The 50 Worst Cars of All Time

1976 Chevy Chevette

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I include the Chevy Chevette only to note that even the most unloved and unlovely cars have their partisans. There are Pacer fan clubs and Yugo fan clubs, and if there is a Chevette fan club, let it begin with me. My girlfriend in college had a diaper-brown Chevette three-door hatchback, as bare bones as an exhibit at the natural history museum. It had a 51-hp engine and a four-speed manual transmission and not much else. It was loud and it was tinny, but we drove that car across the country three times and it never failed us. Once I got a 85-mph speeding ticket in it. That was on the down slope of the Appalachians, but still. The last time I saw that Chevette it was still plugging along. Vaya con Dios, old paint.

1899-1939

From the Horsey Horseless to the Model T and the Airflow, ten horror stories from the auto industry's earliest days

1940-1959

From the Crosley Hotshot to the Dauphine and the King Midget, ten auto blunders from the '40s and '50s

1960-1974

From the Amphicar to the Pinto and the Gremlin, ten colossal car mistakes from the Vietnam era

1975-1989

From the Trabant to the Lagonda and the De Lorean, the worst cars of the 1980s

1990-Present

From the Prowler to the Explorer and the GM EV1, the worst cars from the past 17 years