The worst cars I’ve ever owned

Lust vs logic

When I look at the cars I’ve owned throughout my driving life, I can see there have been two clear motives for choosing them. Firstly, there are cars I’ve lusted after which, first and foremost, have needed to tug at my heartstrings to make it to my garage.

Secondly, there have been my everyday cars, when a certain amount of common sense and practicality had been taken into consideration. In this battle of lust vs logic, I’ve ended up owning some great cars. And, a few truly awful cars.

The worst of the worst – the shortlist

 These are my ‘ what was I thinking?’ cars. So dreadful, I shudder at their collective lack of competence and still wonder why I bought them in the first place. Here are five cars I wish I’d never bought:

1. 1966 Rover 2000 – purchased in the mid-1970s

I never actually wanted a Rover 2000, it just came my way when I was ‘between’ cars. Usually, this wasn’t a problem because I’d just ‘borrow’ whatever my mother happened to be driving at the time. For once though, I needed a car for work and I couldn’t depend on the availability of mum’s car for every day of the week. 

My father told me about the chance to buy the Rover 2000 from a friend who managed a large national fleet for a supermarket chain. Apparently, it was one of the director’s cars he wanted to dispose of and it was available to me at ‘mates rates.’ As a single young man, a London advertising agency copywriter, the idea driving of an executive saloon like the story 2000 wasn’t at all enticing. Even so, the idea of buying cheap and selling for somewhat more sounded like a smart move. It wasn’t.

No fun to be found here

The Rover 2000 was probably less than 10 years old, but whoever had driven it before had wrung everything out of the old girl, even though less than 60,000mile were on the odometer. Or, maybe, the Rover just wasn’t up to much when new, I didn’t know. The engine was harsh and tuneless – it didn’t want to rev and didn’t even compensate by delivering low-down torque. Gutless is the word that comes to mind. 

The suspension squeaked and the roly-poly handling resisted any attempt to let me enjoy myself on the winding Surrey roads, close to where I lived in those days. No doubt about it, the engineers at Rover had ensured the stodgy old 2000 saloon possessed a strong ‘anti-fun’ factor as if the chassis was designed to discourage any form of spirited driving. If so, they had succeeded. 

Worst of all, it made me feel like I didn’t belong (I didn’t!). In those days, a Rover was the definitive old man’s car  – a respectable, sensible saloon and a common sight parked outside the local church on Sundays. Fortunately for me, I was literally hard to spot. The low-set driving seat forced me to peer over the top of the unnecessarily huge steering wheel like a 5-year-old driving ‘dad’s’ car. 

I don’t think I’d ever wanted to see the back of any car more than that old Rover. Thankfully, I managed to sell it on easily enough, making an extra couple of hundred pounds in the process, perhaps the only positive recollection I have of that truly dull car. So long Rover and good riddance.

2. 1968 Buick Riviera – purchased in the early 1980s

The Buick was an unforgettable car – and not in a good way. I had only been living in Australia for about 18 months and, having foolishly bought an imperfectly restored 1957 Porsche 356 Speedster soon after my arrival, I was forced to rent cars at the weekend so I could get out and about.  Even when the Porsche was roadworthy, it wasn’t what you might describe as a practical car, so I went shopping for something cheap and reliable.

My choices were somewhat restricted because the Porsche was usually eating up most of my spare funds while sitting in someone’s workshop going nowhere at all. In a fit of temporary common sense, I decided a VW Beetle was what I needed if I could find one that wasn’t too clapped out on my limited budget. 

A moment of madness

I spent a weekend or two checking out a number of old Beetles, not really enjoying the driving experience or being impressed with the condition of any of them. And then I saw the Buick, occupying most of someone’s front yard. It had a large ‘For Sale’ sign on the windscreen. Quite why I stopped to look I don’t know, nor can I explain why I believed any of the owner’s BS about the car’s condition. Call it a moment of weakness, or madness, but a price was agreed upon ($4500!) and I had become the owner of a 6 metre-long Buick.

As usual with my old cars, I wasted money on it. I bought new tyres,  a ‘new’ old motor to replace the worn out original, new suspension bushes, and so on – the list was a long one. It drank fuel so fast you could literally see the fuel gauge going down if you put your foot down for a few seconds. It had zero traction in the wet, no steering feel at all and the brakes would fade away if you braked hard from anything over 90 km/h. Slamming into ‘second’ became my default option to help slow the thing down rather than expect any help from the aluminium-finned drums. They looked good, pity they didn’t work.

Amazingly, it proved easy to sell. Ominously, I bikie gang member turned up on a wild-looking ‘Harley’ to inspect it and,  after a quick look around, said he’d buy it. Much to my surprise, he turned up the next day with a wad of cash and, to my great relief, I never saw him again. Before he left, he told me he was buying the Riviera as a gift for his girlfriend, but not before spraying it metallic purple and re-trimming the interior in lilac velour – a man of considerable taste then. Fortunately, I never saw the car again.

3. Alfa Sud 1.5 Ti – purchased in the late 1980s

Not my wisest automotive purchase, the Alfa SudTi did its very best to charm me: it sounded wonderful, the steering was fantastic and it handled well.

Unfortunately, the list of faults greatly exceeded its good points. For starters, it rusted faster than anything I’ve ever seen and coming from me, a serial Lancia owner, that’s saying something.  Made from cheap and nasty Russian steel, it’s no wonder Alfa Sud’s are a virtually extinct species today. Interior parts would literally fall off my your hands on a regular basis.

And, it was so unreliable, you would never be sure of reaching your destination – ever. The fault always seemed to lay with the electrics, which seemed to be incurable and beyond the determined efforts of my local Alfa Romeo specialist. All I knew was that it broke down mostly when it was raining hard.

My wife hated the sight of it and she almost wept with relief the day I sold it. Even now, some 25 years later, she pours scorn on any Alfa Romeo. For her, the Alfa Sud has tainted the Italian brand for life. Consequently, my chances of convincing her we should buy a used Guilia Quadriglio are pretty slim.

4. Audi 90 – purchased in the early 1990s

The one thing I learned from buying the Audi 90 was to never buy a car in a hurry. My haste was prompted by the imminent arrival of my parents from the UK, who had threatened to stay with us for six weeks (six weeks!). Naturally, I decided they needed a car so they didn’t have to stay at home all day long. Rather than spend a fortune on a rental car, I optimistically thought a used car might be the more economical solution. How wrong I was.

My second mistake was to rely on a bloke in ‘the trade’ to help find me a suitable car. For some reason, a Saab was, we thought, the best choice. The dodgy dealer found a few old examples that were utterly shagged out. Then, with time running out, he turned up with an Audi 90, complete with a large dent in the door. It was cheap enough and, dent aside, looked sound enough, so I bought it. Besides, I always like the idea of a five-cylinder motor, I especially loved the smooth ‘warble’ sound of the UR Quattro I once drove. 

Sadly, the motor in this Audi 90, though tuneful, lacked any real punch. As usual, I squandered money on the car: new plugs, new points, timing adjusted, fuel injection tuned – nothing seemed to make any difference. It was beyond saving. 

With no time to fix the dent, I drove it to the airport to pick up my parents and found another problem with the Audi – insufficient boot space to carry their two suitcases. They were less than pleased to sit with a large case on their laps all the way home. In fact, it was a very marginal four-seater, and, when fully loaded with passengers and baggage, it struggled to get out of its own way. I don’t think I ever drove it fast enough to discover if it handled or stopped properly.

Yes, I’d bought a ‘dog,’ so bad it was sold before my parents left for home and it was replaced by a rental car. Why didn’t I think of that in the first place?

5. Citroen XM – purchased in the mid-1990s

I have enjoyed all manner of Citroens throughout my life; my father had bought numerous Citroens as the ‘second’ family car. They were always meant for my mother to drive but often borrowed by me at every possible opportunity. So, while my first cars were often old Lancia’s in need of attention, I would usually filch one of mum’s Citroen’s. 

There were several GS saloons, a GS wagon, followed by several BX variants, including a GTi version. All were good cars, comfortable, fast enough and, from memory, pretty reliable too. Later on, I bought a few Citroens myself, including a Dyane, DS23 and CX2400 Pallas. All were charming and delightfully quirky to own and drive.

Therefore, when looking for a daily driver in the 1990s, I thought I’d try a V6 XM sedan that was for sale at a well known Sydney Citroen dealership. I obviously didn’t take much of a test drive, otherwise, I would have noticed the terrible lack of refinement, especially for a purported luxury car – the XM scored very badly in the NVH department. The rest of the car was equally unimpressive: the automatic transmission was jerky, the V6 motor was noisy, the steering ‘rack’ rattled and the car felt loose like it lacked torsional rigidity – maybe it did? It was a car I really wanted to love, but just couldn’t.

Despite its swoopy appearance and impressive technical specification, the XM just failed to deliver in so many ways – what a disappointment.

Why I bought them

The aforementioned second rate cars were merely the worst of a number of lousy cars I’ve bought and sold over the years., Which begs the question: why did I buy them in the first place?

The answer is that even though I know I should buy something sensible, I’ll find an excuse to buy something madly French or Italian instead. I’m somehow wired to resist those practical, reliable car everyone else buys.

There was one exception. This was when I bought a brand new Toyota Echo, encouraged by my wife who is much more objective about cars than I’ll ever be. Predictably, the Echo proved to be the perfect little city car and performed faultlessly for 5 years. Of course, I never really warmed to it…

 That was probably the last really sensible car I owned, now over 10 years ago. I’ve avoided buying any automotive  ‘dogs’ lately, although with my track record you just never know when the next one will come along.