Worst Cars of the Year

[ChrisV]

John's right about the Mustang II, and the Alliance.

The original Mustang was designed as a sporty bodyshell on the plebian Falcon chassis, to give an economical, but fun alternative to the normal sedan. It was a runaway hit for Lee Iacocca. By '70, he was seeing the original idea become lost with ever larger and faster examples being made, that were becoming harder and harder to insure and were selling less, and wanted a return to the original concept, so in late '70, while BOSS 429s were in dealer showrooms, he had the team go back to the drawing board to create a smaller Mustang, more like the original that had sold so well.

He got the smaller Mustang AND the sales he was looking for. Had nothing to do with the energy crisis, though it was luckily perfectly timed in the market.

And these days, with them all being pre-emmissions testing in most of the country, they make excellent project cars. Who cares that the stock V8s only made 140 or so hp? It was a stock 302 cid V8! Which means huge amounts of hp are just a Summit catalog away.

My folks also had an '83 Alliance. Yeah, it was an appliance car, but it never rusted and it was always reliable.

the rust comments were interesting in tat article. The compared cars like the Vega and Citation to the Civic, and talked about how fast they rusted. I wonder, how many Civics of that era are runing around Michigan? In salted areas, pretty much ALL cars rust away. In the NW, where I'm from, Vegas, Pintos, Citations, Chevy LUVs, and early Civics, etc are all over and not rusted out. Over here, there is almost NOTHING of that era left. Can't point at one kind of car and say that kind of car rusts more than any other.


As for the Contour... SVT, thank you very much.

[Byteme]

John's right about the Mustang II, and the Alliance.


As for the Contour... SVT, thank you very much.

And FWIW, I put over 220,000 miles on my 2.3L 1974 manual transmission Mustang II.  It saw me through undergraduate and graduate school and over 1 year afterward.  That was about 55 oil changes and 6-8 sets of tires and 4 brake jobs. 

And if I had to do it over again I would have kept the Alliance and traded in my POS Camaro for the Escort GT.  I should have driven that Alliance until it died.

Speaking of which I can think of a few cars I wish I still owned.

1966 Dodge Charger.
83 or 4 Renault Alliance
1991 Mustang Convertible
1997 Escort Wagon

[the Teuton]

I don't remember my brother's Encore (nee Alliance hatchback) being a particularly bad car.  He beat the crap out of it far more mercilessly than anyone should have, but it doesn't strike me that it was the car's fault for anything in retrospect.  It seemed more like a masochistic homicide rather than a suicide why he replaced it (with a B12 Sentra iirc).

[Madman]

I've owned two of the cars on that list: 1983 Renault R9 Alliance DL sedan and a 1985 Merkur XR4Ti.  My mother currently owns a third one: 2000 Mercury Mystique GS 2.0 Auto.

There was nothing wrong with the Alliance overall, not even the 60 horsepower 1.4 litre engine.  It probably helped that my car had a five speed manual.  I shudder to think what the performance of the three speed automatic equipped version must have felt like.  Then again, if you were stupid enough to order the automatic, you deserve what you get!  Performance was also unintentionally helped by the Alliance's light weight, achieved by making the car form metal so thin you could almost see through it!  That said, however, the body on mine never rusted.  Reliability could have been better but bear in mind my car was a decade old when I bought it and badly abused by the previous owner.  Still, for the princely sum of $600, there wasn't a better car out there to be had.

My Merkur XR4Ti was much more reliable.  Compared to the square tin boxes of the 1980's, the Exareforteeeye looked like it came from another planet.  I loved the style and the turbo Whoooooooooosh was addictive.  What ruined the experience for me was the local Lincoln-Mercury dealer.  They made no attempt to hide their disdain for the Merkurs.  After the way I was treated, It will be a VERY cold day in hell before I set foot in another Lincoln-Mercury showroom!

That said, however, my mother's Mystique has been fantastic.  It is, without question, the most reliable car she has ever owned.  It's even been more reliable than her old Camry.  Take that, Toyota!  Back seat leg room was vastly improved with the 1998 facelift, so there's no reason to complain about lack of space in back.

Oh, and while I never had a Mustang II, I did once own a Ford Pinto upon which it was based.  My 2.8 litre V6 powered Pinto may have been surprisingly quick but it had absolutely no other redeeming qualities whatsoever.  Ford deserved all the negative press they got for inflicting this terrible car on an unsuspecting public.  Had they simply just imported the MK I Euro-spec Escort they could have saved themselves (and their customers) a lot of grief!


Cheers,
Madman of the People

[ChrisV]

Ford deserved all the negative press they got for inflicting this terrible car on an unsuspecting public.  Had they simply just imported the MK I Euro-spec Escort they could have saved themselves (and their customers) a lot of grief!

While many of us enthusiasts have a soft spot in our hearts for the top models of the Mk1 Escort, we have to remember that the basic Escort was no better than the Pinto, really (and utilized the same engines), would have rusted the same, and, because it would have been imported, would have cost more, too.

They were just basic economy sedans:

[Byteme]

Had they simply just imported the MK I Euro-spec Escort they could have saved themselves (and their customers) a lot of grief!


Cheers,
Madman of the People

It probably would have been little more successful that the Capri Ford imported in the eaarly 70's.  The Carpi was a good car thet few people bought.

[omicron]

Yes.

[Onslaught]

I'd take the Focus out of those, unless you're talking about the higher spec Sentra and Protege.  And even then, I hear the Mazdaspeed has a weak engine (reliability-wise).

I never liked the MS Proteg'e. It wasn't very fast and it was so stiff that it actually hurt to drive one on real roads. That and it looked like something out of a teen car mag.