It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
my mum had a Ford Zodiac
I'm not locked in here with you, you are locked in here with me.
He then went through a series of Citroen's, by far the worst of which was a burgundy Ami 8.
He stuck my sister, mum and me in it and filled a trailer up with building materials and set of for the ferry. Driving all night we got a few hours across France before the Ami gave up the ghost and we trundled down through a French village. Dad turned the car off the main road and it came to a stop outside a large set of wooden doors.
We went to sleep in the car, only to be woken at 8am by the large wooden doors opening to reveal.... the village garage!
The sight of the head mechanic opening the passenger door and wondering where the steering wheel and pedals were will never leave me.
Arguably the absolute worst was a secondhand BMW Isetta bubble car with 3 wheels, that he bought on HP. The whole front was the only door, and when you opened it to reveal the less than luxurious interior, the steering wheel remained attached. Either there was no reverse gear, or it was broken, because I can remember him shoving it backwards into parking spaces. On the day he bought it, the HP company went tits-up, and he never paid a penny for it. Sadly, instead of punting it into touch, mum and I had to suffer the hateful thing for some time until the next pile of junk arrived. A journey of any length was akin to having been over Niagara Falls in a barrel. As for reliability, well let’s just say that for every hour’s driving, he probably spent another hour or so fixing it.
But a very, very, close second, due to even more shocking reliability than the bubble-car, was a 1960’s Renault R8, the engine of which would die on an intermittent basis, usually at the most inopportune moment. On one occasion it did so in the pissing rain when he and mum were on their way to a posh dinner-dance (they never made it, dad ruined his dinner-jacket laying underneath it trying to fix it, and he still had to pay for the tickets). I also remember it breaking down at set of traffic lights somewhere on the A20.
As dad was too tight to pay for AA membership, we spent a lot of time pushing it off the road so dad could tinker with the thing. He was quite stubborn, but he eventually admitted defeat, sold it, and bought an A55 ex-butcher’s van. It was at this point that my mother decided she’d had enough of old bangers, and I reckon the old man was either going to get booted out, or buy a decent motor, which he did when he arrived with a Morris 1100.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
I think the worst was a Citroen Palas with the pneumatic suspension which was all flashy lights and gizmos. It was quite cool but very temperamental generally. We didn't have it long from what I can remember.
But reading this thread reminds me just how desperately unreliable cars were BITD.
My dad never learned to drive but I was car mad when I was a kid so I was always obsessed by our neighbours/relatives cars. One had a diesel Austin Cambridge, probably the worst British car ever made - and that's saying something. I remember another had a Ford Consul that rusted so badly he couldn't even get it towed away so he buried it in the garden.
My candidate for the worst car ever made though is the Alfa Romeo Alfasud. (It was also possibly the best car ever made. As they used to say about the original Mini, a great idea badly executed.) I had one in the early 80's and still wake up in the night sweating because of it. It is not possible to overstate how badly made these cars were. In short, during my ownership I had to learn to drive it with no brakes and just in third gear and couldn't use the drivers door to get in/out. I could go on but I'm starting to have a panic attack.
However, I still have flashbacks about the distinctive smell of LHM hydraulic fluid... it leaked the stuff with monotonous regularity. After a couple of times I learned to limp it home with no suspension, power steering or rear brakes - Citroen have to be applauded for putting the front brakes on a separate non-pressurised system!
Apart from that it was actually totally reliable, and when I eventually gave it away - it was worth nothing - the new owner used it for towing a racing car trailer for a couple of years until it eventually got written off when someone went into the back of it.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Later he hada Daimler Double Six - basically a posher XJ12. One night on the M3 the engine exploded - bits of broken crank case, con rods and pistons everywhere - nothing blows up quite as spectacularly as a V12. Car was two years old!
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
It was probably a great car if you were not a child crammed into the minute back seat on a July afternoon. The only question was whether the car itself would overheat in a cloud of steam before we lost the skin on our legs.
I remember my dad going ballistic when the rubber band broke going through the Dartford tunnel and having to be towed through it with a police escort.