Grimmest car of all time

[danthecapriman]

  On 24/12/2020 at 21:40, SiC said:

At least that is practical with the hatchback boot. What's worse?

Genuinely had a nightmare once that I owned one. 

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Sadly I lived that nightmare!

Mine was an H reg 1.4glx and it was a fucking pile of absolute wet dog shit.

But...

I hate other cars more! Most of which are French.

[SiC]

  On 24/12/2020 at 22:29, 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 

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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. 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

  On 24/12/2020 at 22:27, Fabergé Greggs said:

Nothing causes me to despair like these do 

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Can be fixed for £600.

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

[sutty2006]

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. 

[timolloyd]

Surely those are the one to have, with small wheels? I don’t like them, but they saved Porsche and they’re not grim, in the way the OP meant

[bunglebus]

This

Not even ugly in a good way like a Citroen Ami or VW type 4. I had a good look over one thinking there must be at least a clever bit of design somewhere but no. Just awful

[sierraman]

  On 24/12/2020 at 22:22, SiC said:

I'll take the bait. What's wrong with Wembdon? Crime rate is low and no real mention of any bad news articles. Worst I found was of last year from some offensive graffiti in a kids playground. 

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It’s crime is it’s just a really boring place. 

[Macscrooge]

  On 24/12/2020 at 21:48, 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. 

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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!

[HMC]

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.

[Matty]

  On 24/12/2020 at 21:20, sdkrc said:

I'd like to propose the 2004 BMW X3 as the grimmest car of all time. Can anyone top this?

Base spec: cloth, 2.0 diesel, non-colour coded bumpers, mid 00s BMW reliability*

I can think of fewer cars which evoke such powerful sighs.

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Bought it yet?

[Split_Pin]

  On 24/12/2020 at 22:03, chancer said:

Like this?? 😂😂😂

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A rose among thorns.

[Matty]

  On 24/12/2020 at 22:53, Split_Pin said:

A rose among thorns.

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Thats class. Defo NOT grim

[Matty]

I bought this yesterday. What do I win?

[Macscrooge]

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.webpFetching info...

[AnthonyG]

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.

[Bear]

American J-body Cavalier late '90s-early 2000s.

The first Meganes.

Nissan Pixo/Note.

[red5]

  On 24/12/2020 at 22:29, 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 

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

[Bear]

  On 24/12/2020 at 23:09, 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! 

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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.

[Bear]

  On 24/12/2020 at 23:14, red5 said:

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

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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.

[goosey]

  On 24/12/2020 at 23:14, red5 said:

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

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Yes, it is.

[Split_Pin]

  On 24/12/2020 at 23:12, RichardK said:

The first Meganes.

 

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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.

[red5]

  On 24/12/2020 at 23:17, 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.

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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 

[doubleyeller]

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!!

[1duck]

Vel satis properly gopping. 

[GMcD]

  On 24/12/2020 at 21:40, NorthernMonkey said:

I’ll just leave this here....

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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.

[Bear]

  On 24/12/2020 at 23:26, 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.

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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...

[doubleyeller]

  On 24/12/2020 at 23:33, 1duck said:

Vel satis properly gopping. 

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

[Bear]

I mean, what about the Lancia Kappa Coupe? Like a kid drew a C140 S-Class but made the wheelbase too short and didn't leave enough room for the arches so draws tiny wheels on it...

[Dick Cheeseburger]

  On 24/12/2020 at 23:27, 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!!

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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. 

[1duck]

  On 24/12/2020 at 23:41, doubleyeller said:

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

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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.