These Are Your Most Overrated Cars Of All Time

This is a list full of disappointment, rife with shattered expectations and haunted by the sense of being underwhelmed. It's telling that a Tesla leads. What it says, I'll let you decide. I'm surprised that BMW has not fared well, and at the same time, I'm not.

I'm unsure what that says about the BMW I call my own. Not as in, I live in my hatch. More like, when I get in my car, I'm in one of my favorite places in the world. It's the reverse feeling of tossing your keys on the end-table walking in through your front door, but it elicits the same chemical response in my brain.

Readers pointed out that the Bavarian carmaker has enjoyed praise from journalists for machines that didn't deserve it. Also, readers noted that the C5 Corvette is actually underrated. That's fine! I might not get it, but if you do, the gate's open come on in. We asked readers what the most overrated car of all time was, and these were their answers:

Tesla Model 3. It has some weird halo effect despite being ugly and having a bargain basement interior... And that's before getting into the quality issues. It drives fine, it's fast, and electric... But since when does that get it a free pass when it also costs $50k?

Submitted by: CleverBS

Don't get me wrong here. Some truly beautiful cars came from that era and there was indeed an active horsepower war between brands, which makes for a great bit of history.

My problem with them is that when compared to today's cars, both muscle and average people movers, there is no comparison. An average V6 puts out around 300 HP, along with some 4-cylinders, and don't even get me started on where we are with V8s and electric motors as both supplemental and primary powerplants. Yet in nearly every circle of car boomers I encounter, especially ones that can't comprehend how a car even functions, will bloviate about how fast these cars were usually with some bullshit story about how they borderline raped chicks in the back seat of something like that back in the day.

I love muscle cars from that era, along with many other cars from many other eras, but don't bullshit me about how great they still are and that they're better than anything else made today or from any other era.

The also handle like complete shit. Especially when compared to the cars from Europe during the same period.

GOBLESS BORTHERS!!!!!!

[...]

I love them. It's just that a specific group tends to overrate them far beyond what they are.

This is a generalized take, but I understood its approach and the discussion was excellent!

Submitted by: Autojunkie

Mid-'90s BMWs in general, but in particular the E39, which was a fat, dumpy soap bar that only gets any positive attention at all because people didn't like the Bangle era and wanted to convince themselves that there was some sort of "last true BMW". I'd argue that the Bangle era was a direct result of crap like this, a bit of '90s bullshit that demonstrated a company was stuck in a styling rut and needed to have a shock to the system.

Dishonorable mention to the E38, which answers the question "what if the E32 was slightly blander?" At the time I recall it being regarded as a disappointment – largely because the updates were so half-hearted – but people decided to love it because the E65 showed up and looked like a Russian bouncer that was punched in the face a lot.

Submitted by: Citric

The brown manual diesel wagon

[...]

you think you hate it now wait till you drive it

Submitted by: Margin of Error

MK4 Supra

Looks rad, engine is epic.... super overrated! Handled a little below meh.... fast but not incredible.

Overhyped because a 2-3 time pedophile drove one in a series of cringy movies

Submitted by: EL_ULY, among others

The GTI (excluding the original). MK3/4 is kind of the epitome of it. Yes, they are more fun than the standard golf, but they're definitely compromise cars. They're sorta fun, sorta good handling, useful, but not extremely good at any of those things. That's partially the charm of it for a single car, but also people/mags RAVE about them. I had one, and meh. It was...a compromise of all things while not excelling at any of them.

Submitted by: Rockchops, among others

The Model T. Ugh...lousy ergonomics, slow, and didn't come with even a stereo

Submitted by: dug deep

As much as I love the car – I'm going to say the 911. Possibly the most famous sports / GT car of all time.

It's always been a compromised design (often fatally) that has, through the sheer force of engineering will, been turned into a competent performance car. Not only that – but Porsche consistently forced the issue through the years by never investing as much (or deliberating ham-stringing) it's own internal competitors – the Boxster, the Cayman, the 944, the 928, etc. etc.

A legendary car, of course, but when the company that makes it is clearly capable of producing better sports cars and GT cars – one that probably shouldn't exist. Which, I think, makes it overrated.

Submitted by: TheWalrus, among others

I'm gonna go out and say the 1989-1993(4) 240SX. It's a holy grail car, the King of the Old School Drifters and it sits on a pedestal thanks to NFS Underground, Forza, Grand Turismo, etc. It's a great car, but only after a TON of work.

Want a sporty engine like the JDM examples in your games? Get ready for an engine swap, but those are getting expensive these days now that supply is drying up. So go ahead and LS swap it like everyone else and forget that turbo fun.

Want a great handling chassis? Well time to replace the Rear Upper/Lower Control arms, get some coil overs, gotta weld the diff or get a LSD, oh and then we can't forget the wheels (But not Reps because you'll be laughed out of the paddock, noob).

Oh, you don't even have a car yet? Well if you want a Hatch, a roller with rust issues, no interior, and no title, that's about a $4k price tag, a Coupe maybe a little less....

The 240SX is the stuff of legends, mainly because it has the chassis of a legend and then you have to buy everything else ala carte. Its an ideal car because it can be tailored to each owner, but in stock form its a dog and heavily overrated.

Submitted by: Umoja

Subaru WRX. Easy punching bag. Through generous friends and work I've had the lucky pleasure of driving every WRX model, hard, save for the most recent one.

It's like watching a preview for a great-looking movie where they show you all the cool shit in a few moments, or in this case 2500-5000 rpm? Then you pay a lotta money to get the whole experience and it's like...that was it? (I get that rpm range makes sense for street driving, but coming from 5 cylinder Audis and screaming 4G63's, just hoped for a lil more) It's like the Rise of Skywalker: "Holy Geez that looks freaking aweso...oh. Alright." Some people like that movie and that's great. I, a Star Wars nerd, was okay with it. Same perspective.

The cost-benefit just goes down from there with regard to the glass-jaw transmissions, rotating assemblies, interior finish and chassis longevity esp in cold climates. Even if you find a clean looking Pre-owned not covered in Monster Energy/hoonigan stickers, all of those aforementioned components have pretty hard expiration dates, esp if you plan on any more spirited driving.

I get that they're designed to give you just a taste, just enough to keep a spirited driver happy, but it's never been enough for me to want to pay a premium...and the survivors of any WRX generation somehow retain value like Toyota SUV's with NONE of the reliability chops!

Close Runner up : Most any Mercedes from '08-18ish. THE SEATS- My god the church-pew stiff seats what the fuck is you doing, Mercedes??

Submitted by: banjo cat ghost of oppo past

Unfortunately, I think the BMW 3 series is the most overrated vehicle of all time.

BTW Jose, the Viper and the Vette were not at all competitors, save for the C6 ZR1. They were never in the same price league, and one of them was always way more exotic and less daily drivable than the other. Exceptionally few people ever cross-shopped them. Maybe in an SCCA Autocross, they were competitors but that's about it.

(And)

BMW E30

Not because it isn't a great platform – very good -mythical even, but rather because a few models truly are legendary and the rest are far behind. Not ever E30 is magical, some are unicorns, some are horses, a lot are mules.

Submitted by: NEBcruiser, FutureDoc