The 20 Biggest Car Fails Of All Time

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@storefull-3171.bay.webtv.net:

That B&S Flyer looks suspiciously like something someone would make for his kid with an old lawn mower engine.

I always thought anyone with a Gremlin should turn it into a two-seater mid engined car. The aero is right - no lift from the back end.

Hmm, I sense a bit of distortion here: a Corvette with only a 305 is atypical. sounds like the cheapest version of the motor. Same with that Camaro.

I seem to recall you couldn't get a Prowler with a standard transmission. Or was that just the PT cruiser?

IIRC, the 305 Vette was to meet some smog numbers required by California, or something. They didn't have any other powertrains certified, and didn't want to leave the pipeline empty for months.

But I'm probably wrong- I never really followed Vettes, as I never found them that interesting. (and people say SUVs are useless?) I'f I'm gonna have a sporty 2-seater, I'd prefer one that does a little better on gas, and has better vision. All the Vettes I've ridden in felt like I was sitting in a bathtub.

As usal you can tell this list was composed by an idiot. I knew this as soon as I saw the Pinto on the list. The guy writing the list only bothered to repeat the BS stories about Pintos without actually checking the facts. Yes Ford lost a major lawsuit related to a buring Pinto, but the fact is, Pinto were no more likely to catch fire than other samll cars of that era. Ford sold millions of Pintos. Hardly a failure. You can tell the guy doesn't actually know anything about cars when he talks about the placement of the gas tank at the rear of the vehicle. For decades most cars had their gas tanks at the rear of the vehicle. Many Jeeps still have their gas thanks between the rear axle and the rear bumper. How about pickups from that for years had the gas tank in the cab. Or station wagons that usually had the gas tank in the rear quarter panel behind the rear wheel but in front of the rear bumper. SIe impacts on those was a s liklely to ruture the gas tank as a rear collision with a Pinto. At least the Pinto's tank was under the floorwith sheel metal between the tank and the passenger compartment. Some of those station wagons only had plastic trim between the gas tank and the passenger compartment.

I can think of two cars right away that were much much worse than the majority of cars on his list - the original Toyota Toyopet and the Copper Cooled Chevorlet.

And how can you include "concept vehicles" like the Fuller Dymaxion in a list like this. It was never a production vehicle at all.

Ed

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View this page which offers a far superior analysis including links to informative documentation.

My 1948 Willys Jeep has the gas tank mounted on top of the floor pan under the drivers seat.My 1914 Ford Model T has the gas tank mounted under the seat.Gravity feed, no fuel pump, Ford Model T. cuhulin

I like Wikipedia also. However, they give far too much weight to the Mother Jones attack piece and not enough to what a sham job of reporting it was. There was no Ford analysis that claimed it was better to payoff Pinto lawsuits than fix the Pinto. There was a document written before the Pinto was designed that related the cost of certain safety improvement to the cost of a human life, but the cost used was provided by the Government and was not Ford's number and it wasn't even actually realted to the Pinto at all (despite the lies told in the MJ article). And while it might be true that 1971 Pinto's had light rear bumpers, the 1973 model had the Government mandatd 5 mph bumpers.

I have always beleived that if Ford had settled the Pinto lawsuits out of court instead of fighting what they felt was an unjustified case, then no one would have called the Pinto a fire bomb. Chevrolet actually had similar problems with early Chevette (despite haveing a mid-mounted gas tank), but they settled all related suits out of court and therefore no one even remembers those problems. (the problem was a suspension bolt that was too long and could puncture the rear gas tank in a rear end collison. GM shortened / relocated the bolt to solve the problem.

Ed

As the owner of a Pinto that went through eleven... count them... eleven engine blocks under warranty (many of which arrived at the dealer obviously damaged or improperly machined and were sent back without being installed), I have to say that the Pinto had a lot of issues that were unrelated to the gas tank design.

--scott

snipped-for-privacy@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote in news:hrmvrq$d7v$ snipped-for-privacy@panix2.panix.com:

what year and mtr was that?????????????? I turned wrenches in ford dealerships all through the pinto run and we never had anything like that show up. (of course the non drilled oil holes in the rods on the 2300s in the north was a bad deal) almost all repaired under warrenty in 77. KB

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Which year and which engine? At least for early Pintos like we owned, all the engines came from Europe (we had the 2000 cc German built engine in the two my family owned, a good friend had the English built

1600 cc in his). Ee never had any engine problems. In fact, the only mechanical problem either of the Pintos owned by my family had was a burned out starter, and that was my fault - it happened under warranty (I bought a tank of gas that was really at least 25% water - I abused the started trying to avoid dropping the tank to empty out the water). I autocrossed my Pinto constantly for the three yeare I drove it while I was in college. My younder siter drove it another three years, and then I drove it again for a year before finally selling it. My older Sister had the other Pinto. She drove it for 7 years and then I drove it for about 6 months after an accident damaged my "regular" car. I sold that one to a freind who let this three kids drive it to college for another 5 years before he finally sold it. Heck it may yet be out there.....

It sounds to me like you had a dealership problem. I can't imagine Ford screwed up 11 engines. I assume you were getting long blocks......there wasn't much to them since the cam was in the head.

Ed

aemeijers wrote in news:-7adnTcjYZX7e0DWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Low center of gravity for cornering. Any ZR1 could wipe the floor with any NASCAR car on a road circuit given two proper race drivers in them..

Legendary flops in automotive history.

When the Pinto cars first came on the market place, a guy who worked where I worked, he bought a new red Pinto car.I reckon it was a good car, he never said anything about having any problems with that car.He drove it at least 80 miles every day, going back and forth to his home and work.That's the way the mop flops. cuhulin

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@storefull-3173.bay.webtv.net:

The fact is that Ford wouldn't sell or produce it more than one year if it was as disastrous as the press makes these things out to be. And there *are* examples of that happening. A defunct Citroen minivan who's name escapes me comes to mind My father never liked Ford cars for one reason: engine noise. I have the opposite view on that - I'd *love* to just once watch a race and hear no commentary (excepting replays after an incident) for the entire race. There's no good reason for it IMHO. You just have to see McQueen's Lemans to observe that. Virtually no dialogue at all.

And thus, pretty useless on a street car, unless you live someplace with very flat streets, no potholes, and it is always warm and sunny. And no cops, of course.

On the flip side, my snail mail June 2010 Motor Trend magazine has an article titled, Dream Machines.The cars featured in the article are, Alfa Romeo Aerodinamica Tecnica (1954) Buick Lesabre (1951) Lamborghini Marzal (1967) Lincoln Futura (1955) Sting Ray (1959) Chrysler Portofino (1987) Cadillac Sixteen (2003) Pontiac Bonneville Special (1954) Ford Mustang I (1962) Chrysler Norseman (1956) Cadillac Cyclone (1959) Dodge Firearrow I (1953) Alfa Romero Brera (2002) GM Firebird III (1959) Ferrari Mondulo (1970) VW Concept 1 (1994) Ford GT90 (1995) and, Aero-Vette (1977)

cuhulin

aemeijers wrote in news:SvydnfC5CodhLX3WnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

I figured that's what you were meaning.

Same could be said for anyone owning a Ferrari, Lotus or Lambo and so on. Moreso in fact. However, there's at least two road courses that have track days less than 100 miles from here. There's a guy that parks his Testerossa outside a restaurant in Little Italy here every day except in winter of course. I would guess he saves on maintenance by never driving it hard.

No Corvair. Some list.

There's a guy around here that never drives his Ferrari over ~40 MPH. Never even takes it on the highway, always uses secondary roads!

That said, I can prodly and truthfully say I blew off a Ferrari 360 with a Toyota Tercel! ;)

I stay on the slow poke back roads.If I owned a Ferrari, I reckon I would at least get it on some roads where I could drive a little faster.Once in a while anyway. cuhulin

Ya gotta blow the carbon out of them once in a while!