vehicle with a 350 horsepower engine, the LeBaron was rather slow; taking 10 seconds to reach 60 mph.

23. 1971 Ford Pinto

The Ford Pinto was a mediocre car at best. It handled ok enough, the suspension was decent, and the engine while not powerful, was reliable. What makes the Pinto such a terrible car was the safety risk involved in driving one. When involved in a rear end collision, the Pinto had a tendency to burst into flames. This was due to the rear end not having enough reinforcement to protect the fuel tank. To make matters even worse, there was a memo sent out by the Ford company to its senior management regarding this problem. In the memo the powers that be at Ford outline that it would cost $70 million dollars less to pay the families of those injured than it would cost to reinforce the fuel tank.

24. 1972 Lincoln Continental Mark IV

The previous model Lincoln Continental’s were well made, popular vehicles. The Mark IV was a misstep for the Lincoln company. Stylistic choices are among the top complaints for the Mark IV. A tacky opera window, a standard vinyl roof, and flip-up headlights that didn’t always work were the among the top offenders. The Mark IV handled horribly, needing plenty of room to navigate a corner and requiring constant attention to keep it from veering off the road. The Mark IV had a decent engine, producing 365 horsepower, but the tightening emissions restrictions crippled the engine, After all the changes to comply with emission standards, the Mark IV was reduced to a whimpy 212 horsepower engine.

25. 1974 Jaguar XK-E V12 Series III

The Jaguar E-Type was a fantastic car in the 60’s, with a sleek design and powerful engine. In 1974 it had become a shadow of its former self. Trying to meet the strict emissions standards of the U.S., Jaguar replaced the reliable 4.2 liter six-cylinder that was used in previous E-Types for a 5.3 liter V12. The oversized engine added a great deal of weight to the front end, making the sports car nose heavy. The engine was also difficult to keep tuned, as there were now double the valves. The exterior was unappealing, with a stretched out nose (needed to house that huge engine) and oversized fenders. The body lines were a mess and the bumpers were made of rubber, this was not Jaguar’s best outing and the sales reflected it.

Awesome stuff. With the rate of recalls these days and advancement in technology, our kids will make a joke of all our expensive rides in 30years time.

26. 1975 Triumph TR7

Five years after the failure that was the Triumph Stag, Triumph delivered the TR7. Shaped like a wedge, the TR7 was just as poorly built as the Stag. The electrical system was a nightmare, with short circuits a common occurrence. The carburetors needed constant maintenance to keep the car running properly. Timing chains snapped, the roof leaked, both the oil and water pump were known to fail, and the flip up headlights refused to flip up. There was even a report of the rear axle falling off the car. The TR7 was one of the last vehicles sold by Triumph in America, and was one of the last vehicles made by the company before closing its doors in 1984.

Buyeradvertcom:
16. 1961 Corvair

One of the main reasons the Corvair was such a terrible car was due to Chevrolet neglecting to put a decent rear suspension in the vehicle. Due to the power of the rear engine 6 cylinder the Corvair was packing, it was very easy to spin out. This is a common issue with rear engine vehicles, and the best way to counter it is with a good suspension to make the issue manageable. On top of being hard to control, the Corvair was prone to oil leaks and there were claims that the single-piece steering column could impale the driver in a frontal crash. The heating system had a tendency to pump fumes into the car as well, due to a gasoline-burner heater located in the front “trunk.”

I wonder how they are still in business up till now cos they still make terrible cars

27. 1975 Bricklin SV1

The Bricklin SV1 was the creation of Malcolm Bricklin, a millionaire who had previously founded Subaru of America. The designer of the Bricklin was Herb Grasse. The plan for the Bricklin SV-1 was to make a safe and economical sports car; the SV stood for “Safety Vehicle.” Unfortunately due to the weight of all the added safety features, the Bricklin was just a safe sports car. The roll cage, motorized gull-wing doors, and 5 mph bumpers proved too heavy for the V-8 engine to handle. Bricklin tried to bond fiberglass to acrylic plastic, which had yet to be perfected at the time, resulting in higher failure rates and production costs. The radiator was small and had only a single opening, causing many Bricklins to overheat.

28. 1975 Trabant

Meaning “satellite” in German, the Trabant’s name was inspired by the Soviet Sputnik. The vehicle was produced in East Germany and is an example of a vehicle created by communism. The engine was outdated and inefficient, with only 26 horsepower, and the exhaust was incredibly smoky and full of pollutants. The Trabant produced nine times the hydrocarbons and five times the carbon monoxide emissions of the average European car of 2007. The two-stroke engine didn’t have an oil injection system, so oil needed to be added to the fuel tank. Speaking of fuel tanks, the lack of a fuel pump in the Trabant meant the fuel tank needed to be placed above the motor in the engine bay. This is so fuel could be gravity fed to the carburetor. The fuel tank being in that location increased the risk of fire in front end accidents.

29. 1975 Morgan Plus 8 Propane

The Morgan Motor Company made some great cars during it’s time. With wing fenders, wooden-frame bodies, and single pillar front suspensions, Morgans are built to emulate the old fashioned way cars were built. If you didn’t know better you would think their vehicles were built in the 30’s. In the early 70’s the U.S. emissions and safety standards became more strict, and Morgan ended up having to stop selling cars in the US. In an effort to continue the life of the Morgan Plus 8, Bill Fink, a rich car dealer, managed to retrofit a Buick/Rover 8 and get it running on propane. For a few years people were driving around with a tank of propane hanging behind the rear bumper, making the Morgan Plus 8 almost as dangerous as the Pinto.