WORST Cars From The 1970s, Nobody Wants Back!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มิ.ย. 2024
- Worst Cars From The 1970s, Nobody Wants Back!
#nostalgia #cars #1970s
Welcome back, folks! Ever find yourself reflecting on the period when the Ford Pinto and Chevrolet Chevette stood as icons of automotive breakthroughs? No? Well, neither do they. Let's revisit the 70s, when these cars may not have been champions in every contest, but certainly won our hearts. It's a nostalgic trip to when the charm of driving often came with a repair bill. Shall we?
📺 Watch the entire video for more information!
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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:25 AMC Gremlin
1:21 Chevrolet Vega
2:12 Ford Pinto
3:21 Ford Thunderbird
4:12 Dodge Monaco
4:58 Oldsmobile Cutclass Supreme
5:52 Ford Mustang II
6:44 AMC Pacer
7:37 Bricklin SV-1
8:30 Ford Mercury Bobcat
9:22 Chevrolet Chevette
10:25 Chrysler Imperial
11:36 Dodge Aspen
12:34 Chevrolet Chevelle Laguna
13:49 Ford Gran Torino Elite
14:35 Pontiac Catalina
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Have you ever driven or owned any of the cars on our list?
Ridden in or drove most of these and can attest that the '70's were challenging times for auto makers as despite their various shortcomings people couldn't help themselves from purchasing poorly executed cars.Obvious/severe rust (I live in S/W Ontario) in as little as two years (I remember one GMC truck owner spray painted, "Lemon" on the side of his vehicle.My dad bought a 4 year old Aspen wagon, which had a small fire on the floor from the headlamp dimmer switch as I was driving. Also had burnt valves, so I had to change out the head, and the manual shifter would bind, so you had to jack the car up and hammer the jammed pieces back into alignment. Ohh I got a bunch. Be thankful those days are behind us.
Sales of four million Pintos in ten years seems like a sucesss to me.
Looking at stats today the Pinto had no more rear fire/punctured tanks than any other hatch of the early 70s. Lawyers just found a memo of dumba$$ execs that buried Ford.
All short tailed cars popular in 1971 that still had parts like diffs and tanks from older trunk models of the previous decade had the post pumpkin to exposed tank problem:
Gremlins, Vegas, Colts, ....
I owned a '74 Pinto back in the mid '70s-early '80s. While not the most stylish or fashionable car to drive, it was very reliable. Not a terrible car at all.
That wasn't the problem. Ford new what that was and refused to recall them.
Whoever put the video segments together dropped the ball on the Cutlass Supreme segment. The Cutlass shown was two body generations older than the diesel Cutlass Supremes. The car shown was never available with a diesel.
What a ball bag !
The Gremlin was my Mothers first car she bought brand new. It was a great car and never had any problems.
Ford had what they needed in that era with the 1964 Falcon. They were very good in every way, good gas mileage, great comfort, good handling, and room for six adults. Great reliability and easy to work on. What more could we ask?
Yes, and the Falcon platform gave birth to the Mustang, Cougar, Maverick and probably some others! Solid Value.
My mom's sister got divorced they had a 67 Firebird he traded it in and got her a used Falcon. She was so mad at him. lol.
OMGs! I remember the 1964 Ford Falcon!! It was a reliable midsize car Ford ever made! Its engine starts quicker than the Plymouth and Chevy Nova
The 1970 Bunkie Thunderbird came out four years before the first gas crisis. Its success or failure had zero to do with low fuel economy or fuel prices. The Mustang ll was not in response to the gas shortage either. Only if Ford Motor Company had a crystal ball. The Mustang ll was introduced in September 1973, the same month OPEC cut oil and raised prices. The Mustang ll came because insurance costs for high-performance cars were getting out of hand, which caused demand to fall. Chrysler eleminated the Barracuda and Challenger in 1974, as did AMC with its Javelin. The pony car market was shrinking, and the personal luxury car was in demand. The 1974 Mercury Cougar grew in size. The Ford Elite came out as a personnel luxury car in the Thunderbird tradition. There were other cars that became popular, like the new for 1975 Chrysler Cordoba. Even the Dodge Charger became somewhat of a sporty luxury car. By no means was a Charger a high performance car anymore. It was shifting customer preference that happened, not gas shortages. The Pacer came out in March of 1975. It wasn't meant to be a gas saving car in the sense that other cars were. The Pacer was sopposed to be powered by a Rotory engine supplied by General Motors. Rotary engines are not known for their great fuel economy. GM abandoned the rotary engine project, which put AMC in a precarious situation. AMC had to cram the 232/258 six cylinder engine at the last minute. The Pacer was produced to save AMC. AMC was losing traction and needed something to sell that wasn't a facelift of a ten year old car. AMC put too much money into the 1974 Matador Coupe and the Pacer. The money would have been better spent elsewhere. The Pacer sold 95,000 units its first year. By 1976, most of the people who wanted a Pacer bought one in 1975, and sales dropped dramatically until it was discontinued in 1980. So when the Pacer came out in March of 1975 gas prices were coming down and oil was flowing. The EPA was starting to crack down on fuel mileage and CAFE standards made it mandatory that auto manufacturers produce cars that got better mileage. As far as the fuselage 1969 Imperial shown, then magically became a Chrysler 300 in some of the photos again did not suffer because of gas shortages or concern for the environment. Yes, I know Earth Day April 1st 1970 was the beginning of the climate concerns and yes cars had to become far less polluting. The 1969 Imperial was on the drawing board in 1966 and the designers were not concerned with gas mileage. They were trying to produce a car to compete with Cadillac and Lincoln, who also were not concerned with climate or fuel economy. As a matter of fact the Fuselage Chryslers.were produced from 1969 to 1973. The new for 1974 models were even bigger than the previous generation. They lasted til 1978. Chrysler was caught off guard because the new larger 1974 models. Chryslers and Imperials went on sale at the same time the first fuel crisis hit in September 1973. Chrysler only had large cars and suffered for it. Chrysler remedied that in 1975 with the first small Chrysler, the Cordoba. Imperial has always struggled with sales. Imperials strongest year was 1957 when they produced approximately 37,000 cars. Imperial was never a real threat to Cadillac or Lincon. The 1976 Aspen/Volare were not a result of gas shortages. It was a replacement for the Valiant/Dart, which was 10 year old platform. Sales were still strong for the Valiant/Dart which gave them one more year till they were discontinued for 1977. The Ford Elite was introduced in February 1974 during the height of the first fuel shortage. It was a personal luxury car. It was by no means ever designed to be a muscle car. Thay would be a huge stretch. Yes it had stiff competition, but it sold 92,000 cars from February 1974 till the 75 came out in September 1974. Not bad for a short first year. We need to get this straight. The Elite was considered an economy version of a luxury car and did not struggle because of fuel economy. It thrived. It was meant for someone who wished for a Thunderbird but could only afford a Torino. The 74 Cougar is on the exact same platform, and Mercury sold a ton of these. The only reason Ford discontinued the Elite in 1976 is because Ford downsized the Thunderbird onto the Torino platform for 1977. The LTD ll replaced the Torino, and the Thunderbird replaced the Elite. The Cougar replaced the Montego, and the Cougar XR-7 got a modified roof line to distinguish it from the base Mercury Cougar, which was offered with a four-door model and a station wagon for 1977. The same car tweaked a little different to distinguish itself from the lessor cars. Gas shortage one went from late 1973 til around April 1974. Gas shortage ll happed from about February 1979 to about June 1979. Although prices stayed high, at least gas was a little easier to get. During the height of the gas shortages, we had to wait in long lines and could only legally buy gasoline during certain hours, depending on what flag was up at the gas station. Green meant get in line. Yellow meant emergency vehicles only, and red meant no one was buying gas. Some stations limited the amount of fuel you could buy as well. We even had odd and even days for gasoline purchases based on your license plate number. Part of the shortage part was that people typically drove around with about a quarter of a tank of gas. When the supply tightened up their was panic buying. So now people were driving around with a full tank of gas, which drained the supplies at the gas station which was in addition to actual reduction in gasoline production. Sort of like during Covid 19 when buying toilet paper became a crap shoot. People were stockpiling toilet paper, which left some people without toilet paper. Same thing with eggs last year. Shortages cause panic buying.
some of the old flops are actually worth some change today.
Owning a Chevette by the end of the 70s and into the 80s, was the surest form of birth control for young men, because girls would either run away at mach 3, or die of laughter, if a guy who drove a Chevette asked them on a date.
The Chevrolet Chevette. Did it have a sister car in Opel/Vauxhall? I've a vague feeling the European makers had something similar
Yes
Of the "hundreds" of people that alledgely died in Pinto fires, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration determined that 27 actually did. Given the car's production numbers (which were over 2 million) it was determined that the Pinto was no more fire prone than any other car of the time and even less fire prone than the concurrent Datsun 1200, Datsun B-210 and Toyota Corolla.
Yet none of the other cars suffered the horrible publicity that the Pinto did. The other cars are pretty much forgotten but the Pinto’s infamous reputation has endured for about 50 years. Sadly, most of the people who repeat the story are far too young to know the truth.
Kinda reaching there. And you do know the Cutlasses you were showing had absolutely nothing to do the the diesel right?
The olds you picture as a 1979
Model is an older cat by the way I had the Mustang Ii from 1977 it was a Ghia model with a V6 it was a poj but the redemption of this car is Jaclyn Smith drove one like mine in Charlie’s Angels she looked good.
Lee Iacocca was the person who green lighted the Ford Pinto. He said people didn't care about safety. Ford knew about the fire problem when they tested it, but didn't ant to spend the money to fix it
Yeah, Ford decided that paying the wrongful death .lawsuits was cheaper than retrofitting millions of cars.
The Laguna? No way! And I loved my Gremlin too!
I had a Chevy Shove-It.
I would love to find a Gremlin today, they were a hoot to drive!! Me and my buddy cruised many a neighborhoods in our younger days.
The AMC 4WD cars were ahead of their time.
I looked at the original Pinto and Vega. I thought they were both good looking, especially the Vega Kamback. They could have had it all and both screwed up building junk. Luckily, I ended up purchasing a 72 super beetle.
I had a gremlin that had such a good air conditioner it would literally snow in the car in the humid summer heat
I owned a Gremlin in 1976. It was a yellow car with a black stripe and a manual stick on the floor. I don't recall any mechanical issues at that time. Great car to get around, but it sure brings back memories.
Knew someone with one of the Gremlins. Hated driving in it!
The 1970 base model was an uncomfortable ride at best.
A '73 Gremlin was my 1st car. The stereo I put in it was more than what I paid for it. And in spite of the "lack of power" - I did manage multiple speeding tickets with it.
During the Imperial segment, the first car shown was indeed an Imperial, but the ones shown after were Chrysler New Yorkers or Newports.
The Gremlin struggled with lack of power? It was far more powerful than the Vega (not counting the Cosworth, of course) and Pinto, both of which were four cylinders, while the Gremlin was either an inline 6 or V8 (except the ones with the Audi 4 cylinders, those were dogs).
I had a 1974 Gremlin in 1980. It was a straight six with a three on the floor manual shift. No shortage of power.
Mustang originated in 1964 not 1974 right?❤
I drove pretty much all these models back in the day- my favorite hands down: the AMC Pacer! Loved that car! ❤❤❤❤
Spent a fair amount of time cruising in Shelley's "Little Green Vega" listening to Led Zeppelin's "Houses of The Holy" in 1973, Carpentersville Illinois. Dundee Community High School class of '74. Great times. Hi Shelley.
AMC was trying to make the Pacer look like the Jetsons bubble car.
Ford thunderbird looks good 😁
You forgot the Ford Galaxie 500. My dad bought a brand new one in 1972. So my dad, mum, and 7 year old me, go pick it up from dealer and the car literally dies about a mile down the road. So he had to get it towed back to the dealer. Also, the roof rusted out about a year later. I think he ended up dumping it for a GM a few years later. In later years, whenever that car was brought up in conversation, my dad would let every 4-letter word fly to describe that car, and Ford.
My grandfather owned a Ford Pinto.
I owned a 1977 Dodge Monaco. Hated that car. Had fuses, and it leaked oil like it was going out of style.
Falcon-cougar-thunderbird
0:26 The Gremlin was a great concept, basically a generously sized compact's front seat without so much ass-end overhang, a rear seat that wouldn't serve for adults traveling all day but more than adequate to bring home a month's groceries, and the standard 199 cubic inch six was the peppiest of the American subcompacts. In fact, it beat the Vega and the Pinto to the showrooms. The available 232 and 258 sixes were smooth and powerful in such a light car, and even V8 engines were offered. The Gremlin body shell profile and chassis platform continued into the eighties, even including all-wheel-drive _Eagle_ models.
1:22 Vega, the car that rusted in the showroom. It should have been a better car than it turned out to be, and with another six months of development before release to the public it probably would have been.
2:12 I saw several rear-end collisions involving Pintos and other Ford products back in the day, but, fortunately. no fires. People forget that the fuel filler pipe located behind the license plate or elsewhere on the rear of the car is vulnerable. I remember a Montego that had been rear-ended, customer comes in asking for a fill-up and as soon as I squeezed the handle the gas started spilling: the filler pipe had ripped out of the tank. Under the wrong conditions the burst Pinto and Bobcat fuel tanks would shower the car's occupants with gasoline because the top pf the gas tank was the floor of the cargo bay. Same problem with the Maverick/Comet twins, though these weren't hatchbacks.
See also the side-saddle fuel tanks on some Chevrolet and GMC light trucks of the period, in those inside-the cab tanks popular in earlier pick-ups.
3:22 The worst feature of the '70 T-Bird and certain other Ford-built models (notably the Mercury Cyclone) of the period was that damnable and vulnerable long beak. 4:02 WTF is a '77 Royal Monaco Dodge doing in this segment?
4:13 Monaco was available in two sizes (three if you count the 115-inch wheelbase B-body coupes shown at 4:18 and 118-inch sedans at 4:40 as separate, and the Leviathan-class Royal Monaco), none particularly fuel-efficient.
I did have one of the B-body models. a '74 Coronet sedan, same body design as the rebadged B-body Monacos (and the almost-identical Plymouth Satellite/Fury) with the 225 slant six and three-on-the-tree with no power nothing, though a thoughtful previous owner had hung a knee-knocker aftermarket air conditioner under the dash.
My main memory was that the Green Latrine would go out of alignment backing off the alignment rack.
4:59 Every var represented in this segment as a _'79 Olds Cutlass Diesel_ is a 1972 or earlier model, and these model years never offered a diesel.
5:53 _Mustang II,_ not _Mustang._ Reskinned Pinto.
6:45 The original sketches of the Pacer were quite modern and attractive, but what was produced looks like someone pumped it up like a water balloon. It didn't help that the GM-sourced Wankel engine around which the Pacer was designed never made it to production, that AMC had sold the tooling for the Buick V6 (acquired by Kaiser in 1967, mothballed since 1971) back to Buick and AMC had to find a way to shoehorn an inline six into its revolutionary small car.
7:38 Malcolm Bricklin? Wasn't he the guy who brought Subaru to America?
8:31 The Bobcat, a Lincoln grille on a Pinto. They didn;t give iy yhe attractive taillight treatment from the Maverick-based Comet?My comments about the Pinto apply here.
9:22 Chevette, the last American car with a torque tube driveshaft. Even Rambler had shelved that system by 1968.
10:26 Chrysler Corporation separated Imperial as a stand-alone brand for the 1955 model year, and Imperial maintained its separate status intil it was discontinued. A sidenote, these video clips show a mish-mash of Chrysler badged cars with few Imperials featured.
11:37 The Aspen/Volare twins were not bad cars. One wonders why Chrysler didn't apply the new body styling and name badges to the proven Dart/Valiant platform instead of the not-yet-fully-developed chassis that eventually worked well in the later M-body models?
12:35 Laguna, Grand Am, Regal, Cutlass Salon, same cars with different badges.
13:49 A Fairlane as reimagined through a JC Whitney catalog.
14:37 The '70 Pontiac line certainly had a startling facelift, but they were cars of their time and the modified formal split grille became a Pontiac trademark through the end of the brand.
Gremlin do not feed fuel after midnight🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Don't get it wet either.
the Pacer was Rose Nylund's car on the Golden Girls Blanche used the Pacer without Rose's permission
I watched this just to see if the Gremlin was mentioned. My mother had one as her first car and she told me it was terrible LOL
This isn't a 1979 Olsmobile Cutlass
It's still shocking to think that for Ford, it was cheaper to settle individual claims made by injured Pinto consumers than to recall the model....and by "claims" I mean the many instances when Pintos were involved in fairly minor scrapes that, due to a design flaw, led to their petrol/gas tank rupturing and the car exploding in flames badly injuring or killing the occupants. There isn't ANY amount of money that could compensate me for losing my entire family and being horrifically disfigured by third degree burns!!
my brother had a silver Pinto he was on Sullivan Drive Belleville Illinois stripped the gears
You were showing a 68-72 body style on the Cutlass???? 78 was a G-body....
I always liked the Gremlin. Later models had V8 engines that helped the power problems.
My 76 pinto, was a bad a** quarter mile car. When I put a 351 cleveland in it.😂
Yes you have faulty information Pinto an AMC gremlin and such like that we’re winners I mean what the ---
This was another great look at the 1970's thank you.🇺🇲📺📺🇺🇲
Thanks for watching!
The good old days when you could buy a new car for a few thousand dollars, and gas was 50 cents a gallon.-
My parents had a pinto it was the first car I crashed and i was only 2 years old. And no I’m not kidding. A long story.
Ok, you gotta tell it man!
@@jerfacekilla No I get in and got the gear out from park and it rolled down our inclined driveway and crashed into the garage door. Luckily it was a metal door.
@@KCKingdomCreateGreatTrekAgain Sort of like when I let the handbrake off in Uncle Bill's '49 Chevy? Or when Grandma didn't pull the hand-brake in her '57 Plymouth?
Vega was not and never will be awesome. Even after they solved the rust and engine problems, it was poorly assembled and unreliable. Perhaps the worst ever. 5:01, at least show the correct model year.
I owned a '74 Chevy Vega hatchback. Somehow I kept it alive for 8 years. When I traded it in for a Ford Escort wagon (yes my bad!), the dealer asked me if I would let him
keep the stereo speakers. Tells you something about car trading back in the day. The
Vega was a true rust bucket, and the assembly quality was the pits.
Cool 😎
Pintos were the worst failure. You can find a few of these cars at car shows...not Pintos. Many Pintos were sold. Ford executives could have added a feature that could have prevented the fire danger, but, didn't want to spend the money( a relative pittance). Classic penny-wise, pound-foolish thinking
Yeah, Ford decided that paying the wrongful death lawsuits was cheaper than retrofitting millions of cars.
The common thread of all these failures is the Government.. gas shortages and government rulings . Pesda
Do you not know the difference between the mid size Dodge Monaco and the full size Dodge Royal Monaco? What is with the picture of a Ford LTD while talking about Dodge?
I was there. I had the '74 Dodge Coronet, mildly facelifted and rebadged later as the Monaco.
Brickland the poor mans Ferrari
Malcolm Bricklin imported the first Subarus to the US.
Garbage, even to me as a young kid during this era. Thankfully, Detroit would wake up many years later and go on to build quality again.
The pinto outsold everything in the 70s, and for good reasons. Talk nonsense all you want, it was top quality
I must be the real loser' had at least 5 of these cars.
Fantastic video
Thanks for watching!
Pretty much EVERY car from the 70's was a pile of junk.
my mom had a white Chrysler it was white people got her so many bumper stickers for that car such as twinkie power you squeeze this car you get lemonade and the ever popular bumper sticker the white elephant the electrical system in that car was a joke 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
😮
When I was a child in the 70s, I couldn’t believe people actually bought the ugliest car I’d ever seen, the Gremlin! It actually hurt my psyche every time I had to see one on the road!
The Chevette was a close second in ugliness!! Every time I saw one, I couldn’t help wondering “why??!”
and the Pinto was very ugly, too! Then my mom told me they had proven extremely unsafe! …another reason the Pinto was worse than ugly!
But, then again, I’d forgotten how ugly the pacer was until I saw it here again! Yuck!
Well, I just can’t watch anymore of this video! It brings back too many terrible design memories!!
The Gremlin lived on as the AMC Spirit Kammback and the Eagle STX. Properly equipped, a Gremlin could be a great little car. Never owned one, but drove several. I liked them.