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!
70s CitiCar/Comuta-Car with 8 year old, miled up used car batteries.
In reviewing my fleet I am forced to conclude that, as suspected, I am my own worst enemy. I suppose the truck’s okay:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53904422051_14a2c40626_c.jpg
Austin
Allegro
Behind it is an Austin Maestro and in front of it is a Triumph Acclaim.
I wondered why this legendary British enthusiast’s garage looked so much like it was in America, only to then see the US License Plates. Hats off to you sir, and best of luck.
Thanks! I’m in Seattle. I should probably visit the UK at some point to see where all this stuff keeps coming from.
Waaaaaiiiiittttttttt… you’ve never been to the UK? I figured you were an expat looking to recreate the worst parts of your own childhood…
Nope, I’ve never been there. I was born and raised in Oregon, where my family has been since the late 1800s. Mostly of Norwegian origin, too, despite my English surname. I really have no excuse for the fleet.
Well, when you go, you will have to visit the Jorvik viking museum in York (yes, the vikings named the town NYC is named after).
https://www.jorvikvikingcentre.co.uk/
Any Ford with the powershift transmission. Only once had the experience myself, and it was unsettling like nothing else you’d ever experience in a car and still walk away unharmed. It really does feel like something is going burst into flame or grenade sharp mechanical parts through the floorboards.
The Chevette Diesel was the perfect car for shutting between your job at the mall, the grocery store and the community college. It was reliable, well put together (there wasn’t much that could go wrong) and served it’s purpose well – it’s purpose being not driving cross country or up steep hills quickly. It was not as horrible as some others out there.
My preferred torture device would be an off-lease Range Rover.
Those will make you go broke and give you bad credit.
If I was going to give my own worst enemy something to drive, it wouldn’t just be something I hated because I owned or driven and hated: it’d be something I know they themselves would hate.
There just isn’t one whole car for this scenario. Gotta give the V8 lover an EV! The one who treats a car like an appliance, give them an old Model T! You get the gist of it.
Agreed, this needs to be personalized. My ex, for example, is overconfident and likes to show off sometimes, but feels like shit for days after that inevitably goes horribly wrong. She might find a diesel Chevette sorta charming in a way, and there’s no way she could get in trouble with it. If you want to be evil then give her a 1st-gen Viper.
Right! Because if someone assigned me a diesel Chevette, I’d be as happy as a pig in shit.
Any very used and poorly maintained Mercedes S-class or BMW 7-series to make sure my enemy goes straight to the poor house.
My car, because it needs a braking system overhaul (the current system is completely shot), and I live on a relatively steep hill. 🙂
I want my arch nemesis to drive a Trabant. It’s slow enough that he’ll never catch me in a car chase, sounds distinctive so that I’ll always know if he is near, and is built of resin panels that will deform more than my body if he hits me with it.
I had to scroll deep to find this as it’s the answer I would give.
Ford Tempo/Mercury Topaz. And it’d have custom plates with his name on it…
I’m going with MY old Cruze. No AC, a valve cover leak that won’t go away so it occasionally drips oil on the exhaust, sending wonderful smells and even smoke into the cabin, a sensor of some sort went out (at least that’s what I assumed it was) so it shakes like a cammed V8 at idle but sounds like it’s going to die, windows that had tint poorly removed so they squeal when you try to put them down, I think that may have been the majority of the issues. Oh and the turbo went out, so that advertised 138hp? Ha! Maybe 100, probably not even that with how old it was. The transmission also shifted weird some of the time, so it’s probably about to die as well.
This car, exactly! I hope it’s your ex-car by now.
It is thankfully! I dumped it a month or so ago. The guy that bought it apparently loves the 1.4 and finds broken ones and does the fix and flip. I’ve been watching to see it pop up again but haven’t yet, honestly I hope he’s successful but more than anything I just needed it to not be mine anymore because man it was soul crushing.
There is a lot of money to be made doing that. Buy them broken for a song, fix them and sell to Carmax. It’s profitable, the check always clears, and you don’t have to deal with FB marketplace.
But eff that engine. I was so glad when I convinced my wife to get rid of her 1.4T Sonic. I was also glad when the cooling system held together long enough to get through the Carmax inspection.
I hadn’t even thought about him just selling to a dealer. That’s a good plan.
Hmm… Something so deeply misanthropic that it’d cause hatred to everyone and everything around them as they drive…
Put them in a Plymouth Cricket. A Hillman Avenger assembled by disgruntled men in Coventry who were lax on assembly because they knew it was going to the U.S., subjected to dubious modifications to be legal in the U.S., with cost cutting on what was already Hillman’s cheapest car to make sure the exchange rate didn’t lose them money, using gear ratios (three speed!) that made it scream near redline at highway speeds and eliminate any fuel savings it was marketed as having, with an engine that made all of 55HP, hiding inside a body that rusted so quickly it was drinking buddies with the Vega.
And then let them know that Australia got a version that’s a Bathurst legend and made 170HP.
My ex-wife’s college car and the car we had for part of the one year we were married was a 1984 escort wagon automatic. That is what I wish on enemies for many reasons.
Would your ex come with the car? That would make it *perfect*.
Lumina APV
A bunch of you fools look at them fondly with your rose colored glasses of nostalgia, but these were miserable shitboxes. Let’s start with the seating position. Specifically the relationship between the bottom of the drivers seat bottom and the gas pedal. It is so awkward, that to put your foot on the gas pedal you have to bend your foot so far back, you feel like your ankle may snap at any moment.
The quality of interior components reached an all time GM bean-counter low with the Lumina APV. My father-in-law owned a new one, and the driver’s seat back broke multiple times under warranty. Once out of warranty, the spare tire was used to prop the seat back up, which was just as well because the winch that held up the spare tire under the car had broken. As had the gas door release handle, requiring you to reach under the car and yank on the cable with each fillup.
But at least it was mechanically reliable?
Hahahaha! NO!
Fucker ate alternators like I eat snicker bars on Halloween.
But that’s just one APV. Ah, well, I’ve experienced a couple others, and they sucked just as bad. The final one I drove belonged to my wife’s aunt. She was put into nursing home, and I was charged with selling the stupid thing off for the family. Her van was a loaded, low mileage, mint condition example. This thing with a buffing and interior detailing would have been Cars and Bids/Bring a Trailer bait easy (this was before those were a thing though). As I drove it, every single interior piece of plastic creaking and rattling … my ankle about to break … the alternator bearing howling and praying for the sweet release of death … I screamed (to nobody else in the car), “No wonder GM went bankrupt! They foisted millions of these pieces of shit onto poor unsuspecting bastards!!!!”
Yeah, and the regular Luminas were also TRASH
The 1996-2004 Ford Taurus. Yeah, I know it’s got ac and a CD player and has enough power to get out of its own way. But of the many cars I’ve driven, it was definitely the most depressing, and one of the few I could find nothing good to say about, other than it was big. The seats were comfy you say, but I could never get comfortable in one for a long drive, and I’m not a big guy at all. Like sitting on a worn out sofa. And every time you put anything in the trunk, you now have a car that looks like a dog about to take a crap, since the rear suspensions on those seem to give out very prematurely. And…well, you have to look at it every day.
Having owned an early Shoveit with a gas engine and manual trans which was shitty on its own and easily the worst car I ever owned, I can only imagine how crappy an automatic diesel version would be.
Good job, I think you have grabbed one of the worst cars of all time.
1986 Renault Alliance with vinyl seats and no AC.
Even with a 4MT this was not a pleasant driving experience, and the glue that held the speakers in (?!?) would fail in hot weather so they would end up pointing back into the dash. Fun.
OTOH the radio did have both kinds – AM *and* FM – so it might still have been better than a worst enemy would deserve.
I have a few very specific options from work. First, we have a pair of Porsches, both 99-00ish. First, a maroon-ish Boxster, barfing coolant from the water pump, full of fast food trash in the passenger seat, owned by a high school kid and featuring a rotten banana someone had tucked into the fuel door. Second would be a yellow 911 which came in years ago with sparkly oil but kept going, eventually into a curb of some sort. The owner then dumped it in his field for about 6 years before bringing it to us once again and WILDLY understating the damage. Along with glittery oil, it now also features loads of rodent poo and wasp nests! Finally, a memory from long ago, some sort of early 2000s Mercedes C class owned by an elderly man who also used his vehicle as a trash can and smoked HEAVILY in the vehicle with the windows up. Impossible to drive with the windows up.
1986 Toyota Tercel 3 spd auto, no air, am only, vinyl interior, manual locks and windows. Takes days to get to 60mph. Begins buzzing about 20mph. The buzz changes to the sound of multiple insane hornet hives surrounding you as you get up to speed. Will last forever. 3 hours driving the damn thing from mid Florida to south Georgia nearly killed me.
I was thinking about something from either DTs or Mercedes stable but if I had to have owned it I will say I don’t have one.
Any vehicle that has truly earned a reputation as a widow maker.
Car I hate that I’ve owned? Early 2000’s Hyundai Accent.
That said, I have Sammy Hagar to thank for this, but go more nefarious, get an old Italian exotic like the 512BB (the one he couldn’t drive 55) or Countach or something, but keep it limited to 80km/h, only let them drive it in urban areas. I mean, obviously for their own good so they don’t get stranded in a low cell service area, not because they’re supposedly miserable cars to drive if you’re not out on the open road.
This one I did to myself… tow vehicle broke day before needing to tow, so I borrowed a friends 3500 van with the 4.6L engine. This thing was a heap he’d only use for some big jobs within 10 miles. The muffler literally exploded before I got it when it backfired once so it is now shaped like a megaphone, the windshield and door leaked, the gas pedal broke off so you only had the rod sticking down just barely within reach of your toe, you had to refil the coolant every 100 miles, you can’t fill up more than 1/2 a tank or else it’ll leak out the rust holes in the side, and I had to drive it with a 8000lb trailer for 4 hours each way.
Oh god, more suppressed memories came back… the ac was broken, but that didn’t matter as the blend door was stuck on hot, and neither of the power windows worked. radio was broken, but not that any radio could overpower the rattling of the metal shelving in the back, and lastly there was some sort of short where if your headlights are on you can’t use anything else like wipers, turn signals, etc. or else it blows a fuse and the whole dash goes dead.
You obviously had those traumatic details buried deep. Sorry you had to re-live them.
What model year was it, roughly? Holy hell. I’m assuming you mean Chevy….right? I don’t think Ford put the 4.6l Triton into the 350s.
Also, damn, my van definitely had problems but compared to those, it was trouble-free.
Early 2000’s Chevy cargo van. He got it for I think $1800 about 10 years ago from the fleet of some sort of construction related company with around 90K miles on it and a solid drivetrain minus the radiator, but the body / inside / everything else was just trashed. Very useful for hauling large stuff around the city and not worrying if anything happened to it, got broken into at night (locks didn’t work), etc. but pure misery to be inside of.
I drove one of those once. I borrowed it from my cousin so I could move some furniture. You’re right, the hour I spent with it was a memorable hour of automotive torture. Everything was broken, and it was scary to drive.
BMW ActiveHybrid X6, and they’ll have to pay for repairs themselves.
Oooh, or what about one of those diesel engines BMW did with three turbos? One of them was electric, I think.
Three turbos??? Holy crap! Unreliable times three.
A Ford Pinto, the problem will resolve itself.
A Nissan Versa sedan with a CVT
Obviously your enemy is not Jatco Xtronic CVT
Not my enemy, but the enemy of my enemy so to say
I drove a versa note one time with that transmission. My goodness…
All Nissans with the Jatco CVT and more than 40k miles.
Well lucky for your enemy they won’t have to drive it for very long.