My original phrasing for today’s Autopian Asks question was “What Car Most Wants To Kill You,” to which Mark Tucker (your friendly neighborhood Shitbox Showdown scribe) answered “Christine,” the possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury that causes so much mayhem in Stephen King’s famous novel and John Carpenter’s 1983 hot-rod horror adaption of the same, Janice. (No, both book and film were called Christine. I just wanted to see if you were paying attention). Now, Christine surely did some killing, but you had to cross Christine in order to become a target. So I would say the car most likely to kill you (in the spirit of Mark’s interpretation of the question) is The Car from the film The Car – which was also possessed, making me wonder if it’s not time we had a car-exorcism movie. A couple of priests screaming at an Austin Healey for two hours in an effort to get demons out of the electrical system? I’d watch.
OK, let’s get back on track. What I was looking for with my original Q was cars that are dangerous to you as a driver, not dangerous to you as a teenager in a 70s or 80s B-movie – which is probably why David sagely reworded the question. But still, Christine works. Or at least a 1958 Plymouth Fury works as a most dangerous car, as does virtually anything from the era of metal dashboards, optional seatbelts, and non-telescoping steering columns. Of course, you need to get into an accident before any of that stuff matters, and if you’re driving like a person making any effort to stay alive, a vintage machine like the big Fury isn’t likely to bite you.
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As for cars that do seem hell-bent on putting drivers into ditches, around poles, and up against Jersey barriers, two big offenders come to my mind: Porsche 911s, particularly of the air-cooled variety through the mid-70s at the very least, and the original Dodge Viper (or all of them, but especially the OG). As anyone who professes to know cars will tell you, those 911s liked to get very loose when lifting off the gas mid-corner, and many a Porsche pilot looped their machines as they learned this the hard way (Not this guy in the first episode of CHiPs though – bro can drive). And the Dodge Viper, well … Viper gonna Viper. Maybe you just burn the bejeezus out of your calves on the side pipes, maybe you spin on cold tires into oncoming traffic, maybe you need to get a foot full of brakes and torpedo into the median, ‘cuz the Viper landed in showrooms with ten cylinders and zero antilock brakes (or any other electronic stability doodads).
Now you tell us: What’s The Most Dangerous Car To Drive?
Top graphic image: Christine/Columbia Pictures
The LLV at work. No heat/defrost, no wipers, engine stalls in traffic and the brake pedal goes to the floor. However, I’m sure the single wood screw holding the shoulder belt bracket to the back of the seat will save my life should I wreck. It seems my boss thinks it’s easier to kill me than hand over a pink slip.
I hate to be the correction guy, but here I go.
The dangerous 911s was the 930. It was a turbo when, well, the world hadn’t really figured out turbos. Coked-out executive would be motoring around a curve, then boost would kick in mid-corner and send said exec off the roadway rear-first.
This was before the days of airbags, when even wearing a seatbelt was rare for an adult and the car seats for children existed mainly to sever the digits of the siblings seated beside.
That’s why the car was known as the widow-maker.
The 2001 GT2 was The Widow Maker, but I digress.
Probably this ole Nissan I traded some dillies for.
We’ll see. It gets me where I need to go.
She rips though!
And both drum brakes are still workin at least…
Any one with shi##y tires or brakes.
True. Never go cheap on brakes or tires.
Ever watch a Murder Mystery show?
Rule #1… The person that seems to be the most logical and obvious murder is never the murderer.
Rule #2… The least expected and most obviously innocent person is the murderer.
It’s that way with cars.
Get into some thing flyweight like a MG Midget. As soon as you get into the thing, you know it’s a dangerous thing that wants to kill you. And as soon as you start driving it, the sense of speed at even 5 mile re-enforces this. But in reality, you will chicken out long before it can get to speeds it will hurt you if you run into something.
Now get into a big ass vehicle. Say a Suburban. You are surrounded by FEET of steel. It’s got airbags on its airbags. It’s got 5 star+ safety ratings and it feels like you are sitting in a living room drinking your beverage of choice and just taking it easy.
Until that Red light that seems a mile away is right in front of you! There’s absolutely no sense of speed in these things, especially if you aren’t used to them and they can pick up insane speeds without even telling you.
These things are cold blooded murders. If they can’t get you, they will get someone, they don’t care.
Oh, as for the Midget being unsafe? It sure as hell is. Because some soccer mom in a Tahoe is going to run over it and think it’s a speed bump.
You make me think of Paul Walker’s death – even all the state of the art nannies that money can buy baked in can’t totally sand the edges off something dangerous.
There are zero nannies on the car that Walker got killed in. That was part of the polemic. The Carrera GT never got any stability control aids whatsoever.
Officially it was a feature, because purity driver’s car genuine racer blah blah blah.
Unofficially it was close to impossible to fit a stability control that wouldn’t massacre the car’s behavior because too many vibrations and chatter of I forgot what exactly sort would have tricked it too often and too heavily.
T’was developped 20+ years ago after all. Those technologies were but about 10 years old back then.
Some crunchy info from one of the first lawsuits – here:
https://www.sportscarmarket.com/columns/legal-files/carrera-gt-crash-settled-for-4-5-million
“…The sole claim against Porsche was that the CGT was defective because it was designed without electronic stability control, which Porsche calls PSM. McClellan deposed two German engineers on the subject, and their answers were inconsistent. One testified that Porsche did not think that its PSM system would work on the CGT because the car’s frame structure and suspension mountings would create strong vibrations that would interfere with its operation. The other engineer testified that PSM was not offered because the customers didn’t want it...”
No nannies and old hard tires. bad combination with that much power.
Great info – I didn’t realize that!
I remember there was also a low-tech angle to the crash – old tires. Probably one of the last things most of us think of when we think about accidents.
At some point during the MB W140’s life the mirrors were redesigned to generate aerodynamic noises at high speeds, on purpose.
Turned out there was more than one accident with the first gen with drivers taking an Autobahn exit at 100+ mph rather than 45ish, because they were getting no sense of speed whatsoever.
My 1989 Geo Prism was pretty dangerous to drive I would say.
For reasons I never quite solved, it would stall on left hand turns if I had less than a quarter tank of gas. This left me motionless in a few intersections at inopportune times. Also, the thing was so rotted out, even DT would think twice about riding in it. Exhaust had a tendency to leak its way into the car when it was cold out. It reeked of gasoline if i filled it above 3/4 tank. Once the power steering shut off on me randomly while driving but came right back after restarting the car. Im sure I’m missing a few things.
Loved that car though.
I know I’m not answering the actual question, but “Josh Brolin’s dad”? You mean “Barbra Steisand’s husband”? 😉
The Mazdaspeed3 is the only car I’ve driven that felt like it actively wanted to kill me. It was awesome.
Lotus Elan? Steel backbone, nothing but fiberglass between you and the brodozer about to t-bone you.
Yep, but it’s so nimble you can get out of the way of almost anything!
A Trabant.
Besides its overrated cuteness (well, the first gen wagons WERE cute indeed) – a plastic car with the fuel tank located pretty much under the windshield was a fun thing.
I owned one for a summer in Budapest. Hungarian joke – In a crash, what do Trabbie drivers die of? Paper cuts.
The fuel tank was the least of your concerns. That duroplast fabric waste in resin body shell was roughly as sturdy as a cardboard box.
But a Trabant was too slow to be all THAT dangerous, at least in a place where everything else was about the same.
My ’67 east coast (PA and MA) VW. Rust that would have had David drooling. Shocks punched through the A-frame. Running boards that broke off when stepped on by a 40 lb. child. Believe it or not, my first employer after school paid to have it shipped to California, in lieu of giving me a few hundred dollars. Drove it another year (1980), including transporting my sister-in-law to the hospital when she went into labor.
A Cybertruck, if you’re an idiot relying on FSD like the guy who’s Cybertruck wrapped itself around a pole.
A Model T or any car that has wooden spokes to support the tires. I still remember a couple of enthusiasts dying because the spokes broke on a mountain road during a long distance rally.
Theres too many old cars, so i’ll just go with current(ish). 392 Wrangler has to be it. I really dont think there’s any car more dangerous to its occupants than that thing. Wallowy suspension, a huge engine, a car with very minimal safety features frequently driven without doors or a roof? no other option.
I have to agree with that, riding in my brother’s gladiator that has been tuned to death, sits on 37s, and is driven by a ~20 year old like its a sports car. the thing wants to roll over on any given turn due to the tires and suspension, it can get to absolutely absurd speeds for something like that, and cant stop as well as it can go. paired with the lack of roof and doors in the summer is just a recipe for disaster one of these days.
I had a ’65 Beetle, lifted to the moon on Bus reduction boxes with a Stinger exhaust that would burn off 3 layers of flesh if you slipped on ice while walking past the car and grabbed it out of instinct, a rear motor cage that never attached correctly, loose transmission mount bolts, a 2-barrel 44mm Weber that was overkill in wrong and dangerous ways, a fuse box that I isolated from the body with electrical tape, and drum brakes that failed at the slightest hint of rain.
So, you know, it’s really great to be here today, guys.
In high school, my ride was a 1960 Chevy El Camino. It was rusted to hell, but I patched over it with fiberglass and bondo. Dumb, I know. NOW.
But I bolted some racing harnesses into the Swiss cheese floors, and anchored the upper belts to the package tray behind the seat. The illusion of safety was complete!!
In addition to the above safety gear and the non-existent body integrity, it also had a metal dash. And it was an x-frame car, so no side impact protection AT ALL!!
But she never left me stranded. Taught me a lot about cars, particularly what not to do.
And she hated my girlfriend, who turned out to be a cheater. So she wasn’t ALL bad.
Of course, I have no idea what she’d have done if I hadn’t ditched the girlfriend…
So yeah, my 1960 Chevy El Camino is the car most dangerous for ne to drive, and likely would have eventually killed me, one way or another.
I think Peter nailed it with the 911 b/c of the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing thing. Vipers look mean and like what they are, but 911s are fairly common, you see plenty of them on the roads. Then actually driving one, they’re disarmingly docile and fine around town; they fairly purr. It’s only when you do the smallest something wrong that that back end comes around, and when it does, everything happens unexpectedly hard and scarily fast.
Cars from the ’50’s would have to be the worst, safety wise. They’re fast enough to easily drive in modern traffic, yet are horribly under tired, under braked, and have essentially zero passive safety features.
A close second would be cars from the ’60’s : Even more power and no improvements to safety other than rudimentary seat belts and all the crash worthiness of a wet noodle.
The deaths per miles driven in the ’50’s and ’60’s was 3-4 times what it is now. Yikes.
It’s always striking to see a vintage muscle car from the front or rear (i.e. the angles rarely shown in pics) – the skinniness of the tires is jarring in comparison to the bulk of the vehicle.
I had an hvac co-op job in highschool. I was supposed to be a tech’s gopher. But he went out on disability right when i started. I went from task to task, but for a while i was put in the “death van” to do maintenance calls (clean coils, replace filters, check system operations). That thing had a sticky throttle where the solution was repeatedly stab the gas pedal. I was 16. On my own seeing clients. I lasted a couple of months and they didnnot exist 6 months later
A Nissan Altima, because of the possibility of being mistaken for an armed and dangerous fugitive
I have to say any FSD Tesla. They actually drive into emergency vehicles so they not only try to kill you they damage any emergency vehicles from rescueing you.
The level of inattention of Tesla drivers is amazing.
Pretty much any car made in the 1910s. Just starting the car can kill you, as the the crank is situated at the exact perfect height as to swing back and gore you through the abdomen. This was actually a common way to end up severely crippled back in the turn of the century. Aside from that, fueling the thing was also dangerous because you poured the fuel directly into the tank instead of a filler neck which was not ventilated, meaning you could ignite yourself. Driving the thing was also dangerous as the suspension was often a solid axle on leaf springs meaning the steering wheel jerked with every bump, and you controlled the throttle with the switchgear on the wheel. Try and change speeds when going over a bump and you might crush your fingers. Or worse. Oh, and they also had a bad habit of flipping over because they were built like carriages and thus top heavy. You’d likely be stabbed by something in or on the car when it flipped or be pushed into the mud (no paved roads) by the weight of the body and suffocate to death.
Tillers! if you turn too quick, the centrifugal force shifts you to full lock, then ejects you, keeps tiller there so it can circle round and run you over.
“… But on the plus side, it doesn’t take a dump in the middle of the road.”
Based on where I live, the most dangerous cars to drive are all the rusted vehicles in a state with NO safety inspections (I’m talking to you Wisconsin!)
You do not realize that all those ancient rusty vehicles are only there because they have avoided accidents. The average new car is totaled if the driver farts. But an old rusty car that is running 30 or 40 years later? I’m saying safety vehicle.
Here, many cars are quite rusty in just 10 years, and with the average car age climbing to over 12 years, they may soon outnumber rust free vehicles.
Survivorship bias
Are you TRYING to summon the ghost of old DT? Legend has it if you say “rusted vehicle” 3x, he appears in a Project Jeep that’s got “good bones”.
Nissan Altimas.
For some unknown reason, they are always wrecking and crashing. Researchers state that “low credit score” seems to be a potential reason for the high number of crashes per capita.
Any tow vehicle when the trailer tongue weight exceeds it’s max capacity about 3 fold. You don’t exactly steer the vehicle but more like try to blow it back on course. Fortunately this was in a private field and I only had to go about 1/2 a mile.