Big Beat
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Posts posted by Big Beat
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My biggest problem with hot-rodders is a total lack of originality. I can deal with a really original custom creation, it can be interesting if nothing else. Even bad is good if it's really-way-out-there enough. But there seems to be only three or four iconic styles of hot rods, and EVERYTHING just has to be made to fit that mold. And there must be some kind of law that makes the 350 Chevy engine mandatory. B-O-R-I-N-G.
I seriously think that some company should just manufacture those cookie-cutter hot rods, so that these people can buy them brand new off the rack and leave the good old cars alone. Kinda like the Plymouth Prowler, but more affordable and in several classic styles. It'll be a guaranteed hit.
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I make a distinction between "Classic" and "classic". The former is clearly and very strictly defined. The latter is purely subjective and can be applied to anything vintage that's a good example of its type and reflects its era nicely.
Of course, there's also some controversy as to how to define "vintage"
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Good call on the Aztec being tomorrow's collectible, Edsel-style. The Aztec was a high-profile flop, and sold few enough units to become fairly rare in a few decades. I can just see one in a car museum in 50 years, parked right next to an antique 100-year-old Edsel.
The author's other choices are more questionable. The rest of the cars mentioned all have less of an angle to them, and are all much more common, relatively. They will have to wait a lot longer to become collectible, and it will be strictly due to age, same as any 1910's car is collectible today, regardless of what it is. In the 22 century, the regular Taurus will be just as collectible as the SHO
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In my case, all cars were bought used.
Another thing I've noticed is that the lemons we tend to mention are all models from the past 30-40 years. Were there no lemons before that, or is this just indicative of our average age group? Any experience with 1930's and 1940's and early 1950's lemons from the days when they were just older used cars and repairing/maintaining them was still routine business and not yet "restoration"?
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Chrysler K-car, what a piece of crap that was. Chrysler deserved to go bankrupt after those things.Delta 88 Royale. That Olds was one of many of the most reliable cars I've owned.
It's interesting to note how the same car can be great for someone and awful for someone else. I knew a lot of people who swore by their Delta 88's in those days, but mine was just horrible (see above). I also heard lots of jeers for the K-car. Well, I had replaced my POS Olds with a '86 Plymouth Reliant. It lasted me for five years without a single repair and was just overall a great little car.
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Worst:
1982 Olds Delta 88. Trunk springs went out, hitting me on the head with the lid on the very first day. Brakes failed on the very second day, getting me into an accident. After the body work was done, the engine died. Then the transmission. Replaced engine once, tranny twice. Power windows shorted out wide open in a major thunderstorm. The horn broke and beeped on every little bump, driving all other drivers crazy. The dashboard just disintegrated - nasty cracks, small chunks breaking off, foam stuffing falling out. The headliner fell off. For an encore, the driveshaft came loose at 60 mph and nearly killed me. I pushed the car to the side of the road, walked to a phone and called the nearest junkyard. They thought I was nuts, junking a great looking late model car just because of the drive shaft, but I knew better. I was practically cheering when they discontinued Oldsmobile 20 years later.
Runner Up:
1974 Mazda RX-4 wagon. Got suckered into it because Japanese cars were supposed to be reliable and economical. This one was neither. Didn't even know there was such a thing as a rotary engine, thought I was buying a regular 4-banger and the dealer didn't enlighten me... I found out all about Mr. Wankel's glorious invention after it died two months later, and not one mechanic knew how to repair a rotary engine. Ended up doing the rebuild myself, on the street in the middle of winter, because I desperately needed a car and had no money for another. This thing drank more gas than any V8 Caddy and every little part had to be special-ordered from Japan at horrendous expense. The floor rusted out. The upholstery was plastic, with foam that kept pouring out of the headrests like sand. Leaf springs fell apart. Then I got hit by another car and good luck finding a replacement door for an RX-4, so I drove it with the door locked on a chain and no glass for months until I found one. Sold it as soon as I had money for another car. It went to some crazy rotary enthusiast who street-raced them. He thought it was great, I was just glad to be rid of it.
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IMHO you can add 58 ford to that list.Bigest pile of s*** I ever owned, and bought it almost new.
If we were to go purely by personal experience, I would have to name the '82 Olds Delta 88 as the worst car ever made. It broke down on me more often than any other car I ever owned, including some crazy issues I never had to deal with on any of my other 25+ cars over the years. But that's purely subjective, really. Just because a given example is a lemon, is no reason to include the model on a "worst" list.
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OK, what are your criteria? How about an example?
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I don't find most modern cars ugly. Just utilitarian, bland and boring. They have become appliances. How can you make a list of 50 worst toasters?
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I disagree. Something cute/ugly (the Pacer), or something with questionable styling (the Edsel), or something unusual but innovative ( the Airflow) is OK. But just plain ugly is still bad, even if a car is OK mechanically.
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The article is two years old and has been criticised before. I think it will be much more interesting to have people who really know cars make their own "50 worst" list. Shall we?
1899-1939
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
1940-1959
8. 1949 Crosley Hotshot (this one stays - those stamped engines WERE bad)
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
1960-1974
16.
17.
18.
19. 1970 AMC Gremlin (also stays, it was a pretty miserable car)
20.
21.
22. 1971 Ford Pinto (questionable as to how much that "explodes-on-impact" stuff was just hype and paranoia, really, but...)
23.
1975-1989
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.1976 Chevy Chevette (another miserable car)
30.
31.
32.
33.1981 Cadillac Fleetwood V-8-6-4 (definitely)
34.
35.1982 Cadillac Cimarron (OK car as a Chevy, but as a Cadillac...)
36.
37.
38.
39.1985 Yugo GV (well, duh...)
40.
1990-Present
41.
42.
43.
44.1998 Fiat Multipla (yes, it's ugly)
45.
46.
47.2001 Pontiac Aztek (even uglier)
48.
49.2003 Hummer H2 (IMHO these bloated status symbols just have no valid reason to exist)
50.
Now let's fill in the blanks!
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The first time I took my '79 Monte Carlo to a car show, I fully expected to leave it in the parking lot. I was just shocked to see what a high percentage of cars were newer than mine. I have since gotten used to it. These days I simply walk quickly past the rows of Corvettes and Prowlers and custom-painted PT Cruisers and completely ignore both the cars and the type of spectators they tend to attract.
I find Corvettes and Mustangs boring, even the older ones, much less anything recent. All those cookie-cutter '57 Chevys and "me-too" muscle cars and overchromed Harleys do nothing for me either. And I wouldn't miss the Prowler if every last one of them ceased to exist tomorrow. But those are precisely the type of vehicle that are most popular and attract the most attention. That's just how it is these days.
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That's a rare 1968 Serta, looks like a good restoration project!
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Otlichno! Excellent! Glad you found it. Please continue to post pictures here as you restore it.
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Is that a Russian sewing machine?
I have a similar one in the back of my garage.
The upholstery looks great already!
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I'd hate to change the timing belt on that thing
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<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">In 1987 I bought a '83 Delta 88 that was one of the best most reliable cars I ever owned. </div></div>
I believe you. I was always partial to that generation's RWD Deltas, LeSabres and Impalas, and I know that they were SUPPOSED TO be very reliable. I knew other owners who loved theirs, my neighbor owned a great '77 LeSabre that actually influenced my choice at the time to look for those cars and eventually get that Olds. It was such a disappointment that my car was such a lemon, I wanted to like it, but it turned me off Oldsmobiles forever. BTW, I replaced it with a Chrysler
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The "headliner on head" was a notorious GM issue at the time. I had that problem with a '82 Olds Delta. Which by the way was the absolute worst car I ever owned. I didn't buy it brand new, but it was a fairly late model car at the time. It had problems I've never had to deal with before or since, like power windows shorting out in a thunderstorm, trunk springs failing so that the lid hit me on the head, the horn beeping on every bump, a dashboard that peeled and cracked if you even looked at it, and the driveshaft falling off at 60 mph, the last straw that led to me junking it. All of this in addition to having the transmission replaced twice. It was the last "current" GM car I ever bought (my '58 Chevy and other subsequent vintage hobby cars nonwithstanding).
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If we're still debating...
I really dislike the calling of anything post-WWII "antique". It just sounds wrong. A 25 year old object, whether a car or anything else, can only be "antique" to a teenager, and usually with a negative connotation. "Vintage" would be a much better choice here.
Another distinction is "classic" vs. "Classic". The latter is clearly defined by the club. The former is subjective and has nothing to do with age. A 1986 Ford Taurus is a classic 1980's design that is bound to become collectible some day, but it most certainly is not a Classic car.
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Is there a link to the Cowtown event?
Also, is there a calendar of these shows somewhere?
Thanks!
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Almost. I did let my first car go, but exactly 20 years later I found another one just like it. Same year, same color in and out. Pics are from 1986 and 2006. If I said it was the same car, few would suspect.
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Anyone that cannot recognize this car as a "classic" seriously needs to widen their definition of one. But I'll be the first to laugh at anyone who calls my '79 "antique".
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Thanks!
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What year is this Mercury hub cap?
butchered cars
in General Discussion
Posted
I recently did an eBay search for pre-war cars. There must have been at least 20 "rat rods" for every original car. Not only have the cars been cut up, but the owners don't even keep them after cutting them up. What's the point then?
It's even worse for some newer cars, though. I am so sick of people who look at my stock '79 Monte and say "wow, cool car, man, if I had one like that, I'd put on some nice chrome wheels, drop in a 350, paint it purple, add a bitchin' sound system..." It's like they can't appreciate the car except as raw material for a ghetto lowrider. That "Training Day" movie sure didn't help