Jump to content

Grimmest car of all time


sdkrc

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Back in around 86, my mate's bohemian mum had a yellow HA. Ex AA I assume. OUF 872M. 

I remember whoever bagged the passenger seat had to slide in through the open window Dukes style (or climb across the driver's seat) as the door wouldn't open. I also remember clearly being able to see the road through the plentiful little holes in the passenger footwell. 

The back was ply lined and we used to sit on the rear arch box sections if we pulled the short straw. 

It was far removed from my own parents vehicles at the time, and I loved adventures out and about in the HA. Definitely a primitive charm about them. 

My mate's mum eventually replaced it with a blue Renault F4 van with the baguette hatch above the back door. That thing was even more fun than the HA and seemed a world away in terms of modernity, even though it would only have been around five years newer. 

Great memories. 

Never heard the r4 hatch called a baguette hatch 😂

Locals here in frogland call then giraffe doors. (sort of, there's no direct translation) 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, chaseracer said:

That state of tune, they would probably run on the driver's piss the Monday following a decent Saturday night out.

I suspect our council vans often did!

As a young roadsweeper I always knew when one of the supervisors was on the way, the sound of the old HA was very distinctive!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are a lot of low budget but ultimately practical cars listed - grim, but serving a market to keep the poor (or poorly sighted) mobile.

For me the grimmest are luxury* cars in base spec, probably summed up most by those nasty base spec Audi TT’s with tiny engine and single exhaust pipe with a blanking plate over the second hole.

If you only have so much to spend, use it to buy a nice car of marque and model you can afford (like a 20 year old Vauxhall Astra) rather than stretching yourself to buy the badge, but attached to a car with all the bits that would make it nice/fun/luxury/tasteful stripped off to make it just about affordable. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, rusty_vw_man said:

There are a lot of low budget but ultimately practical cars listed - grim, but serving a market to keep the poor (or poorly sighted) mobile.

For me the grimmest are luxury* cars in base spec, probably summed up most by those nasty base spec Audi TT’s with tiny engine and single exhaust pipe with a blanking plate over the second hole.

If you only have so much to spend, use it to buy a nice car of marque and model you can afford (like a 20 year old Vauxhall Astra) rather than stretching yourself to buy the badge, but attached to a car with all the bits that would make it nice/fun/luxury/tasteful stripped off to make it just about affordable. 

On the other hand, MBs and BMWs of low spec were miserly indeed but the extra money bought you far superior quality, refinement and comfort to what the likes of Ford and Vauxhall were churning out. They built them to last, and quite a lot of them have.

Nowadays, less so - you get softer touch interior plastics sitting on top of mechanicals where every penny that could be pinched has been. You really are just paying for the badge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The early part of this thread reminds me of all  the stuff I used to rent out when I worked in car hire. All brand new at the time, but some more shit than others.

 The worst, by a long way has already been mentioned. The Nissan Primera from 2002 on. Second place being the Peugeot 307. Bear in mind  these were brand new cars when I drove them, and they were fucking awful. 

I would honestly rather drive a 1.8d na Escort than one of those Primera.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

1 hour ago, Frogchod said:

Never heard the r4 hatch called a baguette hatch 😂

Locals here in frogland call then giraffe doors. (sort of, there's no direct translation) 

 

I always assumed it was for XXL baguettes 😅

I can still visualise the dash mounted gear change- unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Bizarre that the 4 continued with this setup until the late 80s, yet the 'modern' renault 5 back in the mid 70s was conventional setup. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, sporty-shite said:

The worst, by a long way has already been mentioned. The Nissan Primera from 2002 on. Second place being the Peugeot 307. Bear in mind  these were brand new cars when I drove them, and they were fucking awful. 

I would honestly rather drive a 1.8d na Escort than one of those Primera.  

I had a 2004 Primera 2.2d for 2yrs, 20,000 miles and absolutely loved it. Comfy seats, lots of room,  decent equipment, reliable, decent power.

What made yours so shit?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Screenshot_20201226-212928_Google.thumb.jpg.150bd8083cce68b9352f79c34fe0cb84.jpg

We had a 1.25 ghia. Ok around town but on the motorway the engine worked that hard fuel economy no longer existed.

Fucking awful brakes - new pads/ discs/ shoes and fluid made no improvement. Sometimes it felt like sticking your feet on the road would slow you down more quickly. As it was a zetec with aircon under the bonnet was tight to say the least - it was an annual job to seal the thermostat housing which would drip.

Then there's the rust. They rot like fuck - everywhere. Ours lasted one more MOT after selling it. At least it saved some other poor sod the experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was thinking about mentioning that era of Fiesta but I was dissuaded by the fun I had throwing a rotten one around an improvised track. I find the 2002-2008 Hyundai Getz to be fairly grim, but to its credit, my aunt drove one for thirty miles with the oil pressure light on without it seizing!

 

Hyundai_Getz_(1).jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Bren said:

Screenshot_20201226-212928_Google.thumb.jpg.150bd8083cce68b9352f79c34fe0cb84.jpg

We had a 1.25 ghia. Ok around town but on the motorway the engine worked that hard fuel economy no longer existed.

Fucking awful brakes - new pads/ discs/ shoes and fluid made no improvement. Sometimes it felt like sticking your feet on the road would slow you down more quickly. As it was a zetec with aircon under the bonnet was tight to say the least - it was an annual job to seal the thermostat housing which would drip.

Then there's the rust. They rot like fuck - everywhere. Ours lasted one more MOT after selling it. At least it saved some other poor sod the experience.

We had a Fiesta similar to that years ago, loved it, it put up with some serious abuse and practically zero maintenance. Eventually though the passenger side floor fell out and we needed a bigger car anyway. Agree about the brakes though they were very wooden. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, sdkrc said:

I had a 2004 Primera 2.2d for 2yrs, 20,000 miles and absolutely loved it. Comfy seats, lots of room,  decent equipment, reliable, decent power.

What made yours so shit?

I found they felt cheap and plasticky and the whole touch screen thing was unwieldy and awkward. Added to that that they didn't drive or handle half as well as the previous model and were pig ugly. 

Other than that.........😁

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Supernaut said:

Nissan Tiida.

I think Glasgow was "ground zero" for them, too. They were only officially sold over in Ireland but an enterprising car dealer in the Glasgow area imported a shitload of them IIRC. Most of the time when you see one it's on a Glasgow reg.

At least one got sold new outside of Glasgow -  my folks old next door neighbour had one on a Nottingham reg with Motorpoint plates and stickers on it for several years before replacing it with some generic Hyundai. It's the only one I've ever seen not on a Scottish reg!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, EightMegs said:

I was thinking about mentioning that era of Fiesta but I was dissuaded by the fun I had throwing a rotten one around an improvised track. I find the 2002-2008 Hyundai Getz to be fairly grim, but to its credit, my aunt drove one for thirty miles with the oil pressure light on without it seizing!

 

Hyundai_Getz_(1).jpg

I hired a then-new Getz in Australia in 2008 and at the time I thought it was absolutely dire - I spent every minute I was driving it wishing I was back in my 20-year-old Saab 900.

Then a few years later I bought a high mileage second hand one off eBay, with the objectively dreadful 3-pot VM diesel, and I absolutely loved it.  Go figure, as they say in Murica. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/25/2020 at 8:35 PM, Stanky said:

You've just reminded me about a guy I worked with about 15 years ago who was absolutely convinced (and told anyone he met who ever said anything even slightly car related) that the 2nd generation Hyundai Pony was the best car ever made.

He frequently told me that the 4x4 variant was literally the best vehicle ever made, would out-drag most hot hatches due to its light weight and do stuff that a LR Defender couldn't do offroad.

I can picture his face but his name absolutely escapes me. He's probably on here these days.

 

Probably.  Did he also use to extol the virtues of the diesel Maxi? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, Supernaut said:

Nissan Tiida.

I think Glasgow was "ground zero" for them, too. They were only officially sold over in Ireland but an enterprising car dealer in the Glasgow area imported a shitload of them IIRC. Most of the time when you see one it's on a Glasgow reg.

Diverted from Cyprus I believe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

_28a2931.thumb.jpg.4e6ccf64fcbb222597731c371ef5705e.jpg

These are miserable, such a cynical car from a perceived "premium" brand. They have sold well by virtue of the badge on the front rather than any capability. 

It's amusing when you see one crest a hill in front you and catch a glimpse of the teeny wee exhaust pipe tucked messily behind the bumper which has two shiny cutouts in it to look like twin exits. 

There's a certain clique of idiotic lassies at my work who are the target market. The car, house and iPhone 46X are one missed wage from going back to the bank.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Split_Pin said:

Diverted from Cyprus I believe.

Quite possibly!  When we sold up and disappeared to Paphos in 2009 we had a rental car for the first four weeks, and what we were given was a metallic brown Tiida.  Almost the same brown as Huggy, in fact.  It was forgettable, certainly; didn't do anything special but it didn't need to.  Grim?  I think if I'd  bought it, or got it on a PCP, then yes.  I don't even know what engine it had; at a guess I would say 1.4 or so.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Timewaster said:

They did the bloody things in various states of detune. 

Given that they were almost all bought by Royal Mail, Post Office telephones or the Gas and electricity boards a full power HA must have been a rare thing. 

That explains why the one I had was a gutless piece of shit. Mine was yellow inside so must have been the Post Office Telephones version. It was painted blue on the outside. Well, I'm using 'painted' in it's loosest form as it looked like it was put on with a bass broom. In quite a few areas it had flaked off so the whole thing looked like some weird kind of blue and yellow camo effect. I'll give it one thing, it never broke down in the time I had it and got  thrashed everywhere as that was the only way to get much movement out of it. Had it 6 months or so and then bought a Escrote van which was nearly as dire. The heater was better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My dad worked for the GPO and BT. 

I remember him having a Morris 1000 van, a Bedford HA,  an Ital, a Maestro and a Transit. 

He said the HA was by far the slowest and some of the other engineers were jealous when he got one of the first Itals. 

Can you imagine? Jealous of an Ital. 

I don't remember it, but he tells stories of an Austin J2 being by far the worst, having to wear extra clothes to combat the howling draughts coming through every panel, regular break downs, terrible brakes and wayward steering. 

But I guess most 60s commercials were pretty grim. 

The replacement Commer PB was like a limo in comparison. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of our HAs was yellow inside, having been a British Rail van from new.  After retirement it had been painted red and used by a plumbing firm in Southport, then sent to the travelling folk for scrap.  However these particular travelling folk had managed to befriend my dad, who was the son of a Dublin farmer.  He was loving being able to converse in his native accent, and conduct low-cost car deals with someone who  knew how to haggle.  I often think that was one of the happiest times of his life.  So, one day LTO 655P appeared on the drive, and my dad set about brush painting it bright blue.  It looked a treat, to be fair!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, davehedgehog31 said:

_28a2931.thumb.jpg.4e6ccf64fcbb222597731c371ef5705e.jpg

These are miserable, such a cynical car from a perceived "premium" brand. They have sold well by virtue of the badge on the front rather than any capability. 

It's amusing when you see one crest a hill in front you and catch a glimpse of the teeny wee exhaust pipe tucked messily behind the bumper which has two shiny cutouts in it to look like twin exits. 

There's a certain clique of idiotic lassies at my work who are the target market. The car, house and iPhone 46X are one missed wage from going back to the bank.

I manage a fleet of 7 of these in hybrid petrol and older diesels, visibility is shite, but they are not that bad. 

They've been 100% reliable, something that couldn't be said for the A3's they replaced. 

The new LCD dash is pretty bad though..

I think you're criticising the demographic who buys them rather than the car itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Volksy said:

I manage a fleet of 7 of these in hybrid petrol and older diesels, visibility is shite, but they are not that bad. 

I think you're criticising the demographic who buys them rather than the car itself.

Grim doesn't necessarily mean bad, just unappealing. The idea of a boggo A-class brings me no joy but I'm sure they're acceptable an-cars

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...