One of the worst condition, but driveable cars I ever picked up - '72 GS 350. Car was in pretty poor shape, but had quite a few useable parts....even had an N-25 rear bumper. Sold it just before the last GS Nats I went to......gotta have spending money.:Brow: Worst car I actually drove for any length of time would have to be an '88 Pontiac LeMans......1.8l FWD 4 door, built in Korea by Daewoo.ou: I drove 20-25 mins. each way to work back then....needed something with good mileage. I routinely got over 40mpg with this thing....even got to the 50mpg mark once (1hr. trip on a flat highway). Everytime I picked up brake parts or whatever at the import parts store, they'd bust my chops about this heap. When I told them how many miles it had on it, they'd just shake their heads. Most of these things ended up in the junkyard LONG before this one made it there. Finally retired it with over 205,000 miles on it!!:TU: The SOHC made so much racket, can't believe it lasted as long as it did.....drove it over 30k miles with a noisy cam (excess clearances). Wasn't really worth a replacement.:Brow:
The crappiest car I'v ever owned was an Italian Exotic, a 1985 Maserati BiTurbo. Now, dont get me wrong, the car was actually a blast to drive. The 190 HP dual turbo DOHC V-6 was a work of art. The ZF 5 speed shifted like a dream, The italian glove leather was some of the most comfortable seats I'v EVER sat in. And the 2500 lb. package would [easily] out-run ANYTHING short of a GN from a standing start up to it's 145 mph top speed. [and yes, it really would do 145!] But ANYONE who has ever had any dealings with an italian built car knows exactly what I'm talking about. The wiring was a nightmare, along with the entire electrical system. The fittings were flimsy, from the door handles to the dash-board controls... Everytime I grabed one of them I was sure it was going to snap off! It had quirks and issues that would just pop up overnight, and then go away all by themselves... With no explination......... And without a doubt, the WORST part of owning that car was the [lack of] parts availability... Even the spark plugs had to be special ordered [at $5 a pop]... A set of brake pads cost over $200 [back in the late 80's] and required special tools to install, plus a 3 week wait to have them shipped from Ittaly. I cant really complain about the car, as it was a joy to own and drive [when it was on the road] ..... I guess it's just the cost of owning a hand-built automobile. Oh yea... one more thing about it that used to drive me crazy, the floats it the webber carburetor never would adjust out properly, and every time you went around a left turn with ANY SPEED AT ALL, it would stumble, or even die if the RPM's were low. A minor parking lot accident [not my fault] totalled it out and the insurance co. paid me off. The damage was infact rather minor, but the Ins co. ran into the same problems I did, lack of parts available, and OUTRAGEOUS prices. In the end, I came out good. Paid $10k for it, owned it for 2 years, got $14k for it. To be perfectly honest with you, I WOULD own another one, but if a friend asked my opinion as to weather or not to get one, I'd advise them to avoid it like the plague!!!!! I guess you just have to own a hand built car to understand what I mean by that... Or maybe I just like torturing myself
1990 Sunbird, the "grey" Model ( I've always said those cars didn't come in model packages, they came in colours) The lest time I drove it was in a snowstorm, without heat, no muffler and Wipers that kinda just pushed the snow around. The car didn't like to start, had a punched in hood as well as bumper, hated that car. Runner up is an '86 ford F-150, it was in much worse shape, but I liked driving it more.
Definitely Daewoo. Didn't have much trouble starting the car.....with the occasional exception of icing problems in extreme cold. Several times I had the throttle body/linkage ice up on me. You'd go to hit the gas, and the throttle wouldn't return back down.:eek2: High rpm's aren't a good thing when the engine just got started!!ou:
