Worst cars ever made

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on 08/18/2006







Filed under:on 08/18/2006

We have had some tough competition here. Surely you may or may not agree with our choice, but here are our winners: Peel Trident, Ford Pinto, Fiat Multipla, Chevrolet Vega and Yugo. You can check why after the jump.

Yugo (1981-1991)



It was the lowest-priced new car of the 80's, produced in Yugoslavia and introduced to US market in 1986. by Malcolm Bricklin. It sold very well, but the main reason for that was the price of the car, not it's reliability or efficiency. The list of the problems with this car is quite long. Owners complained basically about everything – engine problems, steering problems, problems with the stereo, problems with the seat belt, problems with the floor. The car could stall and fail to restart without prior indication or warning. Since it was so cheap, could we really expect it to work flawlessly?





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Ford Pinto (1971-1980)





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One of the best selling cars in the 70s is famous for something much worse than a plastic bubble and three wheels. It was involved in a serious safety scandal. Ford's main problem with the Pinto was the fuel tank, which would burst into flames in the event of a rear-end collision. Of course, Ford management knew all about the problem, so they made a little cost-benefit analysis to decide whether to fix the problem or just to leave it as it was. You can look at the famous and often mentioned analysis below:



BENEFITS

Savings: 180 burn deaths, 180 serious burn injuries, 2,100 burned vehicles. Unit Cost: $200,000 per death, $67,000 per injury, $700 per vehicle.

Total Benefit: 180 X ($200,000) + 180 X ($67,000) + $2,100 X ($700) = $49.5 million.



COSTS

Sales: 11 million cars, 1.5 million light trucks.

Unit Cost: $11 per car, $11 per truck.

Total Cost: 11,000,000 X ($11) + 1,500,000 X ($11) = $137 million.



As you can see, Ford management came to a conclusion that it was much cheaper to pay the law suits, medical expenses, certain amounts for pain and suffering, in a total amount of $49.5 mio. Comparing it with $137 mio. for fixing the tank, it is absolutely logical they decided not to! Right?



Peel Trident (1964-1966)





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Is it a toy? Is it a spaceship? No, although it looks like it just popped out of the Cartoon Network channel, it is a real car. It was made on the Isle of Man, located between England and Ireland, and was released in 1964. It is not the only one in this class, and surely it was hard to choose the worst one between Trojan 200, Bond Bug, B. M. A. Hazelcar, 1942 Peugeot VLV and many others, but we have chosen Peel as our winner. With it's charming plastic bubble, 183 cm length and 107 cm width, 90 kg weight and an engine which produces 6.5 horsepower and 75 km/h top speed, the Peel is our champion in it's microcar category.



Fiat Multipla (1997)





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Okay, maybe it has got a lot of space, and maybe the performance of the minivan is not all that bad, maybe it is a multipurpose car and maybe some people say that it's a car with the most distinctive design in last ten or twenty years. But this car is just ugly. And that is the reason why it is on this list.



Chevrolet Vega (1970-1974)





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Someone once said it was "the car that began rusting on the showroom floor”. Owners often complained about corrosion. The car was literally falling apart. Things were so bad that someone even reported his car broke in half when he was going on railroad tracks. Beside the corrosion, it had problems with oil burning, engine overheating and just poor design. It was just a terrible car.







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