Thread: What was your most Crap Car?

I think that worst car that I've ever driven was my fathers 144DL Volvo. It was even worse than my 100E Prefect (defect??).

That Volvo was unkillable - he never serviced or washed it. At rare intervals he'd just top up the oil and water but that's about it. It drank fuel at about the rate that Shell could produce it. It only used a minute amount of oil and started first time, every time. It had the best brakes of any car I've driven bar none. Nothing ever fell off or broke. The interior was tough and looking good up until the end when he gave it away with the odometer about half way around for the second time. I don't think it could be beaten for reliability.

What made it so bad to drive ? Well, sitting in the car was not a nice place to be, the driving position was really, really bad, the seats felt like they were made of rough hewn granite, the clutch was unbelievably heavy, the brakes were WAY over assisted, the throttle was nearly as heavy as the clutch, a stopwatch to time 0-60 was inappropriate - a calendar would have been more suitable, despite how it looks the number and size of the blindspots was terrible but the crowning glory was the steering and handling. Arnie would have had a hard time parking it - it was that heavy and the handling and body roll was something else. It rocked and rolled and wallowed and gave the impression that you'd end up in the trees for no reason.

Originally Posted by loanrangie

My mate had a chrysler sigma 1977, worked with twin webers and rally suspension.Late one summers night we drove to Eildon via the black spur winding the needle off the speedo and taking most corners straight. Got up to that nice straight section after Narbethong and wound it out as far as it would go, 180kph was about 11 o'clock on the speedo and we had it at 12 all while playing Radar love .

I returned the favour in my 76 TA23 Celica, lowered with hd pedders suspenion, 13x8 rebel mags with 225 yokohama's, ported and polished head on the 1600 and a 2" sports exhaust - loved that car.

More stories from my misspent youth: A mate's brother had a Sigma GSR, also equipped with twin Dellortos and we borrowed it to visit a friend in Young. On the way home we managed to do the 160 km from the derestriction sign outside Young to the main street of Orange in 62 minutes. They went prety well.

Regards
Tote

If you want stories of misspent youth. In I think 1963 or 4 I managed Brisbane to Roma in under four hours in my brother's Citroen ID19 Safari. It is 325miles (about 525km), and included peak hour traffic getting out of Brisbane, and the Toll Bar hill, although most of the rest is pretty straight and flat. Not too bad for 69hp pushing an eight seat station wagon. A tribute to aerodynamic drag reduction. Not to mention the suspension and handling that made it possible to keep those speeds on the roads of the time.

Originally Posted by jonesfam

Serious question, What was your most piece of the proverbial?

For me it's a toss up between a Hillman Hunter GT that spewed smoke out of the gear box (or somewhere) & had shot shockies springs & most other things.
And a Fiat 124 1100 that needed first gear to get up the Toowoomba range & broke down continuously & was a mongrel to work on.

Probably the Hunter, it blew the clutch line the night we bought it & had to be pushed home.

Jonesfam

Triumph Mayflower.
Owned by a cousin, but I had to keep fixing it.
Swore I would take petrol and matches next time.
Happily she wrote it off.
Terry

Originally Posted by rover-56

Triumph Mayflower.
Owned by a cousin, but I had to keep fixing it.
Swore I would take petrol and matches next time.
Happily she wrote it off.
Terry

They were awful things, weren't they. The big brother Triumph Renown was just as bad. The trade avoided them like the plague. Near impossible to even give them away with a few years and miles on. Standard made some dreadful cars, 8's, 10's, Cadets, Triumph Herald, Early duck back Vanguards where the roof panel rusted apart at the weld seams.

Originally Posted by 1950landy

Years ago when the Sigma's were new the guy next door to us was a service rep for Mitsubishi , he was telling me they were never meant to be company reps cars they were meant as a second family car , with the reps doing high mileage in then the motors didn't last.

Mitsubishi must have sold an awful lot though, as I recall here in Hobart that every second car you'd see, pretty much seemed to be a Sigma.

Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

They were awful things, weren't they. The big brother Triumph Renown was just as bad. The trade avoided them like the plague. Near impossible to even give them away with a few years and miles on. Standard made some dreadful cars, 8's, 10's, Cadets, Triumph Herald, Early duck back Vanguards where the roof panel rusted apart at the weld seams.

Anyone put their hand up for a Triumph Herald?

Originally Posted by Tombie

However, a second class drive is still better than a first class walk.

Never a truer word spoken hence I've had a few "A grade" clunkers in my time but the most memorable one was the one I had for the shortest time, a 1973 Toyota Corona. Paid $300 for it(in the early 90's) with a fair bit of rego as a trade in from the caryard I was working at and I can't remember anything in particular wrong with it but the first thing I did when I got it home was place an ad in the classifieds. It was just plain horrible.