Over the decades, America has produced revolutionary, refined, beautiful, and powerful cars. However, some designs were ugly, crude, dangerous, and sometimes even fake. Here is a list of ten truly terrible cars produced in the United States of America.
The debut of the Chevy Vega for the 1971 model year appeared to be a smashing success. Everything General Motors promised to deliver seemed to be there. The Vega, at first, looked like a well-constructed and stylish compact car at an affordable price. MotorTrend magazine awarded the 1971 Vega its “Car of the Year” award. However, the vehicle was infested with issues that soon bubbled to the surface, making the Vega snap a spot on this list.
By 1972, Chevrolet had recalled 500,000 Vegas as the cars faced a variety of issues. The most significant problem was that Vega’s new aluminum block engine was prone to self-destructive behavior. If owners did not meticulously watch and maintain the coolant level, the engine’s cylinder walls would overheat and warp. Overheating would cause excessive coolant and oil consumption issues, leading to catastrophic engine failure. Flaws in the rust-proofing process left several areas of the car unprotected and rusting rapidly. Front fenders and rocker panels were the most common, and some dealers even reported newly delivered Vegas already showing rust in need of repair. There were issues with the throttles sticking open, an obvious danger. The performance-oriented engine tended to backfire so violently that it would sometimes burst the mufflers. The burst muffler would, in turn, cook the fuel tank, causing it to heat up and expand, causing seam failure and leaking fuel all over the road. There were some reports of car fires related to this. The problems were all fixed by roughly 1974, but the early issues caused the car to be a mediocre success for GM when it could have been a resounding one.
One could have picked just about any 5.7 Olds equipped GM car for this list, but the Cutlass Supreme was undoubtedly the most popular car of the time to be saddled with one of the worst powerplants ever made. GM based the 5.7 diesel on the 350 cubic inch Oldsmobile gasoline V-8. While rugged for a gas engine, it could not handle the high compression required of diesel. It was rushed into production and combined with the equally dreadful Turbo-Hydramatic 200 (TH200) transmission. General Motors, at the time, was dominated by a culture of cost-cutting that resulted in terrible products. The combination of a poorly designed engine mated to a poorly designed transmission meant cars often suffered catastrophic failures of both.
When General Motors submitted 5.7 and TH200-equipped vehicles to the California Air Resources Board for testing and certification, they did not pass. They failed to pass not because of emissions but because the cars all suffered major engine trouble before testing was complete, and most also suffered significant transmission failures. For an in-depth look at the 5.7 Olds, check out our list of worst V8s here.
Crosley, a name more synonymous with radios than cars, did produce automobiles from 1939 to the early 1950s. Like the entry above, these cars are generally well constructed but hampered by their engine. The CoBra engine was so named because it did not use typical cast iron or aluminum blocks and cylinder heads in its construction. Instead, Crosley used stamped sheet metal that was copper brazed together—this reduced weight and possible hot spots in the engine, reducing the risk of detonation. This method of building an engine had worked well during the Second World War for small engines, but when employed in the cars suffered severe corrosion and overheating issues. From 1946 to early 1949, Crosley attempted to make the engines reliable but gave up, introducing a traditional cast iron replacement engine that year. However, the CoBra engine had damaged the firm’s reputation, and Crosley folded its automotive efforts a few years later.
The car is so minimal that it looks more like an early go-kart than a proper automobile. In the early days of the American auto industry, many firms experimented with ideas and hoped to take a slice of the market from the Model T buyer. While the Model T was affordable, some hoped an even cheaper alternative would lure buyers. The Smith Flyer hit the market in 1915 and made use of wood for the body and frame. The Flyer had no suspension, relying on wood’s natural, flexible nature to dampen the ride. The Flyer came equipped with five wheels in its construction. Four at the corners and a fifth drive wheel. The Flyer’s drive wheel featured no transmission and was directly driven by the small engine. The driver raised and lowered the drive wheel by operating a lever to disengage power. In 1919, the engine and drive wheel manufacturer, Briggs and Stratton, purchased the rights to the Smith Flyer and continued production until around 1925.
If you purchased V-8-powered Cadillac new in 1981, you experienced one of the worst cars ever sold to consumers. In 1981, Cadillac jumped into the computer age and developed a multiple displacement system for its 368 cubic inch L61 V-8 engine. When cruising, the computer would activate a system of electric solenoids to disengage the valvetrain on two or four cylinders to reduce fuel consumption.
Unfortunately, the computing power available in 1981 proved insufficient, and the system struggled to find the appropriate amount of cylinders to keep activated. Drivers complained of constant surging and stumbling as the computer tried to adapt. The separate digital fuel injection system of the time often played at odds with the multiple displacement system, further compounding drivability. Cadillac tried to fix the situation with over a dozen software updates but never resolved the issues and discontinued the engine and multiple displacement systems after one model year. This engine also made our worst list.
Was the Ford Edsel a bad car? No, it wasn’t a bad car. It makes the list for being a car that birthed and sank an automotive division after three model years. Introduced with massive hype thanks to a marketing blitz, the Edsel debuted in late 1957 to crickets. The marketing campaign promised the public a new wonder car from the company that revolutionized the car business with the Model T and mass production of the V-8 engine. What the public got was essentially an uglier alternative to the Mercury. The Edsel’s front grille was widely criticized for being ugly, and the MEL series engines were decent but suffered poor fuel economy. Ford also launched the car during a recession that hit medium-priced cars such as Edsels the hardest. The models sold poorly and likely only cannibalized sales from Ford’s Mercury division. Ford killed the entire Edsel division in 1960 after losing a couple hundred million dollars, a hefty sum in 1960 dollars.
Continuing the theme of a car that killed an automotive division is the Pontiac Aztek. Widely reviled for its styling and build quality, the design was a result of trying to make the car versatile while spending little money on development. The vehicle is oddly proportioned. Tall, narrow, with small tires and massive amounts of cheap plastic cladding, the Aztek was all around a car that tried to do everything and did it all relatively poorly. It sits on this list because it helped send Pontiac’s sales into a death spiral and is often credited as the failure that helped kill the brand in 2010.
As seen in earlier entries, GM was poorly run in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The company suffered from competition from imports, resulting in cutting corners and rushing poorly made cars to market. Bad engines, bad transmissions, and shoddy build quality were commonplace on GM products when the X Body platform launched in 1980. The Chevrolet Citation, Buick Skyhawk, Oldsmobile Omega, and Pontiac Phoenix hit the market, promising a new era for GM buyers. Unfortunately for consumers, these cars suffered significant deficiencies. The braking system performed poorly and dangerously, with GM and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) going to battle over the issue of the rear brakes locking up easily. Another common complaint was the cars’ tendency to torque steer, where hard acceleration would cause the vehicle to pull to one direction and require active correction on the driver’s part. The cars were generally terrible performers, crude and unrefined for their price, and held up terrible with age. Along with the multitude of other issues with GM vehicles, the X body helped tarnish GM’s reputation for several years.
While some would argue that the Pontiac Aztek killed Pontiac, the Cimmaron nearly did kill Cadillac. For the 1982 model year, Cadillac decided to take the compact front-wheel-drive platform used by models such as the low-priced Chevy Cavalier and dress it up for sale as a Cadillac. The Cimmaron was nothing more than a badge-engineered and optioned-out Cavalier, sold for a premium price. Cadillac marketed the Cimmaron as a luxury compact. Yet, it suffered from all the same problems and deficiencies as its low-cost siblings in terms of ride, power, drivability, and reliability. GM hoped to take an existing and cheap platform and sell it for a premium. The result was poor sales and a hit to Cadillac’s reputation, already reeling from the 8-6-4 engine debacle of 1981. Cadillac executives voted nearly unanimously to kill the Cimarron in 1988. By then, Cadillac’s market share hovered around two-percent.
The worst is saved for last on this list. The Dale, marketed by the Twentieth Century Motor Car Company from 1974 to 1978, is the worst because it was a total fraud perpetuated on the American consumer. The Dale, named after designer Dale Clifft was marketed as the solution to surging fuel prices and shortages of the mid-1970s. A three-wheeled lightweight car, the Dale claimed to get over 80 miles per gallon using a small sub-1-liter engine. The marketing blitz drew tremendous public interest, with a mockup of The Dale being featured as a prize (once manufacturing started) on the game show ’The Price is Right’ in 1975. The owner of Twentieth Century Motor Car Company, Liz Carmichael, claimed to have massive investment capital and the capability to take on the traditional automakers. Carmichael began selling shares of stock in her automotive company claiming expected sales of over 300,000 in the first two years. However, the company continually delayed production in announcements while selling stock, raising eyebrows. All the promises of capital and production facilities were lies, and the company did not manufacture a single working car. With journalists and government entities investigating the company for fraud, Carmichael fled into hiding, and the company went bust. Carmichael was eventually found in 1989 and sentenced to 18 months in prison for defrauding investors.
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