The 50 Worst Cars of All Time

On the 50th anniversary of the Ford Edsel, TIME and Dan Neil, Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive critic and syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, look at the greatest lemons of the automotive industry

1980 Corvette 305 "California"

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Federal emissions requirements of the 1970s took a big neutering knife to American muscle cars, and no car bled more than the Corvette. The worst of it came in California — dang hippy librels! — where stricter state regs required that the barely adequate 350 cu.-in. smallblock in the 1980 Corvette be replaced with a wholly inadequate 305 V8, putting out 180 hp of pure shame. On top of that, the "California" Corvette sucked its pitiful rivulet of horsepower through the straw of a torque-sapping three-speed automatic transmission. That gave the Corvette — the very totem of hairy-chest, disco machismo — acceleration comparable to a very hot Vespa. These were dark days indeed.

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