These Are The Terrible Cars Our Readers Loved As Kids

I was a latch-key kid of the 80s with parents going through a divorce, but even those factors don’t excuse or explain my love of GM’s plastic-clad performance variants. Grand Prix, Beretta GTU, Eurosport VR... it’s amazing that I’m a functional adult.

Suggested by: ReluctantFloridaMan

It’s not exactly normal to idolize a Mazda but...

Suggested by: cromartie

Looked rad as hell, to 1980's kid me. And, then people started turning them into Ferraris and Lamborghinis! I mean how cool is that?

Little did I actually know, they were gutless little fire hazards.

Suggested by: Knyte

Growing up, there was someone in the area (I never met the person) who must have been a higher-up at the Fiat/Lancia facility off I-295 in South Jersey, because I used to see a variety of Lancias driving around town.

My favorite was the Beta HPE

Followed by the Beta Coupe

Even the sedan looked cooler than Mom’s Maverick

I found out much later that most (if not all) 1970's Lancias were shit because they were built with steel sourced from the USSR.

Suggested by: Earthbound Misfit I

6th grade me thought this ‘94 Mustang was the sexiest car I had ever seen.

My stepfather bought one to replace our milquetoast Mercury Topaz and I felt like the absolute coolest kid riding to school in that Mustang. I’d open up the curtains to the living room window and just stare at that car endlessly.

Suggested by: Sector 7G-Wagen

One day in 1987 I was at my friend’s house, and his dad pulled into the garage with a gold, brand new...Chrysler LeBaron coupe.

I thought that thing was the most amazing car I had ever seen. I vividly still remember my wonderment at the digital display, and how freaking cool the hidden headlights were as they rotated closed! And that full width red plastic rear! Glorious.

Suggested by: Pedro S

In 1982, this was the coolest thing little me had ever seen. But oh boy were they terrible from performance to quality, everything

Suggested by: J-BodyBuilder

C3 Corvette, hands-down. Fell in love with the look, never cared how cheesy and over-the-top they looked or how by the ‘90s, they were being driven exclusively by divorced dads or guys who bought them new and never put a dollar of maintenance into them. So much exposed and tattered fiberglass and mismatched paint.

Add to that the fact that I hadn’t heard about the emissions regulation apocalypse and I just sort of assumed that the cars were, you know, fast.

Suggested by: ChrisMD123

Eagle (Renault) Medallion. I can’t decide if I like the sedan’s or the coupe’s looks better.

...

I was so busy trying to avoid the duplicate pic post that happened anyway, I missed that I typed ‘coupe’ when I meant ‘wagon’.

Suggested by: XL500

The AMC Gremlin. This picture is a 1975 Gremlin. The Gremlin even had a Newsweek cover article (4/6/1970) about how Detroit was fighting back with “small cars”.

I loved everything about it. I still do to this day. But being an AMC, you never knew which part of any given parts were formerly Kelvinator appliances. Odd design choices and simple mechanics.

1973 year-me loved my little silver Gremlin X Hot Wheels car.

Suggested by: radioout

Renault 5 GT Turbo. I’d buy one now if they were still cheap. Unfortunately most of them have been wrecked too.

Suggested by: fluffy_black_dog

Pontiac 6000STE - it was my obsession in high school and was thrilled when my dad finally bought one. The horizontal digital dash! All those buttons! The 6 headlights! Ah what a European (kinda) car! I remember it on the cover of either Motor Trend or Car and Driver with all 4 tires off the ground - as if that made it really cool.

Suggested by: krtom14

I’ve mentioned several times that, when I was in high school, my dad purchased a one-year-old, ex-rental 2007 Dodge Caliber SXT. It was refrigerator white, but—being an SXT—was one step up from the base model, so you got power windows and mirrors, keyless entry, alloy wheels, and cruise control. I even learned to drive on this car.

What I didn’t mention was that I was excited about it. I was excited mostly because Dad’s prior daily was a 1992 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight inherited from my grandmother, and that was beginning to fall apart. It had the typical GM malady of a sagging headliner, whose fabric Dad unceremoniously ripped out one day, leaving behind an ugly board with remnants of orangey-brown glue. And the Olds’ suspension practically sat on the bump-stops, due to worn out shocks and all the equipment Dad kept in there for his job. It didn’t always reliably start, either, despite that bulletproof 3800. And the transmission was slipping.

I was just excited we’d be in something newer and safer. With more airbags than just one. I also thought the design looked kind of cool, like all of Dodge’s blocky masculinity crammed into a small Mitsubishi-derived hatchback/wagon thingy.

But then we got the Caliber. And then I saw what a piece of shit it was. And then I wasn’t excited anymore.

I was super unexcited when Mom totaled her Sorento in 2009 and all five of us had to cram into the Caliber for the better part of a summer, while we found Mom a replacement car.

Now, I’m excited when I see them on the road, if only to gawk. “You’re still driving that thing?” Arguably the worst compact cars of their era (the GM Deltas had some redeeming qualities, even if they did try to kill you), Calibers are pretty uncommon these days. It’s funny because a good number of Calibers sold within the Cash 4 Clunkers program (there was a waiting list at one point), meaning they displaced plenty of older rides and now they themselves have been mostly extinguished.

Actually, I guess I owe it to the Caliber. That pathetic ride probably catapulted me right into my love for big, bougie luxury cars. Those cars haven’t always been kind to my wallet, but at least they aren’t the fucking Dodge Caliber.

Suggested by: Kyree

1982 Chrysler New Yorker. It was a car I had access to in Highschool, and loved it. It was super plush throughout the interior, but more importantly was a RWD V8! There weren’t too many other kids that had access to a V8 in my school. It didn’t matter that it felt like it was going to fall over in corners, got single digit MPGs and actually had less power than many 4-cyl cars of the era. Or that it would just stop working in the rain (Friends got used to me getting out the WD-40 to get it started again when it rained). I look back now and realize it was tremendously shitty, but it was super cool to younger me.

Suggested by: dolsh

My best friend’s parents had two of these, one in the blue above and a smaller one in burgundy on burgundy. I loved when they would drive us out to the lake or soccer games. We’d go all the way into the back because we felt like we were 4 miles away from them and we would see who could bounce higher when we hit a bump in the road.

When we were older, we realized there was always a case of Milwaukee’s Best in the back so those vans became even better.

Suggested by: FijiST