25 HATED 1970S CARS THAT ARE BETTER THAN DRIVERS REMEMBER

I remember seeing many of those cars but some I'd never seen before even to this day.
And I don't remember hating/disliking many of those cars or them being hated by the public or my circle of pals.
Some of them such as the Gremlin & Pacer we kinda laughed about but they were cool to drive because you could really see out of them and they were fun with a stick. The El Camino were cool but, I've never seen the GMC Sprint version.
 
4WD said:
Growing up - neighbor fixed his Vega with a 327 😵‍💫
Used to help him wash it just for a ride !
Click to expand...
Had a friend that had a 1974 Dodge Colt and installed a 440 Magnum in it....Man that think would go....
 
  • Like
Reactions: 4WD
I'm familiar with a few of those on the list. I agree that some of those cars were not as bad as their reputation ... Pinto, Mustang II, several of the Chryslers, Vega ... all reasonable cars back in the day. By today's standards, they aren't anything to get excited about. But given the times, they were acceptable if not moderately desirable for that decade.

I do take exception to one of the cars on the list; there is a car which truly deserves all the bashing it gets ... The Chevette. Despite what the article said, that car was as horrible as anyone can remember. Weak in every manner, and ultimately unreliable. A rolling piece of automotive garbage. That car was an abomination. The "newness" of the car wore off very quickly, and soon the failures of the car showed up:
- grossly underpowered
- noisy
- poor fit and finish
- transmissions which were lucky to go 50k miles without major issues; if you know of one that lasted past that, you were darn lucky
- handling that was, well, poor at best and scary at worst
- body panel rust came quickly
- braking which was not linear, but more like an on/off light switch; they had the dubious ability to establish brake-fade on dry roads, and yet lock up the wheels waaay to easily when precip hit the ground .... there was no practical ability to modulate the braking
- headlights which seemed to pay homage to old gas lanterns
Yeah, that car earned all the hatred it got.
 
Last edited:
I always roll my eyes whenever there is a "worst vehicle" list. Why? Because it's always written by some young kid who never lived through the bad-car era, who grabs a bunch of photos from Google Images, inserts a bunch of ads in there to get undeserved revenue and suddenly he's the expert on cars that he's never seen. Yea, I got to admit I browsed through the list because I quite often have owned a few of them. :ROFLMAO:
Okay, here's my take on the list: First, this writer was exceptionally lazy because he included some "twins" on his list. The Ford Pinto and the Mercury Bobcat? Twins. (Of course, he had to include the reference to the flaming Pinto. That verifies that he's not a wrench turner at all, just a reputation repeater) The Chevy El Camino and the GMC Sprint? Twins. As far as some of the other cars on the list, they were produced in such small numbers, I feel he was really reaching to get 25 cars. He commented about the Ranchero being underpowered. There were a couple of years that it was available with the 460 engine. Of course, you hit the gas pumps often, but you couldn't have both power and economy back then.
The real problem with most of the cars of that list was that they had the combination of a carburetor and the manufacturers were doing everything they could to meet emissions. That combination made it extremely hard to produce a car in the 70's-80's.
As to a previous post about the Chevette being on the list, yea, it does have some bad features. I actually have one parked in my big shed. It's an '83 with an Isuzu diesel and a 5-speed. Chevy used to advertise that the Chevette diesel could move cheaper than a human and they had some kind of advertisement with the Chevette drinking diesel and the human being eating a cheeseburger. Yea, it was a bad/strange era. I purchased my Chevette on ebay when I thought fuel was going to $10/gallon. I've never titled it or drove it, but if and when petro does go to $10, who knows? :cool:
 
Page ran fine. Astro use adblock.

Yes fully expected clickbait, and the worst part was no engine or tech details on the cars.

No Datsun 510. huh??? OK maybe not hated, but the El Camino wasn't hated. Expected Maverick and Comet twins.

I had a Volvo 262! Wife had a Hornet!! Fun list but like any era, some will be collectable.
 
Kruse said:
I always roll my eyes whenever there is a "worst vehicle" list. Why? Because it's always written by some young kid who never lived through the bad-car era, who grabs a bunch of photos from Google Images, inserts a bunch of ads in there to get undeserved revenue and suddenly he's the expert on cars that he's never seen. Yea, I got to admit I browsed through the list because I quite often have owned a few of them. :ROFLMAO:
Okay, here's my take on the list: First, this writer was exceptionally lazy because he included some "twins" on his list. The Ford Pinto and the Mercury Bobcat? Twins. (Of course, he had to include the reference to the flaming Pinto. That verifies that he's not a wrench turner at all, just a reputation repeater) The Chevy El Camino and the GMC Sprint? Twins. As far as some of the other cars on the list, they were produced in such small numbers, I feel he was really reaching to get 25 cars. He commented about the Ranchero being underpowered. There were a couple of years that it was available with the 460 engine. :cool:
Click to expand...

Great post, every bit of it. You can tell he was reaching when he included the Stutz and the Citroen. I'm surprised he left off the Zimmer Quicksilver!

And that Ranchero photo looks like, what, a '65 or so? The guy didn't even try hard to find period-correct photos.
 
That was actually a cool article. But truth be told, I don't remember many of those cars being particularly "good", and some were downright terrible to live with. A friend had that Mustang II with the 302V8. It was so choked up, it had difficulty running a 20 second 1/4 mile. Absolutely true! Today's Prius would seem to be a dragster by comparison.

Of course, Ford stepped up to the plate with the Mustang II Cobra and got the 0-60 times down to a solid 10 seconds!
 
What is truly fascinating, is I aspired to #18!!! I was < 20 y.o. and I wanted one.

Also #1 and #2 immediately came to mind before seeing the list.

I went on to having 2 V6 GLE Volvos which had those mirrors, same as say a BMW 6 or 7.

Heck, the 2nd PRV 264 got me from 1990 to 1998, at which time I got my first new car, the 1998 Maxima SE 5-spd. Based on what the article had to say, I think they needed cars to make the list 25 and they added the Volvo for no reason at all. The roofline made it unique and said flagship. Bertone baby! :ROFLMAO:

Here's where I say, I'd trade all my tomorrows, for a single yesterday....
 
dnewton3 said:
The Chevette.
Click to expand...
Worked on one; the property of my girlfriend's brother.
Beneath the passenger's footwell, outside the car, were 2 strips of electrical contacts.
One was numbered, the other alphabetized.
With the appropriate meter you'd check 1-A, 2-B, 3-C etc., as I recall.
I hit the big blue Chilton manual in the library.

And of course, the one time I drove it it performed well.

I like "Top 10 Lists" as much as anyone but I will skip them in the future for the reasons stated.
--I really must learn how to clear my cashe' and other stuff.
 
I wouldn't call most of them hated. But the Vega was the absolute worst. Both the bodies and motors were dogs.
 
Kira said:
Worked on one; the property of my girlfriend's brother.
Beneath the passenger's footwell, outside the car, were 2 strips of electrical contacts.
One was numbered, the other alphabetized.
With the appropriate meter you'd check 1-A, 2-B, 3-C etc., as I recall.
I hit the big blue Chilton manual in the library.

And of course, the one time I drove it it performed well.
Click to expand...
I knew a lady in Boisbriand PQ, this was 1996. Met on the internet through a thing called penpal.net I think? What is interesting looking back, is think about it. It was online, but people liked to write to one another. It's not the same as merely emailing which is full of acronyms and broken sentences etc.

So anyway I went up to meet her, it was snowing, and I met her at her office and got into her Chevette. She said this car is a POS and my stepfather ripped me off by selling it to me! Then she proceeded to swerve around oversteering on purpose, which was a benefit of RWD.

I remember her ex husband worked for Saputo Cheese and her boss had a V12 S Class. All these memories!

Also, through her, I learned women often keep their names in Canada, and that some boys even hyphenate their names to honor their moms. Again, this is 1996.
 
hrv said:
Well I owned one on the list. A 1980 Chrysler Cordoba with a 318. I loved the car and was a great ride on the highway..
Click to expand...
My mom had a 1975 with the 400 and Firestone 500 radials.

That car about bankrupted her.
Yet it holds a special place in my heart as it was the first car I ever did an oil change on.
 
CharBaby said:
The El Camino were cool but, I've never seen the GMC Sprint version.
Click to expand...
I'd never heard of the Sprint either, and only knew it as the Caballero. So I looked it up on the Google and found the Sprint was named Caballero starting in 1978. Cool, I learned something today!
 
PF52 said:
Great post, every bit of it. You can tell he was reaching when he included the Stutz and the Citroen. I'm surprised he left off the Zimmer Quicksilver!

And that Ranchero photo looks like, what, a '65 or so? The guy didn't even try hard to find period-correct ph
Click to expand...

PF52 said:
Great post, every bit of it. You can tell he was reaching when he included the Stutz and the Citroen. I'm surprised he left off the Zimmer Quicksilver!

And that Ranchero photo looks like, what, a '65 or so? The guy didn't even try hard to find period-correct photos.
Click to expand...
Yeah, and the Merkur!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

G
8th gen Civic or 9th Gen Corolla?
2 3
Replies
42
Views
3K
2015Corolla
MCompact
2020 Mercedes-AMG One Year Review
Replies
11
Views
888
Jeffrey Seattle
wings&wheels
Dealer's Rose Colored Glasses...Just Wow
Replies
10
Views
1K
fdcg27
O
The company cars of American Greeting Corp., and the bad things we did to them, 1980-2013
Replies
4
Views
2K
earlyre
pezzy84
Rental car review - 2022 Toyota Camry SE AWD
Replies
18
Views
3K
SwampSurvivor
Back
Top