Our Two Cents: Cars we would kill, if we could
Welcome to this week’s episode of Our Two Cents, a series where we ask the staff here at Hagerty Media random questions about automobiles. Our folks spend far too much time every day thinking about cars, so it’s only fair to ask them the following question: What car would you kill and why?
Our answers are just as diverse as our interests, so have a look!
Don’t cross over
I would kill every single egg-shaped “crossover” vehicle simply because they’re hideous (see: Buick Encore). Do I need to expand on this? I feel like everyone should agree with this. They’re ugly as sin and shouldn’t exist. — Ben Woodworth
Toyota Prius, etc.
Any Prius before the latest version, and I’d also nominate the Smart car. Oh, and can I also throw those pedal-powered jitney bus/bicycle bar contraptions onto the fire? They go a whopping 5 mph on Woodward Avenue in Detroit, blocking traffic on a Sunday afternoon with a bunch of suburbanites hootin’ and hollerin’. — Todd Kraemer
Make like a tree and leaf
Nissan Leaf. The first one had such an opportunity to make a splash but was instead the ugliest car of the 21st century. The name is too stained by that mistake and should go away. — Larry Webster
Dropping the droptop
I vote for the last Chrysler Sebring convertible. Once I leaned over to use the lever to move the passenger seat back, and the entire seat bottom came away in my hand. Which is okay in a Boeing 737, but not a psuedo-luxe convertible. — Steven Cole Smith
Flamed out on flame surfacing
In an alternate universe, the 2002–2005 BMW 7 series (E65) woulda ended life as nothing more than a clay model. If so, the Bangle butt and that expensive-to-make (yet dumpy-looking) interior would have never let BMW slide into the convoluted, complex, and borderline offensive BMWs we see today. — Sajeev Mehta
No Eco, no Sport … no thanks!
Ford EcoSport. It’s basically a Ford Fiesta on stilts that costs many thousands more but has the same unpleasant interior. It’s just a hateful little crossover that was as uncompetitive as it was unattractive. It was more ponderous than the tight-handling Fiesta, but the real gut-punch was that the EcoSport arrived right around the time Ford said it would kill all non-SUV cars except the Mustang. — Eric Weiner
You are not us?
I was going to say the Ford EcoSport, but it looks like that one has been spoken for. (Put me down as seconding that motion, however.) So instead, I’ll turn my attention to the Lamborghini Urus. I don’t really care that it’s become the brand’s best-selling vehicle basically overnight. I don’t care that it’s a cash machine. I don’t care that Porsche was the first of those holdout sports-car marques to worship at the SUV altar. Porsche is German, which means logic reigns supreme. Of course there was going to be an SUV.
Lamborghini? It’s Italian. (This is the part where you guys “WELL ACKSHUALLY” me about the VW Group’s ownership and the parts sharing. Save it—I’m on a roll here.)
The whole brand is emotion and sex and things worried parents try to pray away. It’s crass, joyous, spiteful defiance of logic and reservation. The Urus feels like none of that. — Nathan Petroelje
Fry the oil-burner
This is such a fun game of the “butterfly effect” for me: I’ll think of one car that I would love to smite and, just a second later, realize that without that car we wouldn’t have something else. I thought of at least three despicable models that had positive implications in the marketplace. That said, I wish all the 1978–85 GM diesel cars never happened.
Those cars and the stories that spiraled from them put a bad taste in the mouths of so consumers when it came to diesel engines—a bad taste that was largely undeserved. If buyers would have received diesel cars that functioned properly and were actually thought-through, I think history would have changed. For good or bad I don’t know, but it’s hard to argue things wouldn’t have taken a different path. — Kyle Smith
Adios, Tin Lizzie
Channeling my inner Loki, I’d adopt the “agent of chaos” role for this scenario and I’d kill the Ford Model T. It would be interesting to see what the automotive landscape would look like today in its absence. — Stefan Lombard
Kill every icon!
Ooooh … if we’re doing chaos theory, let’s also kill the Tucker (no safety innovations), the Beetle (no VW or Porsche), the Mustang (no pony car wars), and the GTO (no muscle cars). Maybe the Corolla (no foreign cars made in the U.S.)? — Todd Kraemer
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A lot of bitterness expressed here. Let’s be up front about it. CUVs are people-movers with minimal wasted space, designed to haul a couple of people and kids from A to B, or a cargo area full of groceries or stuff from Home Depot. They are not intended to be sporty or high-performance, just utilitarian, the way smaller pickup trucks used to be. If you want to keep a classic RWD V8 coupe or ragtop in the garage for sunny weekends and fun, that’s your perogative. I own two CUVs for daily use and a 40-year-old Porsche for fun.
I would like to add the Tesla S looks like a pouting “Bridezilla” and the electric Mustang is just a hideous embarrassment
I agree, but at least it has something to break the monotony on the front unlike the Y. The Y just looks totally unfinished in that area. Saw one the other day where a guy made a “grille” on his Y with a paint brush or felt marker. It looked foolish, and yeah, I laughed…
Well, since I own one of these now, (2010 Sebring convertible) and have owned one (1982 Buick LaSabre) diesel of course, I’m a buyer of defective autos. I really like my vert, a two owner car that has really been
very well taken care of. None of the afore mentioned problems. I don’t really think it’s fair to rate a rental
car against one. I don’t know, but when I rent a car, like the saying, “Drive it like it’s rented”. The vert has
62,000 miles on it, nothing rattles or is loose, and drives and rides really nice. Every thing works, and has
been kept inside all its life, keeping it looking like new.
Now for the diesel. It got terrific fuel mileage, rode and drove nice. BUT, no power at all!!! We went to
Branson, MO one year and in the hills we were going up them at 35 miles an hour. With what I’ve learned
about diesels, IF only GM would have put just a small turbo on them, what a difference it would have made.
If a diesel doesn’t have air forced into it, they are powerless. Just my 2 cents.
1962 Savoy was the first ‘Muscle Car” by really all definitions. I think the wars would have happened anyway, and around the same time, it was an eventuality.
This was somewhat a of a low spot for this space. Are we talking about ugly, poor design, or poor execution ? GM diesel autos of the 80’s weren’t true diesel autos…just the Generals sorry attempt at dealing with the “fuel crisis”. Model T …seriously ? It was a true game changer that made the auto a mass market phenom. All icons ? Now if you want to talk junk the early Horizon/Omni was a real POS. Late 50’s Mopars had horrendous build quality, GM of the 80’s was really sad. We used to keep a stack of steering racks of that era on hand at the dealerships….but people returned year after year…the list goes on and on. My 85 300TD has 315k and still will drive it cross the country .
You can’t tar ’em all with the same brush. My mother bought a Dodge Omni in their first year of production, 1978, and it was a bare-bones car with no power anything, not even steering or brakes, and a 4-speed manual. Believe it or not, that was a very good car, which fell victim to nine eastern Ontario winters. That’s right: nine. Because of that car, my parents had nothing but Omnis and Horizons until my dad bought a used Camry in the mid-’90s.
Blame the same-mo, same-mo jelly bean cars on the EPA. Styling went out the door.
Wait – no mention of the YUGO???
Years ago there was a exhibit in Union Station, Washington DC were Yugos were “repurposed” – one was actually made into a big toaster.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/autohistorian/52016452838
or
https://www.flickr.com/photos/autohistorian/52016409331/
I agree that the E65 7 series was horrible, but I would not describe it as a “flame surfacing” design. Its flanks were unadorned. The “bangle butt”, the unattractive dashboard and awkward front end made it offensive. The flame surfacing was used on the Z4 which especially in coupe form has aged well.
If a car is a success or failure we always learn something. Even if it’s that we defiantly don’t like that style.
If I could kill a car it would be any non work version of a pickup truck. I get that pickups are cool and all, but they have spawned a culture of people that need to attach their manhood to them. That wouldn’t be bad but the trucks they are driving are nothing but luxury sedans that move an appliance once every two years, haul mostly groceries and kids sports equipment, and don’t even have a weathertight and secure cargo area. Once the phrase “we’re taking the truck” went from meaning some work was going to be done to meaning comfy roundtrip where the luggage will be on your lap if it rains, it was over for the pickup.
Most of the comments are irrational. There are still fine sedans produced and sold. The basic shape of SUV’s meets the needs of many owners. The styling details on some are not good, granted but the old saying that styling is subjective. Through the thirties and beyond, a critical but honest person finds similarities between the cars of a given period regardless of the maker. This is especially true of American cars..
Careful with that informed and rational response. This is the internet… Unfortunately.
I had a Chevy diesel wagon. The only problem I had was with cold fuel. It had a plug in heater that I left on overnight which worked fine until Dec, Jan and Feb. I don’t know what temps it was designed for, but it wasn’t for New England winters. It must have been totally useless in the Midwest. I could get the car started, however, after one tenth of a mile I had to take it back home. It would idle, however, refused to accelerate. Oh yea, there was another issue. I almost had to pay the dealer to take it in on trade.
Hagerty wouldn’t kill off anything. The company makes too much money on each and every car.
You don’t understand how insurance works do you?
You missed the Veloster and the last generation Civic. Both horrific messes, a mash up of curves and horizontal lines and design frippery.
How about the “personal luxury field of the mid ’70s? The most poorly packaged, JC Whitney crap covered, uselessly long, ill proportioned, lumbering, hapless and simply stupid gas sucking pigs.
The Torino Elite, Monte Carlo, Toronado and Cougar come to mind. Useless ignorant bovines.
The 71-73 Mustang: travesty.
Off with their cylinder heads
I agree with the Cross Over/SUV comments whole heartedly! The reason I think that particularly smaller SUV’s offend the eyes so much is due to proportions. Small cars don’t offend nearly as much because their proportion of vertical to horizontal is in balance. We as humans are tuned to observe things along the horizon…it has something to do with our prehistoric hunting and survival instincts. Fast forward to modern times, and we just can’t shake…nor should we…this liking for things horizontal. When manufacturers started raising vehicles up vertically…for what reasons I’m not exactly sure…the horizontal became out of proportion to the vertical. We all know it when we see it! We may not know why we know it, but when it’s not…well you get the scrunched jelly bean on stilts look, and it’s not very visually satisfying.