Offered as a bit of comic relief amid all the current bad news surrounding the auto industry.

I hope you enjoy!

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...istory_feature

 

There certainly is some comedic writing in there.

I found it somewhat ironic that 6 out of the 10 were Motor Trend cars of the year and that was a Car and Driver article, but then I realized... it's Motor Trend, they earned it.

Jeff

 

Motor Trend should be on that list again for picking the 1993 Ford Probe GT instead of the brand new 1993 4th gen Camaro. In fact, about half a year later, they had a 'bang for the buck' issue with 16 cars competing, including both the probe and the camaro, and the Camaro smoked the competition. They even said that the 1993 Z28 was perhaps the greatest bang for the buck ever.

 

Well in defense of the Probe GT, at least it was a decent car. Some of the others sheesh! Motor Trends award is based heavily on significance anyway. I'd of taken the Camaro too however.

 

I'd forgotten about the Probe GT (partly because I wasn't following the automotive world very closely during that time period)...but I agree, the Camaro seemed like a much better choice although as was said, the Probe wasn't a bad car.

I think one of the best lines in the whole article is in reference to the Renault Alliance when it said:

 

The Probe GT was years ahead of it's time. A fwd sports coupe with good power and fantastic braking and handling. Sound familiar? Almost every manufacturer has something like this nowadays. It looked a little different at the time, but I think it's still a very good looking design that ages well...even today it doesn't look old or outdated.

That being said, I'd take a 93 Z28 over a 93 Probe GT.

 

Oh, so nine times that the domestics won awards are "taken back". What was the point of this article?!?! I'm sure there were no other foreign makes they could've mocked. Please...

 

I thought the same thing.

 

I disagree with quite a few of C&D's choices.

Looking back on things, one always has 20/20 vision, but realistically, although C&D is still something of my favorite new car magazine, they aren't always perfect.

1983 Renault Alliance:
I was digusted that it wore Renault badges instead of AMC. Infact, the car didn't hold up well over the years (and I agree with C&D on this one)... but what low price cars from that era did?

2002 Ford Thunderbird:
I actually liked the T-bird, though I feel it was grossly overpriced (by about $8-10K). The problem with this T-bird wasn't it's performance (it wasn't exactly the slug C&D are making it out to be (it was as quick as an automatic 5.0 Mustang). The problem was that Ford never put any of those promised updates into the T-bird. The Thunderbird was supposed to gain a supercharger the 3rd year.....and 390hp (Z06 Corvettes were still running only 400 back then)!
Ford even put it on the auto show circuit.
They never sent it into production.

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1971 Chevrolet Vega:
The Chevrolet Vega's 4 cylinder engine was junk till GM went to Pontiac's indestructable "Iron Duke". But the Vega was still an advanced piece of engineering! It had an OHC engine, it had a high performance DOHC engine with fuel injection created by an European Racing group... and this was engineered back in the late 60s! The rear suspension system worked so well that it could still be found under the rear end of the 4th generation Camaro...31 years later... still highly effective against modern cars! Sure, Vegas rusted. everything made in the 70s rusted. Vega as a whole was light years ahead of Ford... and anything we were getting from Japan. It's just that GM played stupid on the engine.

1997 Cadillac Catera:
This was another example of GM having the right idea, but being stupid on execution. The idea of RWD is superior handling dynamics over FWD. Choosing a soft suspension and a weak engine killed the whole purpose of the Catera. Nickel and diming the interior "Americanizing" the car instead of simply keeping it's perfectly good German interior added insult to incompetence. Then there was the dealers who (rightfully in retrospect) ignored the car made the car DOA as soon as the 1st one came off the boat. Keep in mind that when all this was going down in the mid 90s, General Motors North America completely ignored any possibility of using the superior Holden version of the exact same car (the 1997 Commodore) which was also brand new that year, had a more powerful engine lineup (American made 3.8 V6 both in NA and supercharged), had more room and was the same weight.

1985 Merkur XR4Ti:
The only things wrong with the car were:
1. It's name.
2. It's looks.
3. It had to compete against the cheaper and relatively identical Mustang SVO.
It had quality, it was pretty quick, Ford shiped the car over with German level handling intact, it was autobaun capable (something almost unheard of back in 1985), and save for those rear spoilers that tended to sag in hot climates after a couple of years, it really wasn't a bad car. But to the average person, the Ford Mustang SVO was a better looking car, the same size, handled just as well, seemed more comfortable,and cost alot less.... of course when they actually got to the Ford showroom to check out the SVO, they bought the even more cheaper, and even faster Mustang GT or LX, but that's besides the point.

1997 Chevrolet Malibu:
This is the poster child of how GM got into the position it's in now. Ditto the car's successor. It was a toaster. An applience. Had nothing to reccomend it over a competitor other than price. Since then, Hyundai, Kia, and others stepped in, and not only also use price as a selling point, they actually took the time to make the cars look good, inside & out. In short, they invested in their cars. GM has only started doing this in recent years. There is no reason why the mindset of the current Malibu couldn't have taken place a decade or more ago. In many ways, this car destroyed GM (via perception).

1990 Lincoln Town Car:
True, Ford hasn't exactly spent alot of money on the Town Car. But I save my biggest complaints for Ford's stagnation on the Town Car the past 10 years, not 1990. Back then, one could run a car design alot longer than you could the past decade. At that time, Camaro's went 11 years without a redesign. Mustang went 14 years with barely more than 1 interior and 2 nose/tail light visual changes. For the market it was in, the Town Car wasn't bad at all. There is no need to radically change the chassis it's on, but it's styling should be kept up to date.

1980 Chevrolet Citation:
I remember C&D articles on preproduction Citation X11. It had all the right ingredients for moving performance into the 80s. An aggressive axle ratio, a impressive new manual transmission, hot handling, cold air induction that came through a functional late 60s Chevelle SS-like rear facing hood scoop! When the production car actually came out, it had all these things, but X11 acceleration was no better than any other family car. Regular Citations were outright dogs. It's true, parts fell off. At this time, car makers discovered how to make cars that don't start rusting out the year you bought it... yet GM seemed to miss that memo with the X-cars. The X-car (Citation) was GM's "K-car". It was wide, it was to be the core chassis to help the car maker reach that 27.5 mpg mandate, it sat up to 6 people, it had impressive luggage space. It deserved to be COTY or 10-best. But that doesn't mean that over the years it turned out to be junk.

1974 Ford Mustang II:
What is always forgotten when the Mustang II comes up in conversation is that it was actually a very good car for it's day, and it sold in numbers that today would make your brain melt. Coming after arguabley the most aggressive looking (and unarguably, the biggest) Mustang in history, the "II" looks completely inadequte. Using the fact it's V8 had only 129 horsepower is deceptive. In the mid 70s, Ford V8s were weak on horsepower, but strong on torque. The result? Mustangs would accelerate strongly on par with the competition, but it had no real top speed. While 5.0 Monza's and Mustangs got to 60 in nearly identical times, Spyders reached 120mph while Cobra IIs could barely get over 100. Mustangs were solid, well built, and very nice inside for their day. But in retrospect, it's easy to forget everything good about them.

1995 Ford Contour/Mercury Mystique:
Of every car on that list, this is the one I disagree with the strongest, and question if drugs were involved in choosing these 2 for their list. These cars were far advanced than what other US makers were peddling (Cirrus, Stratus, the forementioned Malibu..). The car handled extremely well. It's powerplant was virturally bullitproof (no small feat since this was the start of Ford's fall from the quality mentality they built up over the 80s). In many ways, it was a coupe disguised as a sedan. The SVT version absolutely rocked! It was one of those great European cars Ford made here. But because you couldn't pile in 3 people in the back, the car got rolled (never mind moving up to a bigger car).


I wouldn't add the Ford Probe. It was actually a good car. The original one was seriously underrated in output, the 2nd gen was actually good looking. The 3rd generation (AKA: the reborn Mercury Cougar) was a solid good quality car, but they took the "New Edge" styling way too far.

There's just so many others that C&D could add to the list of questionable choices:
Pontiac 6000
Pontiac Bonneville SE
Dodge Colt Turbo (remember those?... downright dangerous in unexperienced hands!)
Lincoln Contental
Mercury Tracer LTS
Eagle Vision
Audi 5000

Unfortunately, I agree that there are far more American cars worthy of "What were we thinking" placement on 10 best lists. The 80s and a good chunk of the 90s simply wasn't all that great of a time for US makers putting out good... let alone 10 best... quality vehicles.

 

Hindsight is always 20/20. We can go back a look at a lot of cars that didn't live up to their first year hype. Some cars on that list even sold well too. But the auto market is vary fickle and a hit one year is a dud the next.

I can remember in 1997 when the Mailbu came out GM and many in the industry felt they had closed the gap on the Japanese imports. But like many cars on this list nobody told the consumers and the car flopped. On paper it was there.
But we have to realize that while it's fun to poke at this car it did lay the ground work for improved models in 2004 and the current one. The Accord, Camry, and Jetta were not home runs in their early years either.

Some cars are just priced wrong. The T-Bird. The SSR also comes to mind and had it been priced where it should from the start I think their shelf life would have lasted a bit longer.

On the flip side I remember fellow classmates who went to Ford in the mid 90's and they were calling the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique the "condom" and "mistake" as many inside were aware of the cars shortcomings even before launch. We knew the Aztek was going to be betrayed by its "angry toaster" looks well before it went on sale. So there are some known turkeys and they never get off the ground.

 

I've owned two cars on the list.

My '80 Citation was just about the worst car ever - rivaled only by my wife's '91 Passat.

I still own my old SVT Contour, which I bought over the A4 I was about to buy at the time.
Even now, it's a blast to drive. It's one of the only FWD cars I can think of which is tuned for oversteer.

 

Do people still read that garbage? I had hoped they'd be out of business by now, it's taking too long!

 

I almost replaced my '89 RS in '99, while going to college, with a '96 Contour SE 5 speed V6...I LOVED driving the car. It was like a poor man's SVT in my eyes...red with tan leather, sunroof, and I think I could've bought it with 35k back then for like $11,500. It was a sharp car to my eyes...

FWIW, I think the Contour/Mystique were a great car in their day...and are still a decent looking car now. Its too bad Ford didn't really replace it until the Fusion.

 

It's funny Jason, I was on the verge of putting down a deposit on an A4. I had agonized over every detail of it for weeks. 1.8T or V6? AWD or FWD? Which color? Which options? Which dealer?

On the way to my office, I drove by a Ford dealer with two just released SVT's in front. I had about 20 minutes to kill so I pulled in. I walked up to a salesman and asked if I could drive one. 30 seconds into the test drive I knew I wouldn't be buying the A4. The SVT tuned 2.5L V6 was superior the A4's engines, and the exhaust note was simply intoxicating. It's chassis dynamics were better too. Sure, the fit, finish and interior didn't compare to the A4, but hey, it was $7K less. I bought the sucker on the spot.

In the lounge, there's a thread about rare performance cars, and the SVT Contour is one of them. Hell, half of them, I've either owned or considered at purchase time.

 

Interesting comment...are you suggesting readers should only turn to internet forums for automotive industry information?

No matter what source and no matter what subject; it's always important to separate the BS and the Bias from the facts wouldn't you say?