I’m not necessarily a fan of torture. I don’t wish for people to stick needles under the fingernails of my enemies, but I have no problem at least inconveniencing them. Putting them into an unpleasant, frustrating environment for a spell would certainly do me good. I’d gladly set them up in a terrible room on the first floor of a hotel in Fort Lauderdale during spring break with a bunch of college students upstairs and an antenna TV that only gets grainy Home Shopping Network. Or, really, anywhere in Fort Lauderdale during spring break.
For me, though, doing semi-torture with motor vehicles is a far more satisfying way to gain vengeance on my adversaries. No, I’m not talking about running them down Maximum Overdrive style; I’m referring to forcing them to drive a car that is pure displeasure.
What would I select for this task? That’s a tough one since there are so many wonderful terrible options out there, but I’m having a hard time finding a better choice than a Chevrolet Chevette Diesel.
The Chevette was already old tech in 1976 when it was released into a world that had things like the VW Rabbit/Golf and Renault 5/Le Car. Those front-wheel-drive subcompacts offered space utilization and driving fun that the rear-drive, live-axle Chevette could only dream of. The little Chevy could have been introduced in the mid to late sixties and it still wouldn’t have been innovative, amusing to operate, or satisfying to own. By the end of the seventies, it was hopelessly dated.
To make this depressing little box more fuel efficient, GM engineers decided to go the route of most companies in the early eighties: they added a diesel engine. It beggars’ belief that one could make a Chevette even less enjoyable to drive, but Chevy found a way. Oddly enough, you could have purchased one of these Shove-Its with a three-speed automatic hooked up to the back of a 51-horsepower oil-burning lump.
Imagine driving a diesel Chevette to a destination a few states away. You know, get on the freeway entrance ramp, floor the gas and BLUHHHHH-BLUHHHH-BLUHHHHHHHHH … then enjoy a never-ending third-gear drone at 54MPH for hours and hours.
To add insult to injury, the car I’d give to my nemesis would be in one of those basically colorless shades that GM had, like a silver/beige with some exotic name such as Antelope Firemist, similar to that four- door below.
To ensure maximum pain, no air conditioning would be specified in this ‘Vette – but it’s not like the car could move under its own power when the A/C compressor kicked in anyway. I’m not totally devoid of heart, so I’d check off the AM radio on the options list so this person I hate can at least listen to talk radio or the same news over and over again, barely audible through the single dash top speaker that is steadily tearing its shitty paper cone as it struggles to out-yell the drone of that godawful motor.
A diesel Chevette truly is a soul-sucking device. Just look at this cabin. At least this one has a glove box door, unlike the bare-bones Scooter model. As always, I love the giant “tachometer-style” gas gauge.
The worst part? The Isuzu diesel under the hood is actually a rather indestructible piece, so your Chevette is built to deliver relentless torture for a long, long time. And with its fuel economy rating of 60 miles per gallon, it’ll be a long stint in the saddle between opportunities to enjoy the sweet relief of standing next to a grimy diesel pump.
How about you? Is there a car that you hate (and possibly even owned) that you’d happily force someone you despise to drive eternally? Let us know!
Torch already covered this at the other site. The 1951 Hoffman is the worst car ever made.
My enemies are either men in black suits or half crazed angry robots…
In the first case, these men would be sitting in lifted Toyota Land Cruiser 200s/Land Cruiser 70 series of blacked out offroad Lexus SUVs chasing me in my ragged and worn out GMC….
The next case would be interesting. The goons of Mr. Barricade again should be Land Cruisers (200 series or 70 series)….with a brutish decepticon being a Tundra chasing me….
A Jeep YJ or TJ, 4 cylinder, automatic, with a 6 inch lift, 40s, and stock axles, stock steering, and stock gearing. No doors and no top included. Windshield permanently folded down. Hehe good luck!
For tomorrow’s Autopian Asks, maybe we should ask what YOU should be driving, if the goal was to satisfy your worst enemy.
I’d end up in a Nissan Rogue or a large, Longhorn Ultra edition full-size pickup truck, or maybe a Hummer EV.
Nissan Rogue, so that I don’t accidentally develop any respect or sympathy for them.
A Cadillac with the “V8-6-4” engine. They’ll be luxurious and riding in 1980s opulence, until they aren’t.
My parents had a diesel Chevette for all of 45 minutes. It was a rental while their car was in the shop, and after finding out it maxed out at 53 mph on a flat road they returned it and demanded another car because my mom had to drive through the West Virginia mountains for work the next day.
I love the negativity here!
My pick is a 2012 Camry, bought used after a decade faithfully spent in Uber’s service. By now the smell of ass and vomit is no longer removable, the 500k miles 2.5L 4-pot puts out maybe 90hp, everything rattles and the bumpers are held with zipties. And it sports various coats of black paint covering lots of sloppily applied bondo.
Yeah.
Hmmm… I mean if you want someone to be miserable in a car, you can just go wild and get less comfortable and reliable as you go back in time. How about a Model A speedster? Not even an electric start!
But… they’d just find another way to get around, wouldn’t they? If a car is entirely useless they’ll not use it, or find ways to cope. I’ve had terrible cars. I’ve had cars so bad that I would make a practice of getting out of the house 30mins early so I could fiddle whatever might have gone wrong with it back into place just to arrive on time. I’ve had cars where a portable jumpstart pack was mandatory equipment. No, if a car is too terrible, you just cope.
If I want someone to suffer, I need them to not expect it. I need a car that is comfortable and enjoyable enough to be too much trouble to replace, reliable enough that planning for failures is too burdensome, but still enough trouble that every hesitating start, engine sputter, and momentarily blinking light on the dash is enough to make the heart drop and the stomach clench.
I’m going to say any 1998-2010 Mexico-built Volkswagen. They’ll be listening for every odd noise and stray smell like they lived in a haunted house, never certain of what’s safe and what’s the sign of a $3000 repair and a week of carlessness impending.
The Chevette was bad, but it was honest, and at least it was rear wheel drive. They were nowhere near the best choice for the money but most of them were decent little cars. Better than the Vega.
The Citation pretended to be better, but it really wasn’t. Probably one of those.
Was rear-wheel-drive really an advantage with a car like this?
Rear wheel drive in a Chevette was a hell of a lot of fun on snow covered lots in the winter. Beyond that, not much advantage. At least there wasn’t any torque steer.
However, one good thing was that occasionally replacing universal joints on the driveshaft was pretty simple, especially compared to frequent changes of CV joints or halfshafts. And working on the front end was much simpler than front wheel drive cars.
It sure felt like early CV boots and joints needed changed about as often as a long-life air filter. I hated front wheel drive for quite a while.
Ah right that’s fair!
Chevy Citation!
Also Dodge Aries/Plymouth Reliant
Ford Granada and Chevy Vega
Last I heard she was driving a new Ranger, after giving up on that piece of shit Subaru I begged her not to buy while we were dating. I dunno. It’d be hard to do worse than things she drove on purpose (there was another trash Subaru before that, as well as a grenade-transmission’ed Focus).
Something with no radio for NPR, no Bluetooth for Spotify, and no passenger seat for the guy that replaced me.
1938ish Mercedes 770K. Black. With driver(another person I despise) they must ride in the back. And cant sell it.
Arch nemesis car ride? I’d specify they ride in the back seat of a 1997 Saturn SC1 (the coupe). I had to ride in the back for a 14 hour trip and it was the most painful trip of my 48 year automobile-loving life. Those rear “seats” are not designed for human anatomy. I eventually lay with one seatback down and was half in the trunk and half in the cabin.
There is simply no question when it comes to the car I’d wish on an enemy. The 1986-87 Hyundai Excel. It’s quite possibly the very worst car ever produced. In 1986, I had been married for one year. My wife needed something cheap and dependable. We gambled on the new Hyundai Excel… and lost. Within the first 10,000 miles it began using over a quart of oil every week. Oil would blow out the rear and blind anyone driving behind you. The car was garbage.
I was gonna simply say “a Subaru” but then not only would I hate them for whatever reason made them my worst enemy, they’d be even more hateable because they wouldn’t shut about about how well it does in the snow, or how it’s “just the perfect car for around here.” And if they came to my house to tell me these things I’d be stuck with the oil stains they left behind in my driveway.