What's the biggest automotive turkey of modern times?
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So let's talk turkey -- automotive turkey, that is. My pick for the biggest turkey of modern times is the now-defunct Suzuki Verona, a late-90s Daewoo design that Suzuki revived just a couple of years ago. Of course, they didn't leave the design totally unchanged -- they pulled out the perfectly good GM-sourced four-cylinder engine and replaced it with their own straight-six, which produced less power and used more fuel than the 4-bangers in truly modern cars like the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord. Luckily Suzuki has since discontinued the Verona and started populating their dealerships with excellent home-grown products like the SX4, Grand Vitara and new XL-7.
What car do you think is the biggest road-going turkey of modern times? Click the "comments" link and cluck away! -- Aaron Gold
Photo © Jason Fogelson
Comments
the hummer is by far the ugliest car ever.there is no place on city streets for this gas guzzling monstrosity.cars today have no character as they did in the fifties and sixties.
Agreed. The H2 is ugly, overly large, and heavy. As a result, it’s underpowered (despite the huge V8), overpriced, slow, and has poor brakes. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near one when one crashes either. Do I even have to mention the fuel economy? There’s alot more to say about it, but I think most people get the picture.
The Edsel was one of the worst ever placed in the autimotive line.. I don’t think todate there has been one to compare..
I agree with Jerry. The Edsel was by far the biggest flop in automotive history.
The biggest automotive turkey of modern times has to be the Pontiac Aztek. Enough said.
I pick the 2002-2004 Saturn Vue’s VTi transmission as the biggest turkey of modern times. At least the cars mentioned here are still working.
I also vote for the GM Envoy XUV as a complete failure.
Let us not forget the Ford Pinto a.k.a. Gasoline Bomb on Wheels
I think the gm electric car from the mid to late 90s was a big egg. Not only did it have a range of only 100 miles in cold weather with the heater and electric gear it had a running time of only 10 minutes! The movie out to destroy gm is false advertisement, they had a mission to crush those turkeys.
Most of the people who have commented so far seem to have based their picks for “automotive turkey” on ecology (the H2), financial failure (the Edsel), looks (the Aztec), or safety (the Pinto).
My pick, however, is based on missed opportunity: The Ford Taurus. Instead of continuing investment in what was basically a very good car in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Ford instead blew its available cash on sink-hole acquisitions like Jaguar. What money Ford had left over went into truck development.
Taurus could have easily been Ford’s on-going Camry-killer, but Ford instead just allowed the 1990 Taurus to remain suspended in time until it simply faded away this year. Sad.
Unsafe at any speed, The Chevrolet Corvair.
ALL Hummer trucks, an actual hummer is pretty good. The Spaztek for sure…in fact it’s number one.
The Edsel was the result of asking people what they want and they got it. It wasn’t made very well and only lasted 3 years but they still sold a couple hundred thousand of them. The Corvair was a good car, ahead of it’s time and sold pretty well and JoeG obviously knows NOTHING about cars and the whole Nader fiasco. If he did he wouldn’t have quoted that idiotic book by the self-serving Nader.(and I’m a Ford guy!) Pinto too was a good car; out of the 1 million sold in `8 years how many REALLY caught fire(they didn’t blow up!). All these cars are 35+ years old(Edsel(’58), Corvair(’60) and Pinto(’70)) and therefore are FAR from being the biggest turkey of modern times (unlike the Aztek).
btw. The Table/Saurus was a good car ’till the end and you’re right that Ford shoulda kept it on the leading edge like it was when introduced in ‘86!
anything made by General Motors in the last 30 years
Edsels were ugly cars and financial flops, but they were not significantly worse cars than the Fords or Mercurys that they were badge engineered versions of. They were just Fords (the lower priced Edsels) or Mercurys (the higher priced Edsels) under the skin. Some of the skin was even shared.
Has to be the Yugo - uncomfortable, underpowered and designed buy Fiat??? This car would make a great anchor for the Titanic
“Has to be the Yugo… - This car would make a great anchor for the Titanic”
Well, maybe 15 of them.
http://titanic-model.com/articles/anchor/titanics_center_anchor.htm
Porshecman, the Pinto did indeed explode when hit in the rear.
We lost 2 teen age girls in my town to that particular danger.
They were burned alive in the accident. The Pinto was a death trap waiting to happen.
Le Car anyone?
There are a few “good” selections ahead of mine, but the K Car from Mopar belongs way up there. P.O.C!
Remember Crosly? The Corvair and Yugo were bad. I had to be rescued from the interstate by a Yugo ( Turkey no. 2). I was driving an Eagle Premier. The Eagle was the real Turkey. Many were sold that could not go 10,000 miles because of electrical problems. No one could work on the electrical system. We took this car on a trip from upper Tennessee to South Alabama. Lights went out at 8PM, air stopped working early the next morning in 100 degree weather. We were towed in once during the trip. The Eagle Premier is the biggest Turkey of modern times.
Anyone remember the Cadillac Cimmeron? You know, the Chevy Cavalier with the leather seats and plastic “wood” interior? No? Maybe thats not a bad thing….
Let’s not forget the Pontiac Aztec. It looks like an angry refrigerator!! I can’t believe some of the cars GM has tried to push on us over the years. No wonder people buy foreign cars.
Anything built,designed,used by or affiliated in any way with Fiat.
The funny thing about the bad is that no one remembers the time when toyota originally came out to the states. They had a small car with an even more ridiculously small engine. The car couldn’t even make it up small hills in LA where they first imported in 58-59. They were promptly booted out of our market until the corolla in 65.
there are two real stinkers out there that have been sold in relatively recent years. # 1 USA sold turkey/stinker was the horribly recieved suzuki x/90. this 2 seater coupe/pickup was ugly and had no market segment/identity and just did not sell. abroad, in the USSR was the zaparozetz…this tiny twin bug eyed beast was downright the ugliest(and most worthless piece of automotive crap of all time. the russians called it the “vichnaya mashina” (the eternal car…because once you buy it, it will be eternally yours(nobody buys a used one).
Steve Johnston makes excellent points about the Taurus. I had a ‘91 Taurus, and with one major exception (the transmission, which failed after 4 1/2 years - the tranny was the model’s biggest weakness), it gave me excellent service. If Ford had done the Taurus right, with improvements to the engine and more standard safety equipment among other things, it could indeed have remained a Camry-beater. Ironically, despite the weird things Ford did to its looks, it was a top seller right up to the end.
Lest we forget,how about all the engineering geniuses at g.m. that designed the 4-6-8 cadillac.That thing should have worn a collar.It was the biggest dog on the block.Istill say,i long for the days that every kid could name a car by model and year.Cars had class in those days (50s&60s)
I’m an automotive literature dealer and we specialize in older factory manuals for classic cars. I can tell you what manuals we NEVER sell even though a lot of the cars were made (i.e. because there aren’t many on the roads anymore). Without a doubt, that would be the Ford Pinto, Chevrolet Vega, and Dodge Aries K.
J-U-N-K !
Any car manufactured by GM (generally monotonous). Take a look at what happened to the Camero and Trans Ams. They had great looking cars in the 60’s and 70’s. Each year there was something “cooler” about each model. Then, in the 80’s, 90’s, and early 00’s, they became boring and the “coolness” factor was gone. Then GM decided to pull the plug, as they wondered why their cars weren’t selling anymore. Too bad the exec’s at GM can’t get it together and build a car that the public wants. The Vette still has basic looks from ‘84 and is no longer “cutting-edge” like the old Sting Rays from the ’60’s.
I won’t even go into the Aztek, Vega, Transport Mini Van, etc.
I have to agree with the theme put forward by the Taurus guy, and I would pick another Ford product, the Contour, as my turkey vote. Not because it was laughably bad like a Yugo or a Cadillac Cimmaron, but because it was so close to being soooo good, and was a classic example of Ford shooting itself in the foot.
I drove a 1998 Contour SVT, the hopped-up version. It was a blast to drive–the best handling car I’ve ever driven. But it was the small things. Things broke that rarely break on other cars, and it was wacky–the rear brakes would go before the fronts, for example. I had two springs crack. The car had three catalytic converters, and I had to replace two of them. The trunk release didn’t work. On and on and on. Rear seat legroom was positively coupe-like, even though it was a four-door. But it was such a sweet car to drive–handled like it was on rails, a shockingly sweet exhaust note, nice power, great looks–just poorly executed. Those are the biggest turkeys I know of–cars that, with a little more effort, could have been great.
I know thi is getting far afield,but what ever happened to the 59 Pontiac.We had a catalina stick convertible and it was the quickest car we ever had.the only problem we had was rust under the hood line on the front fenders.It was a pain,but was easily fixed.When the 409 chevy came out,noone would even try us.All they saw were diminishing tail lights.Wish i could find another one.
The 2.7 chy. and the LHS with its rack and hard to work on 3.5
The Suzuki X-90 gets my vote.
Maybe it’s just me. But the Toyota Scion and the Honda Element take my first prize. They’ll probably run forever but a junkyard dog to look at.
The biggest automotive turkey has to be the Suzuki Samurai - this was the biggest piece of junk ever manufactured. The Delorean is a close second. The Delorean was a slow, UGLY, incredibly unreliable dawg of a car.
Does anyone remember the first Honda?
I memory serves me right, it was chain drive and the heater did not work. The first Toyota was not much ether.
Scion XB. What an absolutely UGLY little box! The Honda Element is a close second.
I know styling doesnt make it a bad car but what were they thinking?
The latest ford Thunderchicken ranks right up there with the Edsel.
Ugly, slow, not sporty.
What’s it’s purpose.
The AMC PACER…nuff said…unless you like turtles…
Anything AMC…
I’m thinking of the “Levi’s” special Gremlin.
John — About.com Cars test driver BJ Killeen has one of those early-model Hondas sitting in her driveway, though not in operable condition. It has a two-cylinder air-cooled motorcycle engine, and half the space under the hood is devoted to the front seat footwell. We talked (idly, as it happens) about re-powering the car with a 4-cylinder motorcycle engine, chain-driving the rear axle to make it all-wheel-drive, and entering it in the Grassroots Motorsports Magazine $2006 challenge (possibly the world’s greatest amateur racing event — pdf article about the $2005 challenge here). Oh well, maybe next year… – Aaron
PS — Really interesting comments and suggestions, particularly the ones about cars like the Ford Taurus and Contour and what they *could* have been.
My nod goes to two mid-70’s VW’s. I know that the Microbus is a beloved icon of the time, but it had no power (I remember everyone getting out to push it up a hill), blew all over the road in a stiff breeze, and had virtually no protection in a front-end crash.
The Thing was a bizarre little car supposedly based on a European military model. It used parts from the Beetle, Mocrobus and Karmen Ghia, and as Click and Clack say, was designed by the same guy who invented the cookie sheet.
The SUZUKI anything is totaly in the weeds — they sold what, maybe seven or eight of these things in a year? C’MON! Seems like the GM AZTEK jumps off the page as the modern turkey — and a butt-ugly TURKEY at that… GM has become a modern joke.
The Ford 500 (and it’s Mercury twin). A pretty good car wrapped in a boring skin. In black it looks almost like one of those Russian cars. What makes it such a turkey is the amount of money Ford spent developing and bringing this lump to market: Rumored to be close to $1 billion!This was the vehicle that was supposed to lead Ford into the 21st century.
Wrong !!! The biggest turkey had to be the Yugo from Yugoslavia. Can’t figure
how you forgot that lemon !!
I agree with the AMC Pacer. However there were also some notable GM Turkeys with no rational reason for their existence.
i.e. the `71 - 78 Olds Toronado, the Mid-80’s Buick Riviera, The Aztek, The later C3 Corvettes. (C’mon how can you rationalize having the same Sports Car from `68 to `83!)
And of course the Early Lumina/Silhoutte/Trans-Sport abominations.
Defenitely Pontiac Aztek.
I can’t believe you guy’s! I had 3 Corvairs, and put well over 100,000 miles on each of them. I even did some STOCK sport car racing with my ‘62. I sold AMC products in the late ’50s and 60’s. They were just about bullet-proof, were very simple to work on, and lasted despite the salty roads in the northeast. Many’s the time I saw a wagon with 5 people in it, the back and roof rack over loaded, crawling up a hill in high gear because the driver didn’t know how to shift gears. And that in-line 6 cyl engine was used until last year, in the Jeep’s. The Yugo, on the other hand, had no redeming features.
The seniors will recall such beasts as the Ford Anglia, Ford Prefect, Austin A40, Morris Minor. Britain’s revenge on North America. I remember having to keep sn extra battery fully charged to b oast an A40 in the winter. Real dogs!!
OK, the turkey parade for me begins with a Hum-anything as a “street” car, Pinto (crime against humanity), Pacer, Yugo (you go or not that is the question), and those damn gas/diesel conversions that GM foisted on the public. Don’t be to quick to judge (hmmm, another turkey that should been called The Sludge)if you ain’t owned one or put some miles on one. I had a Fiat Sedan that rocked along through mountain summers and winters for 150,000 miles with very little work before I sold it to someone else. My Corvair Monza will always be one of my favorite car memories. Nader was a self-serving idiot!
To be fair to Nader, he also wrote a book condemning the Volkswagen, which had the same problem (easy rollover tendancy due to the swing-axle suspension) as the Corvair — but people all but ignored it. Seems people were more willing to vilify big bad GM than good ol’ Volkswagen.
Great GM-produced film of the early Corvair being put through its paces, including “crash tests” and some off-road action:
http://www.archive.org/details/Corvairi1960
– Aaron
PS - Did you know that the Yugo was a Fiat design? Heh heh heh.
GM’s designers and engineers since the 80’s are the biggest Turkeys for hosting such garbage on the public. At least the Taurus started out as a good car (anyone remember the mechanics dream that was the original Cavalier) ? The Sp-Aztek was a plastic nightmare. The new nosejob on their vans looks as ridiculous as the original Ant-eater nose did when they first launched and the Du-Hummers should never have been allowed out to play on normal roads. Would the last person with talent in the design department at GM please turn the lights off.
General Motors has the biggest lineup of turkeys ever perpetrated on the automotive public-with the Camaro-Firebirds being at the top of the list. (This, according to a GM Mechanic friend of mine)!
No doubt about it…The Pontiac Aztec
1975 Plymouth Volare–what was proclaimed to be the car of the year when initially rolled out, turned out to be th lemon of that year with double digit recalls.
I nominate the Chevy Cavalier.I never owned one but I had occasion to drive 2 different ones-a ‘91 & a ‘03. I have seen few vehicles short of the Yugo that is so abysmally short of what my standard of Automobiles is.To say that they make my rusting ‘82 Volvo with 176K miles look like Queen Elizebeth’s Bentley Limousine would be an understatement.
That guy talkin about the samarai obviously never owned one. Mine is 24 yrs old, a 970cc eng, over 200k miles
and still going strong. Go to any lemon
website and the Dodge Carravan/Plymouth Voyager are the biggest turkeys going.
Definetly any Hummer vehicle. Wrong Car (?) at the Wrong Time. and please leave the Gremlin and Pacer in peace, their quirky design made them at least interesting, my 88 year old granny still drives her 74 Pacer (185K on the clock) for shopping trips!! I’ve asked for it in her will.
I have to cast my vote for the Pontiac Aztec, a perfect example of ‘design by committee’.
If style and reliability are the benchmarks, the Suzuki Samurai is the best car made. My has 150k with no problems and the styling is timeless. But if we are talking styling. How about the 2006 Rolls Royce? Me thinks they took their stying cues from Wells Fargo and Brinks armoured trucks. Ugly to the Nth. I mean, BUTT UGLY. A very apropos statement for the vetty rich.
The biggest turkey of all time was the Aston Martin Lagonda, not only was it awfully ugly, it was obsessed with electrical problems. the whole project was a failure, good to see aston martin have learnt their lesson
Anyone ever have an Austin Marina or a Plymouth Cricket???
I bet there are a few of those rusting in people’s back yards with less than 40,000 on the odometer.
How about a great car that no one buys? I’m a BMW salesman. We came out with a Z4 - M Roadster six months ago. We can’t sell one to save our lives.
Get it right all makes made so kind df turkey. BUT RALPH nader is stuid because I had 3 Covair never had promlems with them. So i had Agreed abuot the Yugo.
whoo…lotsa bad memories here. i have to disagree with the folks picking the ‘pinto’: sure, it was a rolling firebomb, and butt-ugly to boot, but it was still kind of a successful car for ford. they were dirt cheap; they were semi-sorta economical; and ford sold quite a few of them, as i recall. that’s not really a hallmark of a world-class lousy car.
now! MY idea of a world-class lousy car would be something like:
*VW thing
*AMC pacer
*the aztek
*fiat x1/9
*aaaaand ANYthing hyundai made in their first 8-10 years in the US market. i counted more junked, 4-year-old hyundai’s (for some reason, they always seemed to be red) than you can believe. considering how badly they started, it’s a miracle how far hyundai has come.
you want to talk turkey?what about that three wheeld wonder from Italy,that the whole front end opened to get in?
Okay, Mr. Doug P. What’s all this about AMC? I have owned and driven American Motors cars for the past 28 years and still have 2 in the garage. One AMX and one Gremlin. Both cars have a great AMC designed small block V8 that starts and run great. The straight 6 engine, used by AMC and Chrysler until 2002-03 is probably the best and longest made American 6 cylinder engine ever. As far as fit and finish, AMC cars and Jeeps of the 1970s were no better nor worse than any other American made car in the 1970s. Are you telling us that the Nova was a engineering marvel? The thing still had a all steel dash in 1978. Yes, I owned one of those as well and it ran great but rusted out just as fast as my 1970 Gremlin. We all know American made cars of the 1970s were bad but so were many other cars of that day.
I think of the 1970s for car makers like being a kid in Jr. High. Thnigs were odd by design and technology. Not much anyone could have done about it. It was an awkward time. But it was a necessary growing period that I look back on as good times, yes it made for some odd cars like the Pacer but many people I know or who I have talked to that have owned Pacer loved the wide design and how the car drove. The Independent automakers should have been helped the way Chrysler was. Funny isn’t it? Take a look at the AMC Eagle, looks a lot like the SUVs of today? Enough said.
Didn’t Hemmings just list the AMC Eagle as having some of the greatest potential as a collectible classic?
My first new car, The 71 Chevy Vega. Slammed the hood-the hood buckled. Never ran cold. Traded for a Datsun-2 dealers wouldn’t take the Vega-one year old. May you rot and die again, Roger Smith.
Did anyone mention an Opal GT?
Regarding Corvairs…I know Corvair guys who have been driving nothing BUT ‘Vairs since the mid-Sixties and wouldn’t drive anything else…my ‘69 looks nice, drives beautifully and starts every morning without any problems. It’s the ideal collectible classic that you can use as a daily driver…gets decent gas mileage and it couldn’t be easier or simpler to service.
I go with the Hummer series as the turkey…the people who drive them forget that they have to share the road with others…it’s not only hideous and huge, but hey, save some gas for the rest of us!!!
The guy who said Suzuki Samurais were junk is VERY wrong. . I own a 5 series BMW and 2 old US Muscle cars. My old Samurai was the most reliable, fun, and indestructable vehicle I’ve ever owned!!! What a great little ride that could go anywhere. Mine was 14 years old and I drove across the US twice, no problems at all. Only issues were rough ride (4×4–so what?) and tendency to rust.
Also–in defense of AMC: My best friend in high school drove a 68 Javelin SST 343. Wow–very well built, optioned, and solid car for what it was. It was pretty damned fast too!
For a turkey–what about the GM cloned vans BEFORE the AZTEK–the Pontiac one looked like an ugly Star Trek space shuttle.
Over paid execs…The more factories they close. The bigger their bonuses. Of course they had to start out small. Little screw ups like the Pinto and Vega.
The Execs are the real turkeys.
Where are the car lovers who built these companies?
Over paid execs…The more factories they close. The bigger their bonuses. Of course they had to start out small. Little screw ups like the Pinto and Vega.
The Execs are the real turkeys.
Where are the car lovers who built these companies?
And on the subject of car lovers. The older cars were a great dating platform.
The need junk might be good for small people. Not super-sized Americans. No wonder I bought a crew cab pick up. Room for three growing boys in the back.And comfortable. Room for gear and capable of towing. Let me see an econobox do that.
you may be picking on a lot of cars as turkeys and this one may fit the bill but for all that you say is lacking in the VW Thing, it definately makes up for it in personality !! I would rather drive a Thing than most new cars today.
Don’t dog the Cricket! or Avenger otherwise known. It was my first car and the 1500cc engine could kick urban butt. It zipped better than the little toyotas and other copact cars of it’s time.
The Delorean was not a dawg of a car. I owned one for a few years back in 1998-99. It was mint condition with 600 original miles and totally left alone for years. I found it to be an amazing car. The doors always drew attention. The stainless-steel was a bitch to keep clean but it had the PJGrady “zebra” finish so it was worth it. Before you debase the DMC, you should own one,mint condition of course, 4 a while. Don’t worry about $ either, I bought mine 4 21,000 in ‘98 and sold it 4 26,000 in 00. The car was alot of fun. That’s the truth. `John
I agree with the person who said Volare’ with the accent on lemon.
Any Hummer or monster SUV…any vehicle that get’s under 10 MPG should be banned from the road….or made to pay double or triple the price per gallon of gas, and pay more in taxes for the extra wear and tear they cause on the roads.
Since we are mentioning “butt ugly”, we can’t forget the Toyota Prius. I don’t care how many MPG’s it can produce. It’s just plain ugly. I would love to have a H1. Cars that are half the size and weight get low 20’s on average. My full size extended cab 4×4 gets low 20’s on the hwy as well. Go diesel!
1999 Dodge Ram 3500 bought new. Frame rusted to total failure in summer of 2007. Never heard of a total structeral failure of an 8 year old vehicle!
The worst car I ever owned was a VW diesel. It was a 1500cc POC that could not get out of it’s own way, blew many head gaskets and turned me off of diesel forever. The newer ones have so many electrcal problems like the horm going off for no reason, the gauges all going wacko for no reason, the alternator never worked and the battery was always dead. Anything out of VW is a piece of crap!!! I had three of them before I converted to Toyota, now I will never go back to anything else. My MR2 has 300,000 HARD miles and to this day hits red line with Noooo problem, Try that in a GM, ford, VW or Dodge. Bamm…
P.S, Diesel sucks, I hate smelling them damn things.
Hey Stan n Ca, they’ve taken the sulfur out of diesel so it doesn’t smell bad. Don’t want you to embarass yourself.
:(
I bought a Volare new in ‘79, still own it, never had a problem..also had a ‘82 Reliant K-Car, this car was second in reliability only to a ‘66 Dodge I once owned..had over 100k miles on allof these, no problems.For turkeys,how ’bout Fiero,Transport, any ’80s or later Camaro/Firechicken,once nice cars that died a SLOW UGLY death. R.I.P.
FixItAgainToni–nuff said?
I skipped to the bottom of the list so if someone mentioned these… sorry for mentioning these again but I would have to say the citation, chevette and any GM in the 80’s with 2.5L w/ timing gears instead of belt or chain…