Jump to content

Grimmest car of all time


sdkrc

Recommended Posts

1 minute ago, goosey said:

A company I worked for hired me one of these for 2 weeks back in 2002,

I hated it, the crap looks, the stupid dashboard, the centre mounted speedo, the weak 2.0 petrol engine that got crap mpg and got blown away by a j reg 1.8 Cavalier on the kiddy ring road.

just miserable 

A2C30C05-5F85-46B7-A8DE-179D48EF7799.png

Miserable but not grimmest surely. At least they're rock solid reliable. So you will be driving You may have a glum face on when driving it, but it's better that than having a glum face sat on the hard shoulder. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

Nothing causes me to despair like these do 

F5349252-5E5C-4854-8D1F-9E7C0DB0D59B.jpeg

Can be fixed for £600.

FB3C41FD-22F7-479D-880C-227AE2096110.thumb.png.251f305abd9a5af35274ffff86fd9f16.png

Even though they drive like a Full Fat Range Rover and can comfortably fit 7 inside, I think they won’t be around for long, the new Defender is effectively the replacement for the Disco 4 for the Boden classes. The Disco Sport is enough for most  inner city yuppies, leaving the Disco 5 as surprise,us to requirements.k

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Game set and match with these ugly fuckers. The lovely gentleman that bought my carlton his wife had a Porsche Cayenne V6 petrol from not very old. It was a bargain apparently and has been very reliable. But it is BASE spec. So base spec that I’m suprised Porsche even allowed the lower class to be involved in such a vehicle. 17 inch wheels! On a Porsche!! Wasn’t this one pictured, I had to google it, and there aren’t many pictures of these with such small peasant spec wheels. 

82B41EAC-BDBD-4E9C-A9E2-B9FD02714667.jpeg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

58 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Almost as grim as these. Hideous, hideous things. I liken the mk1 Fabia to a cheap, forgettable appliance which only just manages to do its required job, and where you feel a sense of relief when it's thrown into a skip after lasting half the length of time it should have. 

43488424402_85031a12da_b.jpg

Depends on the spec I guess. My lad had one as his first car - a 1.2 Sport. Really quite a nice wee thing. Sold it to a friend for £300 a couple of years ago and it’s still going!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We are in a bit of a bubble; many people would say the cars we celebrate the most are the grimmest. As the forum and ask the general public and find a big difference.

I would imagine some would say A car without reversing camera Is grim, never mind a velosolex or a trabant which they’ve never heard of and no experience of.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In terms of truly bad cars my memory says that Vauxhalls lead the field here. Mostly I’ve had them as loan/hire cars - notably the Corsa which changed direction by at least 30 degrees every time it encountered a bump in the road and the staggeringly gutless 1.6 pez Meriva which I left at home in favour of wife’s Daihatsu Charade (3-pot 1-litre). 
More recently I was lent a manual 1-series. The layout and size of the footwell made it near impossible to drive in traffic (with far from abnormally huge size 10 feet). Who the fuck pays money for this shite?

5D5DB114-8C66-4607-92A8-E02591572C6E.webp

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think for sheer cynicism the Corsa E (? the one launched about 2014 and only just replaced?) is hard to beat. GM had plainly lost all interest in Opel and just wanted a replacement as soon and cheaply as possible, whilst they waited for someone to take the company off their hands.  So they used the same bodyshell as the last one, with a new front end tacked on. The new Pug designed one looks light years better, and is probably a damn sight better to drive as well. It’s basically a 208 without that weird driving position.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, goosey said:

A company I worked for hired me one of these for 2 weeks back in 2002,

I hated it, the crap looks, the stupid dashboard, the centre mounted speedo, the weak 2.0 petrol engine that got crap mpg and got blown away by a j reg 1.8 Cavalier on the kiddy ring road.

just miserable 

A2C30C05-5F85-46B7-A8DE-179D48EF7799.png

it's 40 all round the 5/6th of a ring road in Kiddy...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, AnthonyG said:

I think for sheer cynicism the Corsa E (? the one launched about 2014 and only just replaced?) is hard to beat. GM had plainly lost all interest in Opel and just wanted a replacement as soon and cheaply as possible, whilst they waited for someone to take the company off their hands.  So they used the same bodyshell as the last one, with a new front end tacked on. The new Pug designed one looks light years better, and is probably a damn sight better to drive as well. It’s basically a 208 without that weird driving position.

Ford sort of did the opposite, by making their Fiesta Mk7 look like a facelift of the 6, despite it being an all new shell! 

Lost the clever bike rack, too.

I interviewed Mark Adams - designer of the new Mokka as well as other Opel/Vauxhall things I don't hate (Astra GTC has to be the best of that era of Vauxhall shapes, if you look past the, er, Astra-ness of it).

We got very animated about Vauxhall DNA and heritage, about Firenzas and Victors and Viva GTs and the emotional value of car design. Really enjoyed talking to him, was less impressed by it being videoed (it's on YouTube, I'm not linking to it but there's also a general intro to the Mokka/Mokka E).

FWIW I really like the new Mokka. Apart from the bloody gear selector on the auto. Just give me a column shift if I can't have a normal lever, FFS.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, RichardK said:

Yeah, but you still hoof it from the bus-station/supermarket in a hole that I never went to, to the road out to Chaddesley.

Before the proper bus station was knocked down( great work Wyre Forest council) and moved there - it was a car park  the fair used to use  :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 years back, I used to wait for the school bus and try to guess what dreadful noise the next Austin Metro coming down the road. Squeals, rhythmic squeaking, grinding noises - they all made a horrible racket of some description! By contrast, the Polos and 205's they were interspersed  among never had any audible issues.

I nominate the Renault 21 saloon as the very worst of that era though. When did you last see one in the UK. I remember: 2008!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, NorthernMonkey said:

I’ll just leave this here....

C0C91F04-EC02-4AB5-8D4C-E21F26EAB18F.jpeg.97adf42653e62e1174850fd443e9d809.jpeg

Sorry, I have to defend the Micra 😂.

Far worse out there to look at/drive. We had an 03 reg for 3 years, that looked exactly the same (1.0 e trim in red). 

Slow, but comfy, reliable (round trip from Glasgow to Cardiff every month), excellent headlights and enough kit that it didn't feel poverty spec. I'd happily own another without feeling upset about it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

I'm interested to know why you think that? I loved mine. Basically a Renault 19 licked smooth by Patrick LeQuement. Well built, roomy, really nippy in 1.4 form, soft torsion bar rear suspension and even in base form the spec was good.

A: I hated LeQuement's lickings. They were ugly. Could just about tolerate an R19 despite the terrible interior quality, ignition electrics and cooling system. Also he's the one that basically said they'd deliberately cost-reduced the Laguna to fail after a predetermined time, around the same time as the integrated hub/bearing/stubs became commonplace.

B: Grim interiors, not particularly charming engines (1.6s I've driven mostly), just utterly charmless blobs. I dislike the Xsara/Picasso's style for many of the same reasons but I know a Xsara Coupe is fundamentally a 306 underneath and can be made to be fun.

Mostly I just hate the era from 'around 1996 to 2010' of French small/medium/executive saloon cars; bloated, blobby, safety-first, fun-last, quality out the window with a couple of exceptions. And yes, I know the A-class got moved onto a Megane-derived platform (I never was 100% on if the Volvo 400 and R19 shared DNA somewhere beyond engine blocks/gearboxes, too).

I last saw an R21 saloon in 2018, a brown 'Symphonic'. It wasn't without charm - but it was definitely last out of the pool of Sierra, Audi 80, Passat, 'something Japanese', etc. you could probably have had new or nearly new at the time. Now, a Savannah...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, doubleyeller said:

20 years back, I used to wait for the school bus and try to guess what dreadful noise the next Austin Metro coming down the road. Squeals, rhythmic squeaking, grinding noises - they all made a horrible racket of some description! By contrast, the Polos and 205's they were interspersed  among never had any audible issues.

I nominate the Renault 21 saloon as the very worst of that era though. When did you last see one in the UK. I remember: 2008!!

I loved driving my old 1 litre Metro back in the day. Pretty much flat-out everywhere, handled brilliantly, loads of interior room for a supermini and ultra reliable. Great little cars. 

Edit: Just remembered that I snipped the 'Mini' part off the Metro badge to make it look more modern. Was an early one on a W plate in the glorious mustard that BL produced at the time, second only to applejack. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, doubleyeller said:

Yeah but it's a nice place to be and glorious to drive

They should have done like peugeot did with the 405 to make a 406 but to the safrane, instead some French design meeting probably inspired by Picasso knocked out a vel satis. Probably got bored half way and left it as it was. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...