Ford Maverick 1971... It was a true piece of rusty junk. I bought one in 1981 for $25 as a beater. The trunk was so rusty you really couldn't leave anything in it.

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John 1:17
NRA Life Benefactor

My wife bought a brand new 1974 AMC Javelin because it was $600 cheaper than a Camaro and $400 cheaper than a Mustang. She was robbed. I fixed the thing weekly while we dated and then for another couple of years after we married. I fixed it a lot. Really a lot. I hated that car.

AMC had the same motto as the Coast Guard: "You have to go out, you don't have to come back." That Javelin always started just fine in the garage and then stopped or refused to start away from home. And this was before cell phones made calling for help convenient. I made sure she had a roll of quarters in her purse at all times. I hated that car.

The day we traded it in on a new car was perhaps the third or fourth happiest day of my life. The dealer from which we bought the new car gave us what worked out to be $1,500 on paper for the Javelin. I was devastated; I had planned on taking it out to the desert, shooting it full of holes and then setting it on fire.

Did I mention that I hated that car?

Mitt Romney's dad George Romney was president of AMC. That alone will prevent me from voting for him.

I hated that car.

"Unless I can find an equivalent, I'll keep driving Grand Marqs and Crown Vics until there ar none left on the market and then I'll start pulling them out of scrap yards and rebuilding them to zero mile specs."

Drew: I have a cherry, low mileage 2007 Crown Vic down in my garage. When your Merc dies, call me. I can't use it; I keep falling asleep in the driveway.

My dad had a couple of the last, big Mercury station wagons, with 460's and faux wood paneling. I think they were the Marquis de Sade models. They never broke. He lamented their discontinuance.

Corvettes were the worst. I couldn't drive more than a mile in my '65 without getting a ticket. I tried rebuilding the calipers on it. Chevy's first attempt at 4 wheel discs. 4 individual pistons per caliper, 16 total. What a mess.
No tickets in my '70 even though it was a factory 350 horse 350 cu in.. However the whole thing was vacuum controlled. I couldn't open the cowl door (to start wipers going) and open the headlight doors concurrently.
I bought a new TR6 in '72 (instead of a Fiat 124 spyder) and never had so much trouble with a car.

I had a friend with a MG. Lights NEVER worked properly. He also had a T shirt someone gave him with the slogan "Lucas-Prince of Darkness"

Looks are one thing but today its hard to go by brand history. Most companies now are merged with or owned by another. Remember how bad those Daewoos were? Funny thing is Deawoo is owned by a bunch of corporations, GM being one of them, and they build everything from farming equipment to weapons and cargo ships. Deawoos are actually very reliable cars but when GM introduced them to the US market they cut corners on a lot of parts, mostly electronics, to try and compete with domestic cars. Thats why their reliability suffered. GM still uses Daewoo built engines in their trucks and have been for years they just dont advertise it. Nissan isnt really Nissan anymore. They use either Renault or Peugeot engines (I cant remember which) and also have been doing this for years. Toyota built the Pontiac Vibe. Suzuki used to build Honda Passports. The Chevy Tracker is still being built ....in Russia. Its now the Lada Tracker or Chevy Niva (originally Lada Niva suv) depending on when it was built.

For me personally I couldn't care less what I drive anymore. Im in the car export/shipping business and have driven everything from Rolls Royce's to Model Ts. I used to own supped up Camaros and giant 4x4s. I grew out of that. Now I need a car that will be good on gas and reliable, thats it. If it happens to be a Scion XA or XB or a Prius or anything else for that matter. thats fine. To me its just going from A to B with as little fuss as possible. Currently I own a 01 Toyota Solara (2 door Camry) 4cyl. Bought used with 81k about 5 years ago and she now has 205K spent about $300 on maintenance. 2 timing belts, one every 100k, 2 water pumps, changed with timing belt and thats about it. Thats how I want ALL my cars to be. A tool to get a job done. In this case the job is to take me from A to B reliably

Jeff, I'll take you up on that!....... Once my current example is ready to die. It's only got 160,000 miles on it now. I should be ready in another 100,000. Oughta be next year some time....

"Marquis de Sade model"... I like that... I had a couple of the 351 Colony Park and Country Squires. Very smooth going down the road, especially for a grocery getter...

Uhhhh, really?? Isn't it more about the skill and reaction time of the driver and the driver's ability to anticipate the oncoming disaster? You would be amazed at how nimble a large sedan can be under emergency circumstances. I used to drive Plymouth Fury's and Crown Vic's very fast for a living (it's fairly incredible what they can do off road, by the way), and I've owned and driven A LOT of small fast and nimble automobiles. It's all about the driver....

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Even older, even crankier....

My brother in law had a 71 Ford Pinto. He loved that car. he would do 360's at 60 MPH on the 2 lane state highway back then using the e-brake and some driving skill. Then he put a 289 small block in it 1975. We worked on it for months. Pimped it out real nice. Two weeks after we rolled it out of the garage. He proceed to do an end over end in it with 4 other passengers down a ravine. (That's right 5 in a pimped out over powered Pinto) Miraculously no one was hurt badly. The suspension couldn't handle the power. That was the end of the Ford Pinto. I actually owned one for 2 weeks! The suspension and brakes were so bad I sold it for the $250 I bought it for in 1980.

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John 1:17
NRA Life Benefactor

True and fair enough.


fair enough but you gotta admit a small car would be much easier to drive around a busy city than a medium or large sized car.

Ah, yes, but that '74 Mustang II has donated many a front suspension to "project" cars....truly difficult to find a junked one with the front suspension still intact.

I'm surprised nobody has specifically mentioned the Triumph TR7 or Stag. Durability was close to nil for either.

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SWCA #590
"Colligo ergo sum"

Oh Really?

List of GM engines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Jim

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Big bullets leave big holes

Yep!
GM Korea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

" After GM’s buyout, the Daewoo models got a new badge, and were sold under the Daewoo name until 2003: the Nubira III (Lacetti) was the last car to wear a Daewoo badge in Europe. (The former Daewoo models were later rechristened as Chevrolets.)

Daewoo cars were also available in the US & Canada (1997–2002), Australia and many other countries, until Daewoo’s bankruptcy and GM’s buyout. Since Daewoo's withdrawal from many markets, the Lanos was moved to Chevrolet as the Aveo, whereas the Nubira and Leganza were given replacements for either the Chevrolet or Suzuki brands."

" the “Daewoo” brand name had a very bad image – so GM simply decided to extend the Chevrolet strategy that was already used in most other markets (Canada, India, Israel, Russia…) since 2003 to create a real global brand, replacing the Daewoo 'dual kidney' with the Chevrolet 'bowtie'."

Not seeing trucks in that clipping.


Jim

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Big bullets leave big holes

Ain't it the truth...I had a '63 split window back then,

Couldn't keep the long legged gals out of it.

Must have been the 8 track playin steppenwolf er sumthin'

Su Amigo,
Dave

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"IN GOD WE TRUST"

Why Dave. You old rock-n-roll houndog...

"Born to be wild indeed!". My brother had a '63 split window 327 CID Fuel Injected which I used to steal the keys to once in a while. All I remember about the damned thing was that my feet were always hot and you couldn't carry on a conversation in the cabin if the motor was running. Going down the road was even worse. Everything creaked and moaned. The glove box door rattled like a rusty gate in a 40 knot gale.

I can't believe the number of cars I'm reading about in this thread that thankfully, I never owned. Kinda makes one wonder about dumb luck, cause unlike many of you, I never was a car enthusiast.

My late father in law had a Colony Park wagon (and 8 kids to go along with it) that was loaded. I was driving a Lincoln Continental at the time, and honestly thought they compared favorably in every respect. This was back in the early '70's. Shortly afterwards, I had a succession of small imports, VW's, Triumphs. A big difference in ride, one end of the spectrum to the other.

Some cars are just fun to drive, others offer elegance and comfort. Those were the main differences for me at least. A friend of mine bought an old Rolls Royce to restore after he retired, and drove a ratty looking Ford pick up, maybe late 1960's vintage. He worked on the Roll's for the next 10 years or more but never spent a nickel on the old truck. It was literally, a falling apart rust bucket, complete with various bailing wire and duct tape customizations. We used to sit in the back seat of the Rolls (which rarely left his garage during his lifetime) and drink beers watching the NY Yankee games. When his eldest daughter married, he showed up at the church driving the old Ford, complete with rust, bailing wired bumpers and duct taped cracked windows. He could have driven the Rolls allright, but he never was prentencious. The truck looked pretty cool I have to admit, following the long procession of limos in the wedding cortege.....outside St. Patrick's Cathedral. Needless to say, I think he was making a personal statement about his view of cars.

Cheers;
Lefty

Back in England the TR7 was seen as living proof that the Commies were entrenched in the factories and did all they could to destroy the industry. Autocar magazine had one as a long term car and it was a total dog. Then Leyland management realised who that particular car belonged to and it was pretty much rebuilt by management engineers who were parachuted in to the dealer. The car ran fine after that.

Ahh, the Stag. Possibly one of the most beautiful cars ever made. Sadly, the engine had a single chain driving the overhead cams on both cylinder banks. A marginal chain and poor tensioner resulted in enough slack to knit a sweater. When the chain eventually jumped some teeth, the valves and pistons got friendly IIRC.

Also, it's alloy heads made it vulnerable to US style neglect. Sorry if many of you bristle at that statement, but after 14+ years here I speak as I find.

If I get what you're saying the alloy is a problem when matched with dissimilar metals. If you don't take care of your cooling system it will set up a situation favorable to corrosion in a hurry.We have a lot of problems here in Fl. because people don't think they need "anti-freeze". Here you're best to call it coolant. Probably the same in LV.

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Dum vivo cano

YES! Wasn't it an integral part of the "stuff a small block Chevy in an MG Midget in a weekend" project?!

Talk about not being able to get power to the wheels!