Dan Neil's 50 Worst Cars of All Time

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Dan Neil is one of the funniest guys in journalism and he has a Pulitzer to prove it. This piece he did for Time showcases some of the most jaw-droppingly awful cars of all time.

Some excerpts:

Milton Reeves had a very hard head and, apparently, very poor eyesight. While the general conformation of the automobile was largely sorted out in the first decade of the 20th century — particularly that business about four wheels — Reeves thought perhaps eight or a minimum of six wheels might provide a smoother ride.

The first sports car produced in postwar America was a major hunk of junk. Actually, at 1,100 lbs and 145 in. long, the Crosley Hotshot was a minor hunk of junk, but at least it was slow and dangerous. A wondrously mangled and compacted Hotshot can be glimpsed in the 1961 driver's ed scare film Mechanized Death.

The most ineffective bit of French engineering since the Maginot Line, the Renault Dauphine was originally to be named the Corvette, tres ironie. It was, in fact, a rickety, paper-thin scandal of a car that, if you stood beside it, you could actually hear rusting. Its most salient feature was its slowness, a rate of acceleration you could measure with a calendar. It took the drivers at Road and Track 32 seconds to reach 60 mph, which would put the Dauphine at a severe disadvantage in any drag race involving farm equipment.

It's just a delightful read and actually had me laughing out loud and that's very rare for me. I hope you enjoy it.

The 50 Worst Cars of All Time
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