​Ford Pintos, Yugos and Other Bad Cars

What makes a car bad? It could be any number of reasons from the design of the exterior to the fact it was poorly made. It could also be because it tries to kill you, like the Ford Pinto.

Regardless the reasons, there are a great number of bad cars out there, cars you wouldn't be caught dead in. We take that back, you would probably be caught dead in a Ford Pinto. It is, after all, the car that kills people.

These cars, these bad cars, are so bad that even if someone gave you the car and a set of really expensive truck wheels for your ride, you would have to decline. Especially if someone is trying to pawn their Ford Pinto on you.

There are a lot of bad cars out there to be sure, but we don’t have time to list every one of them, we have a life too you know. So, here is a list of the worst of the worst cars out there, the bottom of the stinky barrel if you will.

Ford Pinto

Don’t look so surprised, you knew we were going to start this list with the Ford Pinto. Any car that tended to erupt into flames at low-speed rear-end collisions deserves the top spot on this list.

Whereas most vehicles are developed and designed to protect those who ride in it, the Ford Pinto would try to kill you. Due to a design failure, a rear impact, even at low speeds, was enough to puncture the fuel tank or for the fuel filler to become loose, often ending in the entire car being engulfed in flames.

And if that isn't scary enough, the Ford company determined it would be less expensive covering the cost of litigation than it would be just to fix the problem.

The Yugo

Let’s be straightforward about this, nobody expected much from a car named the Yugo from Yugoslavia.

The Yugo was designed to be a car that anyone could afford, thankfully everyone didn't buy one. These cars were notorious for electrical failures engine failures and they just plain looked ugly, especially from behind, the side of the car you saw most as you pushed it down the street.

The Corvair

Cars with the engine in the rear are great, until you have to drive one. There have been plenty of automobile manufacturers who have experimented with cars that flip the engine and truck, but all saw them as a failure.

You see, when you put such a heavy component behind the rear axle, it tends to cause the car to spin out. In fact, Nazi officers occupying Czechoslovakia were forbidden to drive cars with rear engines because so many were killed in the vehicles.

But, somehow, this fact didn't deter the Chevrolet company, who, in 1961, launched the dreadful Corvair. Unlike the Volkswagen Beetle, also a car with a rear engine, the Chevy company was reluctant to spend money on a swing-axle rear suspension like the Beetle had that made the car more manageable.

The Corvair also had a single piece steering column that could impale drivers in a front end collision, the heating system released toxic fumes and the engine leaked oil.

Plymouth Prowler

American Automakers have developed some pretty awesome hot rods over the years, the Plymouth Prowler is not one of them.

Technology has given designers new tools in designing new cars quickly and easily with a swipe of the mouse and the click of a button.

Sometimes, technology fails.

The Prowler was a speedster/roadster hybrid that was meant to look like a futuristic take on an old classic. And even though it looked way cool on a computer, it didn’t show well at the dealerships. The Prowler also had a lackluster engine that only produced 250 horsepower and no available manual transmission, which means nobody was screeching any tires on this car.

So anybody who bought the Prowler wound up with a weird looking car that was a huge disappointment of the road.

Chevy Chevette

The Chevy Chevette is basically a cross between an AMC Gremlin and a Ford Pinto and was quickly reviled by anyone with good taste shortly after its introduction to the public in 1976.

The car was basically a hatchback with a snout and is one the most ugly and unloved cars to come off an assembly line.

This car never really caught on at all as all it really offered was a four-speed manual transmission and 51 horsepower.

Chrysler K-Car

This was a car that can best be described as cheap and helped cement Chrysler's reputation as a company that made cheap cars. The car had a number of problems that included knobs randomly falling off, faulty transmissions and rusted-out bodies.

Did you ever own one of these really bad cars?