87 Replies to “Two Of Them I’ve Owned”

  1. The Bricklin? No way. Sure it was a mechanical nightmare but there’s a lawyer in Saint John who pulls his out of the garage every summer. I would kill for one.
    On the other hand, how did these two Malaysian beauties miss the list?
    Peradua Kancil (http://tiny.cc/mva7s). I’m 5’9″ but the thing is so small I couldn’t sit in the front seat.
    The Proton Arena (http://tiny.cc/7w8ii). Just because it wasn’t sold in America doesn’t mean it can’t be butt ugly.

  2. I’ve always wanted an expensive car so I can pretend I’m an idiot female who only drives it because I’m a trophy wife.

  3. I noticed that the reviewer seemed to have a mad-on for SUVs for no better reason than that they were SUVs, which should tell you something about their biases.
    I’m still trying to figure out the Enzo – what, are limited-run supercars supposed to be elegant and understated?
    As for the DeLorean – I fondly remember an episode of Chuck where one of the grown-up geeks buys both a DeLorean and a ’69 Charger, only to discover that neither quite lives up to their cinematic reputation…

  4. Can’t really see how the Bricklin, Delorean or Enzo got on that list. There may be good reasons to dislike those cars but I don’t see how they’re ugly – compared to the Trabant, say, or the ’69 Subaru that was actually marketed as cheap and ugly.

  5. some of those on the list make great sleepers
    shoe-horn a SBC in, some frame work, new drive line, and bang, you go out and destroy some mamma boy’s, whos driving a factory wanker, ego
    used to have a 72 Datsun PU, built just for that purpose:-)))))

  6. Must be no accounting for taste. Many of those cars I liked because they broke the usual 4 wheels, four doors and an engine model. Many of them I didn’t like because they were not mechanically reliable. All things being equal I would buy the Gremlin, Element, Cube and some of the retro Chrysler, GM, Volkswagen products based on the appearance of the vehicle.

  7. Not hard to tell this was done up by Business Week and not Motor Week.
    It is however a weak list. Most of what they picked were not ugly, but just utilitarian. The Cube, Element and Aztec belong there as well as some of the out there designs, but the Enzo? Huh?
    And the Prowler was one of the finest designs to come out of Detroit in years, just criminally under powered. It seemed like Chrysler was making an effort to break out of the cookie cutter box that Chev and Ford still live in, but didn’t want to scrape the paint on the box. Look at the Chrysler Crossfire. Fantastic design, great little power plant. Available only with an automatic trans……. freaking huh? Can’t imagine why it missed it’s target buyers.

  8. for me…porsche…all 911s
    ending with the magnificent 1986 carrera which was the last of the team built.
    of course the whole notion was in error but the old man had the belief the weight should be in the rear….wrong of course but the ongoing engineering in making a suspension that didn’t want to have the stern arrive first was interesting stuff…
    old ferdinand was a clever man…you should google his sodium valves for overheating panzerkorps engines…traction motors in the locomotives i operate…and lots of other stuff..AND the huge Maus tank he designed for our beloved fuhrer…
    now the squareheads are poised to become our allies in the biggest war in 60 years…
    you heard it here first..

  9. btw i was t-boned by some dumbitch last year…my magnificent carrera was totalled…pissed blood for a week but i’m still here…
    still here seething…bitter…angry..vengeful….

  10. How about a Beetlejet?
    http://www.tomax7.com/comedy/beetlejet.htm .
    I also had a ’78 Shove, err, Chevette. Got a ’86 Buick Park Ave grille from the junk yard and put it on, and it fit!!! Tells you something.
    Anyway, the Chevette, I mean the Buick, was yellow so I called it my Bic Banana.
    Remember the banana days in the ’70’s?
    Will find a pix and post it.

  11. John Begley
    Re Porche—–Believe it or not the 2 Maus proto-types were reputed to have been destroyed to avoid capture but one is sheltered in a Russian Tank Museum….
    Talk about tanks, I still fondly recall Dad’s ’57 Olds…..despite a ’74 olds 98 with a 455 he picked up used…..That ’57 would pick up like an anvil in free fall…….

  12. I had a Volvo 242 GT – Loved that car. Real sleeper.
    I’ll guess that Kate’s owned a Volvo and an El Camino. The 3 she wants are the Enzo, the SSR, and the Prowler (if she can pull the Intrepid-based 6 and drop a supercharged V-8 in there [Insert “We don’t need no stinkin’ fans” joke here]).

  13. Did you know you can drive a K-Car down the Don Valley in the middle of winter, in a blizzard, in January, without a radiator, and the engine will still overheat?
    It’s true.. heh!..don’t ask..
    My sister owned an orange VW thing, that never failed to put a dreamy look on the face of our grandfather, a veteran of the Afrika Korps.
    ..and yes, we did paint baltic crosses on the sides and one Halloween we raced through the streets of Toronto drunkenly screaming at horrified citizens that we were going to annex Bloor Village..
    Don’t ask..Olde English 800 does terrible things to one’s constitution..

  15. Kursk:
    Hell, my friend had a ’67 Mustang 289 convertible that we would drive in the winter with the top down, heater on full, in freezing weather, on the 401, and it would overheat.
    ‘course, I think the fact there was more Stop-Leak than anti-freeze in the rad mighta had something to do with it…

  16. There are lots of ugly cars out there but if you had to give a trophy to a single automaker for consistently producing a wide variety of stunningly ugly cars, on a consistent annual basis AMC should win hands down.
    You could gather all of the best designers in the world and ask them to try to repeat the achievement by intentionally designing a series truly ugly cars, but I don’t think they could come close to the consistency that AMC acheived as an automaker.

  17. safety forced @8:55 – “I’ve always wanted an expensive car so I can pretend I’m an idiot female who only drives it because I’m a trophy wife.”
    Me too, but without the pretending part.
    Anyway, I don’t know much about cars, but I know what I like, and I like that Ferrari. And those semi-circlular Beetles are spiffy.

  18. Ward, the car that my Dad intended to give me in high school(91) was a Rambler Rebel. That was until my brother hit black ice with it. I liked it even though it was ugly(I guess because it was going to be mine), my friends thought the name rocked and they even passed the drab green paint. I couldn’t stand the vacuum wipers though.

  21. Glad to see the AMC Gremlin was on the list because it was a natural for selection. I owned one for a while and it truly was a noisy, ugly tin can of a beast. I note the AMC Pacer was there, too. Helps explain why that company is no longer in business.

  22. There are several ugly cars there alright but also several that I quite liked. All I can say is, “What? No Ford Tempo?”

  23. A comprehensive list – Aztec has to be the worst of the worst.
    On a more positiive note I’d like to see readers’ choices for the best looking cars of the post WWII era.
    My choice would be the 1953 Studebaker coupe – a timeless design by any measure and a generation ahead of it’s time.

  24. The author couldn’t recognize an attractive car if it ran over him. There has NEVER been an ugly Escalade, SUV or no. El Camino’s? Get over yourself. Those were beautiful and practical. Same deal with an Avalanche. Gorgeous enough profile to motivate Honda to build their own derivative Ridgeline knock off.
    I discovered long ago that financial publications don’t know shit about cars. My favorite news source, the WSJ, has the worst auto writers on the face of the planet. One of them complained about the Corvette ZR-1 having too much horsepower. They’re just not equipped to judge.

  25. A few on the list are more boring than ugly but there are a few that true car aficionados would kill for. There are even a few that you could drop a flux capacitor in and get great mileage. I didn’t see a Lada in the mix but the Yugo is missing the rust colour and duct tape.
    Love the Prowler although I wouldn’t bitch at having to drive an Enzo either.

  26. Ah, ugly, as well as beauty, it’s all subjective.
    My sis in law thinks my brother’s ’92 T-Bird SC is “ugly”, but I cannot see how.
    DeLorean and Bricklin definitely don’t belong. Still a few Bricklins left in its birthplace of Saint John, though I haven’t seen ’em in years. They’re absolute lemons, though. More of a museum piece or an oddity.
    Dinosaur, if Bricklin is your neighbor, then you’re living close to a guy who’s in cahoots with Mo Strong and George Soros to bring Chinese cars to N.A.
    Re the Enzo, an awesome performer, but NOT one of Ferrari’s most beautiful works.

  28. There are slick Honda-whacker Cobalts in this neck of the woods with oversized tires, loud mufflers, ground effects stuff. They’re much better looking than others in that class.

  29. Get your supercharged Cobalt SS soon, the Chevy Cruze replacement is coming soon.
    4dr only, emphasis on fuel economy instead of fun.

  30. Drove an Aztek once.
    It had far bigger problems than being ugly.
    Damn thing had blind spots you could hide a fleet of trucks in.

  31. For those guessing: owned a ’73 Ford Maverick (Pinto) and a (forget what year) Chevette.
    (The Chevette I got on a trade with my sister. I gave her a $20 necklace she liked that I never wore. It was worth every penny.)
    Wants: Hummer, Honda Element, Escalade.

  32. Al the Fish: The Cobalt SS now comes with a turbo. 260 hp (turbo) vs the older 205 hp (SC).
    Cobalts and Cruzes will be sold at the same time, at least for a while.
    I expect there to be a coupe of some sort to replace the current Cobalt.

  33. The ugliest?
    I’m sure most of those cars rate that ranking… with a couple of well discussed exceptions.
    Basically everything GM made from 72 through 1990 was total garbage ……… and looked it.
    Ah …. dear Kate …. memory and time do play us ….Maverick was not a Pinto in another form or visa versa…
    The Maverick was based on the old Falcon platform.
    The Pinto ….an all original subcompact.. only available with a four banger that belonged in a garden tractor.
    I owned two … one a 1970 with a six … the second a 1972 with a 351 (long story there).
    Escaclade Kate? Why? Ford Expedition is way better looking. Or go for an Excursion.
    They make (made?) an industrial strength version of both.

  35. There’s some definite misses in the list. I can’t argue with the Aztec being a glaringly ugly error. But I think Volkswagen has earned some dishonorable mentions for the 411, Bug and Vanagon blue-smoke mobiles. In the area of minivans, where I have some experience, the Ford Windstar and Nissan Quest can’t escape notice for expertly to eroding Owner pride and vanity. Nobody brags about owning dem lemons.
    In the luxury wannabe but look too much like a cheap K car class, we have the ’83 Lebaron to supply the punch line.
    Yup, there’s many, many more ugly vehicles than 50 spots can do proper justice. May I suggest adding another fifty?

  36. I loved The Viggen’s comment. I had a VW Thing as well and imagining being a german officer tooling around Paris was pretty easy. I wish I’d never sold it but my wife hated it so you know how that goes.

  37. Kate, I don’t recomend the Honda Element for one reason, Honda thought they would be cute and put the sun roof over the second row of seats. D’Uh!
    If you’re shelling out for the sunroof you want to be able to enjoy it.
    My younger sister drove 2 chevettes from new into the ground, she had good luck with them, first one was kermit the frog green, which made it easy to spot in any parking lot. Glad I guessed that as one of Kate’s rides.

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