The World's Worst Cars

by Craig Cheetham

Most manufacturers have made some great cars, but all manufacturers have made some unquestionable disasters. Cars that were either terrible designs, badly engineered, poorly manufactured, or misjudged the market. Or in some cases, all of the above. So what went wrong? How did these cars ever get off the drawing board, let alone into the showroom? And how many people bought them?

The World’s Worst Cars takes a detailed look at 150 of these motoring mistakes, both old and new and from around the world. North America’s embarrassments include the notorious Ford Edsel, the malfunctioning Chrysler TV Maserati collaboration and the grand folly of the Tucker Torpedo. From Britain there’s the simply leaky Morris Marina, the pop-up headlights that didn’t pop up on the Lotus Elite and the “What were they thinking of?” three wheeled, orange fiberglass Bug Bond. Globally, such horrors as the rapidly rusting Alfa Romeo Alfasud, the flimsy Lada Samara, and the plain ugly Subaru SVX all claim their place on the world’s worst cars list.

With an annotated, full-page photograph for each car, detailed technical specifications, archive images and text on every vehicle’s failure, this book is a celebration of the world’s worst automobiles in all their flawed glory.

Genres: Cars, Nonfiction, Humor, History

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Jonathan Blanchet · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

[Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being quite the automobile enthusiast that I am, I quite enjoyed this book. Some of the cars I knew of, some I didn't. Most certainly belonged in this book, while others I disagreed with their receiving of the status of a "worst car." But Cheetham explains this is the foreword. It is also quite clever how it is devised into four categories of vehicular mediocrity.

The book is obviously written by a Brit, as the humor is quite dry, which I actually am a fan of, and most of the cars are ones that the average American has never heard of. There are a lot of obscure (at least to Americans) British, French, and even German cars, but there are plenty of American "gems" in there (Pinto, anyone?). But I feel that this is the book's strong suit, since terrible cars can come from anywhere, and it is QUITE interesting to see cars made in such odd places as communist Russia and East Germany, Malaysia, India, Spain, and Romania. And yes, we even see Canada's one and only serious attempt (failed at that) at being a car-producing country (in which shyster businessman Malcolm Bricklin essentially scams the provincial government of New Brunswick out of MILLIONS of dollars).

The book is filled mostly with pictures, so it's great for seeing the actual cars in different poses, and actually contains original advertisements for the cars, which I quite enjoyed. If you want a book about terrible cars that is more in-depth and involves more reading, I would recommend "The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History" by Jason Vuic. But being the "coffee table book" that it is, it was quite captivating, and even borrowed my attention many times away from the other book I was reading. One quick end note, though, is that the editor, publishing house, or whoever proofread the book should definitely not be in possession of their job, as the book is SO rife with typographical and content errors that it actually quite unnerved me many times. All in all, though, a great read for any automobile enthusiast.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice little hardcover pocketbook (sort of, small but on the thick side) for car enthusiasts of varying stripes. Categories range from financial disasters, vehicles with manifold malfunctioning parts and cars with plain head-scratching or daft designs. Two pages are devoted to every vehicle, with a photograph, a few paragraphs of description and a go-over of the vehicle's specs, and occasionally a wisecrack caption beneath select photos. Not to say there aren't some, perhaps, questionable inclusions here: Preston Tucker's Tucker 48 I guess does technically count as a "financial failure" with Tucker himself caught up in scandals that put him out of business (whether it was indeed due to the "Big Three" automotive companies conspiring to ruin him or not is for you to decide) but the vehicle itself, what few were manufactured, is itself a fine specimen. If it were allowed to succeed it would've been one of the best vehicles on the road at the time, its innovations paving the way for future vehicles to come (and indeed the author really has nothing bad to say about the car itself, it's just included in the chapter on financial disasters as it does have a somewhat infamous story behind it - but in a book called "World's Worst Cars" I'm sure he could've found at least one more actual bad vehicle to swap it out...). And of course I grimaced a bit to see one of my beloved dream cars the DeLorean in here (in the same chapter as the Tucker no less), even if he has a few more legitimate complaints about the design of the car itself (particularly the engine) and we all know John DeLorean was a far shadier character whose actions probably deservedly led to his downfall, but still. Never driven one, only seen it in tons of pictures, the movies (you can guess which) and saw one drive by on the opposite road once, which was a neat sight to see I guess.

People could probably find a bunch of other choices here to nitpick at (I'm not exactly so intimately familiar with a lot of vehicles here as maybe others who lived through these eras and had to settle for some of these choice cars, the cars I've actually driven in my entire life I could probably count on one hand - of course anyone looking for something used but "reliable" could very well end up with any one of these), but it's a fun, light read with some good (albeit small due to book's size) photographs, and no era of vehicle is left unscathed, from 1927's luxurious but grossly overpriced Bugatti Royale (now an extremely rare collectible worth millions, I think only seven were manufactured total[!]) all the way into the more recent years of the 21st century, you'll find all sorts of things to mull over here. I like it simply because I love the aesthetics of automobiles, of all kinds. In fact, probably the more eccentric/tasteless the design the better. I'll never get to drive most of any of these cars in these books, worst OR best, but they all have the same allure as any number of amazing photographs of wildlife, natural landscapes, flora, fauna, that sort of thing. Even the most awful of cars have a certain charm or beauty to them, which is the most (perhaps unintentionally?) appealing draw to this book for me, even as the author snarks away at everything here, which I don't mind, they probably deserve it. I'm only a spectator after all, not a test driver (am I the only one who actually likes the way the Pontiac Aztek -looks-? I remember seeing it in the parking lots of dealerships at the time, and always thought "wow! neato" and still think it has a kind of cool look to it, yet that's the number 1 reason it's ridiculed in this book! (and, well, just about everywhere I read about the car) I suppose, as the saying goes, one man's lemon is another man's lemonade... (that was more a forced combination of two sayings, smashed together awkwardly like the car/boat Amphicar hybrid featured on the front cover)

[Andee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have no reason to be reading a car book, but when I saw a kid turn this into the library, it caught my eye. While my husband is into the best cars, I was kind of interested about the worst. A good book for a car fan, for sure. Will recommend to my middle school car readers.

[Train Driver Tom · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a shower of shit this was, honestly have had more enjoyment from standing naked covering my self with jam and letting ants climb up and nibble around my ball sack.

Spoiler alert, purchasing it spoiled my bank balance

[Eric Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast, funny read.

[Cyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun little thrift store find with photos and brief overviews of some real duds of cars. Often funny while still providing technical specs on every automotive loser.

[Eric VN · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just a fun book! Fortunately I only had one of those , the Chevette, 🤮.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review title: Worst of the worst
We love to make (and read) lists off best things, but the worsts of things--whether books, movies, or cars--are also endlessly fascinating. who thought these were good ideas, how did they get money to design and build, and why were they such monumental failures.

Cheetham has compiled the worst cars from around the world (he is British so 'tyres' are whitewall and shoddy components 'pack up'), so nobody escapes unscathed. Of course notorious failures like Eastern European communist-built Trabants and early Asian copycat efforts are called out here, but there are plenty of American busts here, high end brands like Volvo and Maserati, and of course lots of electrical- and build-quality challenged British brands.

What is interesting is how many of the worst had design and production roots in the 1970s. I got my drivers license in the middle of that decade, so I learned to drive in some of these worst, and even then we knew these were badly executed: slow, heavy, unwieldy to steer, lumbering to stop, death traps in accidents, quick to disintegrate. Just how bad took a generation of retrospection in style and and quantum leaps in design and build quality to realize.

This isn't a great book--the format is too small to do the pictures justice, and it would be nice to have more details about the cars--but a fun one to remember just how automobilely-blessed we are today.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pocket-sized little book about - well, you can probably guess from the title. 150 cars are inside, each one with a two-page writeup, consisting of a page of text and then a photo of the car with various wise-ass remarks. Since there's 150 cars, some of them aren't as bad as the others; You get weird curiosities like a car with a jet engine or the infamous "Amphicar" mixed in with some good cars that just had horrible build quality. (Luckily, probably the two ugliest vehicles in modern history - Europe's Fiat Multipla and America's Pontiac Aztek - don't escape the author's gaze.)

I found this book to be a enjoyable little larf. If you're a big car fan, you may want to excessive some caution; The author has a lot of English cars I'd never heard of (British Leyland keeps coming in for beatings), and some of the Amazon reviews are rather scathing. Niether one of these really matters to me, which ears this book a solid three stars.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Books like this are intended as lighthearted entertainment, yet that doesn't stop Cheetham from occasionally using this one as a platform for social commentary. From the entry on the Porsche Cayenne:

"The Cayenne was built so that people could have lots of kids and still own a Porsche, which is hardly the reason so many owners scrimp and save to get their hands on one...sadly, the ones who insist on buying a Cayenne are the same who insist on driving it right to the door of their local school and abandon it on a cross-hatch or yellow line while they unstrap their precious offspring from the designer booster seats."

While most of the time Cheetham is dead on, there are still a few inexplicable criticisms, for example the suggestion that Chrysler's Slant 6, an engine recognized for its longevity and durability (if for nothing else), is unreliable.

[Hava · Rating 2 out of 5]

The World’s Worst Cars: From Pioneering Failures to Multimillion Dollar Disasters by Craig Cheetham was a depressing book. I picked it up because I thought it looked interesting - something my father would like. He always gravitates towards books on mechanical things like tractors and pickups... Click here to continue

[Finnella Flanagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't plan to read this, but my son brought it home from the library. It's a fun, short read about the worst cars from around the world. The author's style is informative and witty. There were so many funny comments, I read most of it out loud to the rest of the family.

[Emerson D'Agostino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious and very entertaining. Some cars in my opinion do not deserve to be on this list but i understand why they are here.

[daniel dirnfeld · Rating 5 out of 5]

INTERESTING BOOK

[Ishan Gohel · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is ok