Time Magazine Names 50 Worst Cars of All Time

Normally we’d poo-poo a mainstream media outlet deciding to rank the best or worst of the automotive world in any way; that’s normally something to be left to automotive publications like, um, us. But when we saw that Dan Neil — the L.A. Times’ automotive critic — was the scribe behind Time Magazine’s collection we were a bit more interested. He includes some easy targets like the Yugo on there, but how does the 1909 Ford Model T make the list? The historically significant Model T, Neil says, is to blame for our current dependence on the automobile and all the pollution, long commutes and celebrity driving incidents that are related to them. Sounds reasonable.

The 50 Worst Cars of All Time (Time)

Comments

I can't believe they miseed by sister's old 1st gen Hyundai Excel. This is absolutely the worst reliable car I have ever been in contact with.

Some of them are not even cars.

Jay,
that was an awful car. I agree.

Wow GM easily won the prize on their list of what is wrong with cars. PERIOD. They think the Chevette stunk they never had any of our mid 80's Tercels. I heard and experienced a few Chevettes going 200K miles. Our Tercels did not even make 100K and that was OK because short of good gas mileage I could not wait to see them die soon enough!

I agree with Jay on the Excel. I dealt with (never owned) a few of them and it was scary how fast things were simply falling off of it. Never seen anything like it.

Some of those cars were not bad because they truely werent reliable, but because they started a revolution.

How can someone say the model T was bad and then complain about the Camaro Iron head not having enough horsepower.

Also I agree with jay on the excel and Zerf on the Tercel. They are truely unrelabile cars that SHOULD HAVE made the list.

I'm not disputing that the Excels and Tercels were awful, but I would argue that this list is about much more than reliability. It's about the automakers making bad choices, sometimes revealing that they're focusing more on profit or vanity than responsible business practices. (Pinto! Corvair!) But then you have some that are just UGLY.

Dan is the man.

My co-worker also said they should add the Pontiac Fiero, Bucik Reatta, and Cadillac Allante (forgettable vehicles).

Great article! I would suggest you write a followup as to the 50 worst car ideas. Not to kick GM but they were the ones who sold the public on the Oldsmobile Diesel. Probably the reason why there is no Oldsmobile, no passenger GM diesels, and they retired the logo "we sweat the details".

Great article! I would suggest you write a followup as to the 50 worst car ideas. Not to kick GM but they were the ones who sold the public on the Oldsmobile Diesel. Probably the reason why there is no Oldsmobile, no passenger GM diesels, and they retired the logo "we sweat the details".

I guess I am 1 of the few people who liked the Aztek! LOL Suprised the Chevy Vega wasn't on list, as well as Dodge Aries or 'K' cars like the Aspen.

The Dodge/Plymouth Neon should have been on that list too.

What about the Pontiac Mesa (sic?)? Didn't GM get sued by Ferrari for that design? I'd say that was a bad choice.

No complaints about my K car, had it for 11 yrs and sold it with 154k miles on it. Other than maintenance, the old issue was a fuel pump around 105K.