We're now in an era where there are very few truly bad new cars anymore. That's a recent development. For years, the auto industry seemed to turn out roughly six to eight turds for every one truly great car. But somehow, some of those turds ended up being pretty good when you put them on a track.
That's our question of the day: What shitty car was amazing on track?
I submit the Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge Neon. They're so horrendous in build quality that it's fairly rare to see them on the streets today, but they had surprisingly potent performance for their class back in the day. It proved quite successful in SCCA racing, rallying, autocross and a ton of other series. There's a whole generation of racers and track rats who swore by the Neon. The later SRT-4 models had an impressive record in motorsports as well.
Your turn, what car wasn't great on the road but highly competitive on the track?