Maybe it should say Gobble, Gobble instead. Not that I’m trying to get a head start or anything. But lets just say that there was plenty of fodder in the seventies to keep the turkey farm well fed. Maybe we should ask what wasn’t a turkey. It was a difficult decade, from so many perspectives. The impacts of the energy crisis and rapidly tightening emission and safety regulations alone made life hell for the makers. On top of that, social turmoil roiled through the factories, creating huge quality assembly issues. Some companies just seemed to lose the plot, most notably British Leyland. Was there anything that they touched in the seventies that wasn’t doomed? Chrysler and Ford both ended the decade with near-death experiences. GM’s massive downsizing make-over resulted in the seemingly inevitable stinkers. The Japanese were in the ascendency, but better keep them away from salt. That’s the big picture, now let’s fill in the gory details.
The Australian production British Leyland P76. It signaled the end of Leyland in Australia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leyland_P76
The British agree it was a bit of a dud: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/features/leyland-p76-411854.html
I see you already named the Hillman Avenger, Leyland Australia Kimberly, Tasman and P76 3 real turkeys. Ford Australia Cortina 6 horrible car lethal handling and cracking frames Leyland Australia again the Marina 262 great recipe for disaster take one awful Morris Marina repower with P76 6 cylinder engine good luck trying to steer that.
Its pretty sad that British Leyland produced so many turkeys. I had Aunts and Uncles with Morris Majors, Minors, and 1100s. As a kid, I always disliked the fact that the rear windows couldn’t wind down. I remember their distinct engine note, the rough gear change in the auto transmission, and the sticker on the rear window of the Morris 1100 proclaiming to the world the feature of the suspension: “it floats on fluid.” Go figure, someone wrote about it on the internets. http://www.elevenhundred.com/hydro.php
I never got to ride in a P76, but a friend’s friend had one. All we wanted to see was the size of the boot, which could fit a 44 gallon (or US 55 gallon) drum in it.
The Avenger (aka Plymouth Cricket) was a clean-sheet design with conventional but up-to-date engineering. It was selling against the Morris Marina , which was a 1940’s carry-over with fresh skin.The Avenger had new-fangled 70’s features like telescopic dampers and disc brakes. The Marina didn’t……
… and yet actually telling the finished products apart is so hard:
http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/2011/07/15/tested-marina-vs-avenger/
Prize Turkeys the pair of ’em.
AMC Pacer, obviously. The last gasp of a proud line. It always reminded me a little of the Nash Airflyte. But not in a good way.
Ah, the AMC Pacer. Turkey or Albatross ?
Ah, the Pacer. “Recap” spelled backwards…the Murphy’s Law car.
Designed around an engine still in development by a competitor; and said competitor pulls the project. This just AFTER AMC sold the tooling for the engine which would have been a reasonable second choice, the Jeep V-6.
Wide and heavy, the big small car…just in time for another fuel-price spike, which was driving people to small-small cars. The wrong car at the wrong time; done too much with trust in luck, and with the last nickels dug out of the boardroom sofa. And, as these frantic last-spasms do, it failed.
But…a turkey? I think not. The drivetrain, the six and the TorqueFlite shoehorned in there, were so much more reliable than Vega fours or THM 200 transmissions. The bodies weren’t coming apart into large sails of rusted panels, liberated from doors or quarter-panels, as they were on Iacocca Fords. And AMC, even more in trouble than ChryCo, found a way to keep the lights on without begging on the Capitol steps.
I would mark it as the tragic car, not a turkey-mobile.
Just Passin’ – agree, 100%.
The Pacer was not a turkey, but was a victim of some poor planning and questionable decisions by AMC. My mother bought a brand new Pacer, and it was an awesome car in some ways. The biggest negative was the inline 6 couldn’t get out of it’s own way trying to push the Pacer down the highway, yet it was one of the most comfortable highway cruisers I’ve ever driven.
Had AMC dropped the Jeep V6 in it, and had engineered it for FWD, it would have been an epic win, instead of a footnote, usually reserved for the “ugliest”!
Leyland did build some good cars but once the FWD fetish began that was the end of them. Isigonis should of been hanged for that MIni and its bretheren. Leyland Australia came up with the Kimberly Tasman twins very rare cars now and crap new. The P76 was meant to compete with GMH Ford and Chrysler but it was so poorly made it had no show theywerent nice to drive or ride in from memory best part was the 4.4 V8 and just like a 55 Morris Isis a 44 fitted in the boot.
Austin Princess the hatchback without a hatch or was it 80s
Unfortunately I still have the Plymouth Cricket ad jingle stuck in my head!
You mean this one, Here comes Cricket, chirp chirp coming through, repeat for 30 or sixty seconds under the voice over.
Actually it was a nice little car that Chrysler did nothing to support. With the dealer installed A/C it was a little sluggish but it had no problems keeping up with traffic. If I wanted a fast car I would have bought a 2 year old Mustang, I was given a 2,500 dollar limit and I wanted a new car. I did like the Vega hatch back but even at 17 I knew an aluminum block with out steel cylinder sleeves is a bad idea, and some of them on the lot had rust pimples on the c pillar. Dealer offered to repair the rust and repaint those areas. I ran away to the Plymouth store.
Oh yeah…my vote is for the Chevy Vega, despite MT’s COTY award.
Turkeys? How about everything?
Even the better cars of the seventies were badly compromised by emission controls and bumpers. All-time greats like the Jaguar XK-E were like Mickey Mantle of 1968 versus 1961. Sure, the Vegas and Pintos of the world were the worst of the worst, but just about everything ran like crap, swilled too much gas and rusted out from under you.
It was the first time in the history of the automobile that cars got progressively worse year to year. The old muscle cars are revered even more than they might have been because the cars that came after them were such a downgrade.
Hondas and Subarus got better as the decade wore on, Camaros and especially Firebirds held serve, Corvettes for all their power ups and downs maintained respectable numbers at least in L82 form, Chrysler could sneak a dual-exhaust 360 into just about anything until late in the decade, and W116 Benz SEL’s didn’t give away much of anything, hideous bumpers notwithstanding. The GM B-body cars were much, much better in 1979 than even 1969, and of course ’79 was the birth year of the Panther.
Same goes for BMW’s. The 633 CSi was better in every way than the 3.0 CS save maybe looks, and the 320i was even more of a trend-setter than the 2002. VW Sciroccos were great, and Rabbits/Golfs would have been too save for the teething problems of early models and the Americanization of VW’s Pennsylvania production.
GM carried over Corvair handling prowess across the board and while they were underappreciated by the motoring press, just about all of them really could hold their own against just about everybody when equipped with heavy-duty or sport suspensions.
So not everything was bad about the Malaise Era and a lot of the good stuff did continue on into the next decade. But I certainly don’t miss those days, even though I was a kid and too young to drive.
Volaraspens, and any fwd VW that had wiring. (Michael Freeman bait. 😉 )
The Corvette is by far the biggest turkey.
Some cars promised much but didn’t deliver (like the Vega), some cars (like the Mustang) were poorly but necessarily reinvented, but the Corvette was outwardly the same car it was in the late 1960s with a few concessions to styling and/or safety. Typically when a car changes in dramatic ways it gets a whole new look (the aforementioned Mustang, Thunderbird, Malibu, etc), but the Corvette looked basically the same the entire decade, suffering the ignominy of looking like it could perform like it used to but being wholly incapable of doing so. Meanwhile the price for such meager performance went through the roof.
It;s one thing to admit that circumstances have changed and that a fresh start is need, but to go an entire decade of sea changes while pretending that nothing is different is unconscionable. For that reason I say the post-emissions C3 Corvettes are the biggest turkeys of the ’70s. And it sold like hotcakes throughout the decade, thus proving the adage about a sucker being born every minute. I guess people were so desperate for any sort of performance that they took whatever they could get, even if it was a sheep dressed up like a wolf.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to list the non-turkeys of the 1970s? There were so many turkeys.
The Vega and Pacer are fish in a barrel. Ditto Volare and Aspen.
I will nominate the 1971-76 GM big cars. Durable mechanicals, but the worst bodies ever in a GM car up to that time.
Anything from Chrysler with Lean Burn.
The Ford Granada – so much promise, such poor execution and durability (bodies in particular). Actually, this applied to almost everything made by Ford during the decade, except for the big Lincolns.
The 1974 AMC Matador coupe. I know some on the site love these, but this was a failure of Edsel-like proportions.
“Wouldn’t it just be easier to list the non-turkeys of the 1970s? There were so many turkeys.”
That’s what I was thinking…but you said it first.
The GM B-bodies ’77-up would be my candidate for Best of the Decade followed closely by the ’78-up GM A-bodies. Of course you had to shop carefully lest you end up with a 267-V8 or a Metric 200 trans…bad. Really bad. Back in turkey territory.
Then again there were some great ’60’s holdovers such as the ’70-’72 GM A-bodies, ‘Vettes, Novas and Pickups/Blazers. Who cares now that they all got lower compression engines than their pre-’71 predecessors?
And of course the pre-’74 Camaros and Firebirds. Although props have to go to the ’77-’79 Trans-Ams.
Ford’s ’77-’79 T-Birds, the Fairmont/Zephyr and Fox-body Mustang.
Plymouth/Dodge ponycars.
I liked my ’71 Gremlin back-in-the-day. It was a stick so that made it fun.
Ok so there were some high spots.
But pretty much everything else was an epic fail. Unless you were Japan. Anyone wondering how Toyota/Honda became TOYOTA!/HONDA! need only begin here. Rust notwithstanding…
In the early eighties a friend called his Granada the Grenade, in deep and frequent disgust.
A friend of my dad had a Vega years ago. It’s nickname was Darth Vega. He also had a T-bird dubbed the Thunderchicken.
With the Matador, AMC decided that what people really wanted was a cross between a Studebaker Avanti and a Ford Torino.
One of my great aunts had a Matador coupe and I thought they looked neat. Still do.
Oh Boy! I saw the article and you all know I’m licking my chops and waiting to pounce!
Here goes:
☻ All 1973-and-up mid-sized GM fixed-window coupes EXCEPT the 1973 Pontiac Grand Am – that one intrigued me just enough to like it, fixed-windows and all!
☻ All full-sized coupes, whether GM, Ford or Chrysler that had fixed windows, 1977 downsized Chevys excepted. Truth be told, though, they were all hogs, regardless.
☻ 1973 & 1974 Novas & siblings. Proportions were just not right, bumpers aside.
☻ Dodge Aspen & Volare.
☻ Chevy Vega & Astre.
☻ Chevy Monza.
☻ All British sports cars – what ones were left, (truth be told, weren’t they all, in any decade?) especially the TR-7 door-stop.
And the grand daddy turkey of all? You guessed it!
☻ THE GM X-CARS!
I’m sure I’ll be taken to task for painting with such a broad brush, as there are always exceptions, but right now, I’ll leave it to “youse guys” to call me out/set me straight!
Let the beatings begin! Zackman has spoken!
☻ All British sports cars
I may be mistaken, but if we’re going by year of introduction (which I have been) the TR-7 is all alone on this list for the 1970s – everything else by this stage was a 40s/50s/60s hold over wasn’t it?
The Triumph Stag…
more grand tourer (or grand-tourer-shaped lawn ornament when the engine exploded) but yeah I suppose so.
Someone round here still runs one of those amazingly enough. Handsome car.
The X cars in the 70s were the Nova and friends up to 79. The real Turkey X cars didn’t arrive until 1980.
You’re correct, but they came out in 1979, so that’s the discrepancy. I’ll wait for the “Turkeys of the ’80’s” and re-state that!
GM X-cars are 80’s.
‘Fixed windows’ is NOT grounds for a turkey. Actually, ‘fixed windows’ is NOT grounds for a turkey in ANY decade. Get off it. Your shtick got old a long time ago.;
The Monza 2+2 was a fairly decent car for the decade.
THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH FIXED WINDOWS!!!!!!!
Yes there is something wrong about fixed windows at least when they are in doors. Not so much in rear windows of 2drs but even the Pinto had windows that would pop out to act as vents, as an option in some years.
So did 80’s Ford Escorts, but it was a rare option, along with re-introducing vent windows.
Fixed windows in the C-pillar, not the end of the world. Fixed windows in the rear doors of a 4-door car, no thanks.
When I was in school, a friend had a 79 Pontiac with the fixed back windows, and they had been dark tinted by a previous owner. I was sitting in the back seat on one of our road trips, and we were crossing the Canada-US border.
Border guard: “You in the back, roll down your window.”
I opened the door.
“Shut the door!!!”
I shut the door.
“Now roll down your window!!!!!!!”
(you can see where this is going)
Haha, how many go-arounds did it take???
Agreed on the 73 Nova. My mother got a 5 door hatch and the back seat was intended for someone with very short legs. Drivability was a bit of a joke–in our 30 foot driveway, the car would stall 3-4 times before it succeeded in running.
Not sure if it was a 79 or an 80, but Datsun made a small wagon powered by a 1.6 engine. My rental had A/C and the exceedingly mild hills in the Indiana Turnpike forced me to disengage the compressor if I actually wanted to get up them at a reasonable speed. I’d done that trip for years before noticing it even had hills…
Mustang II for sure.
jpcavanaugh is dead right – the list of non-Turkeys from the 70s would be shorter, but where’s the fun in that right?
Bryce: Yes the Princess (née “18-22 Series”, aka ADO71) was a 70s car, and yes – though it pains me – it probably has to count as a Turkey for making it to market without a hatchback (eventually rectified when it metamorphosed into the Ambassador in 1982). Even so, I’m very fond of the oddball cheese-wedge myself. I’ve also always thought the P76 was kinda cool…
Top of my list for the 70s has to be the Allegro – I know it has it’s devotees here, but to me it symbolises everything that was wrong with the British motor industry at the time… which (given just how much was wrong) possibly explains its pudgy little frame.
OK Brian – counter point? 😉
oh my.
I would say almost anything from 1974-82 with its emissions systems intact. You just couldn’t get the poor things to run with all of that crap. My particular favourites;
1977 Eldorado: 170hp out of 500 cubic inches. My hatred for mine is the way it would die in stupid places- in the crossfire of a drive by shooting, on the Broadway bridge coming into KC where I made the traffic report etc.
Anything with Lean Burn or Feedback carburettors. See above. Easily rectified however, and once removed, you can have quite a good car. I think most problematic cars could be solved in states that didn’t test emissions just by re-engineering them back to their 1960s spec.
From Europe, I’d have to say ANYTHING made between 1973 and 1980 that used some of that cheap Italian/Soviet recycled steel. This is why you’d find two Allegros- one made in Belgium that used the cheap steel, and the other in Longbrige. The Belgian one would be rotten to the core in stupid areas- like the middle of the doors. The longbridge one would be rust free.
This is why you don’t see any Citroen GS’s, Alfasuds, Mercedes /8’s even 1975-6 Volvo 240’s used that monkey metal, which is why you see some single headlamp vulvas looking bespeckled, and others- 77 and newer, look immaculate.
Back to america, I have to second BunkerMan on the Mustang 2- this car was poorly built, engineered, and worse, tended to sell to young boy racer types. This made used Rustangs in to real turkeys.
And the VW 412. I had one of these in Colorado- rust free, but it would randomly stall, not start, flood, and other problems due to the computer located in the inner rear fender. There were 16 different computer models used in ’74 alone. Plus, to change the right-rear spark plug, the Haynes manual referred you to chapter 1, “engine removal procedures.”
Oh- and the battery was under the drivers seat. So jump starting it involved haging the most vulnerable parts of one’s anatomy over a battery when pumping the accelerator. Hateful, hateful car.
Lets not forget VW Type 2’s, especially campervans. I hate these, and everything they represent. They cost $20K at least now, were poor when new, and even less reliable today. I was speaking with a friend who has one, and he said it was quite reliable on the trip to Spain from the UK, with only one breakdown to have the gearbox swapped. When you speak of transmission failure on a holiday with such nonchalance, you’ve lost touch with reality!
However, I would argue that anybody buying any of these, or other mediocre ’70s cars today will get a very nice Tuesday car that is likely to be unrepresentative of the breed. I’ve had three Allegros, which have a horrid reputation. Most of that reputation is due to the bad assembly quality and line sabotage rather than engineering deficiencies. If you get a car that happened to have been made well, it will likely be a good car. Any car that’s survived to 2011 will be a good one- unless its a Mini, in which case its just been rebuilt every 5 years, and will need to continue to be.
Actually, I forgot one- the Morris Marina.
Splateagle, I think the Allegro at least theoretically could be a good car: spacious, reliable, rust free, fun to drive and economical IF it was built well, and a few managed to make their way down the line with all bolts installed, and without sandwiches in door panels.
BL also made the Marina. This was a Morris 8 with an OHV engine. Lets remember that they still used 1920s style lever arm shock absorbers in 1979! (and indeed on the Ital until 1983). The Marina took the archaic Oxford/Cambridge Farinas the MInor, combined them in a Avenger-knock off suit of clothes, and then managed a car that was worse handling than the Minor it replaced, more cramped than the Farinas, and with worse build quality than both. The only advance it made over either car was that it was cheaper for BL to build, and therefore had a greater profit margin.
If you look up the word Cynical, you will find an illustration of a Marina.
See now that would be pretty much exactly my defence of the Rover SD1: a good car if you find an example that was built properly… but nobody’s cited one of those (yet)
My brother’s first car (c.1988) was a relatively well assembled, relatively late-model second-hand Allegro, and he’s sentimental about them too – though he tends to agree they were on balance bad cars. I think long weekends spent rustproofing the underside together with its habit of breaking down in the rain on the A1 between Doncaster and Derby soured him on them a little, even through the rose-tint of first-car-dom.
Interestingly he characterised his Allegro’s replacement (an ’87 FIAT Panda 1000S) as being a breath of fresh air by comparison for being spacious, reliable, rust free, fun to drive and economical… 😉
Personally I think my issue with the Allegro is how poor an advance over the ADO16 it was, and how resoundingly it failed to achieve anything like its predecessor’s successes. Perhaps on reflection I’m being too hard on the little car heaping BL’s failings on it’s bulbous wee shoulders.
The 70’s—OMG-so many turkeys, so little time!
AMC-the Pacer
Ford-The Grenada and Monarch, the 72-73 Mustangs and the Mustang II.
Chrysler-the Plymouth Cricket, and the Plymouth Volare and the Dodge Aspen.
GM-a treasure trove of turkeys!
Chevrolet-the Vega, the Chevette, the Monza (and all its GM clones).
Buick-the 71-73 Rivera, the ’75 Opels, the late 70’s Skylarks.
Pontiac-the Astre, the T1000, the late 70’s Gran Prix.
Oldsmobile-the Toronado
The greatest all-around turkey-car?
X marks the spot. GM gets X’ed – and they should have had a citation for the Citation and bretheren.
THOSE things…were when GM steered their wagon irrevocably down the road to ruin…
I agree with jpcavanaugh that listing the winners from this decade would be easier.
The worst of the worst (from the domestics):
The GM X-cars: These cars were initially a huge success, but this backfired on GM. Instead of being sideshows, like the first-generation Corvair and the Vega, the X-Cars sold to people who would have otherwise only bought a Cutlass Supreme or Impala, and they suddenly discovered why some customers were soured on GM.
The Oldsmobile Diesel: It was so bad that it not only put a major dent in the reputations of GM and Oldsmobile, it also destroyed the diesel market for virtually everyone else, too.
The 1971-73 Mustang: What happens when you keep feeding a lithe pony? It ends up as a fat old nag. People criticize the Mustang II, but it was seen as a BIG improvement at the time, and 30+ years haven’t changed my view on that one.
1971-76 Eldorado, Riviera and Toronado: The 1966-70 versions of those cars were hardly small, but they were very stylish without being overdone, boasted good build quality and had decent handling for the times (considering their size). The bloated next generation “boasted” overwrought styling, flimsy bodies and the handling of an ocean liner. What the 1958 cars are to Harley Earl, these cars are to Bill Mitchell.
1972-76 Ford Thunderbird: The four-seat Thunderbird pioneered the personal-luxury genre in this country, but years of watering down the car for cost reasons and the elusive “broad appeal” turned it into a rebodied LTD with a cramped interior, lousy trunk space and higher price.
Yes, the Olds Diesel was a true standout turkey. I’m surprised it hasn’t shown up on more lists. Even people who don’t care about cars have heard of this one.
It takes a special class of turkey to spoil not only itself and its brand, but an entire type of car. American diesel cars died the death, never to return, thanks to GM.
My God…you’re right about that. I’d forgotten about the Olds smoker…the rolling tire-fire, stink-pot on wheels.
Now the diesel was aimed at customers with other parameters, true…but for cripes sake, people wanted a diesel at least partly because of their legendary reliability. And NOBODY, least of all GM dealer mechanics, figured that torquing the head-bolts down would be a weekly maintenance ritual.
Or that failure to do so would destroy the engine. Who’d ever think that? I can just hear the marketing boys snigger.
And, who’d ever thunk that all these burned GM customers would be turning Japanese? You know…the more we talk about these turkeys, the more I’m convinced that the Asian brands didn’t get their customers from their brilliant marketing or engineering; but only from the raw, naked CONTEMPT, bordering on hatred, that the major American brands showed their buyers.
You guys are right there are more “turkeys” than non-turkeys. Downsized GM B-bodys were clear winners and I would argue that the big cars of Chysler Co. & Ford Mo Co were ok until they downsized (decent build quality and with the biggest engines generating tons of torque tolerable driveability). And at least the transmissions were still decently durable and could handle that torque.
The biggest sin of the 70s was how long it took the manufacturers to design engines specifically for the new air quality regulations. The Chevy 305 was likely the best engine to come out of the 70s.
“The Chevy 305 was likely the best engine to come out of the 70s.”
No arguements on the 305. I didn’t quite respect it in the past but in hindsight it was a good mill.
I’d put a few up for honorable mention.
Ford 2.0, 2.3
Buick 3.8
Cologne V6
The 305 from the 70’s was not a good engine. Of course it suffered the same problems that all SBCs have like sending oil to the rear main bearing before it went to the oil filter. A left over from being designed before oil filters were the norm. Oil drains in the head that are even/higher than the valve cover rail. But the big thing was the improperly hardened camshafts that resulted in them going flat usually just in time to be out of warranty.
The bought back and switched to even fire 231 is a much better engine to come out of GM in the 70’s.
Yeah but at least the 305 Chevy made 170hp when it was still carb-ed unlike the lo po 302 with variable venturi carb.
Regarding Fords, I have to say the full size cars from ’71-76 have to be total turkeys, in the midwest at least. I remember seeing so many of these things with very little metal below the top of the wheelarches. They were quite good mechanically though- at least some of the rotboxes various family members had. And for some reason, I always remember the 77-78 models with the hidden headlamps as being as good on the rust front as earlier cars were bad. I don’t know if there was a change in paint shop, steel, general rustproofing or if the people who purchased Broughams took better care of their cars than those who purchased galaxies 5 years earlier.
The popular view at the time also was that Torinos were cars to avoid for the same reason. I remember when my uncle got a ’73 Torino being intrigued to see what a ‘terrible’ car looked like. He always said it was great though- far better than the 412 he had previously, and the ’78 Horizon that followed it. Clint Eastwood has even made a movie about a Torino- oh how times have changed.
I think this is a good future curbside classics- not turkeys, but rather cars that were totally ‘uncool’ coming back:
Torinos
Gremlins
Dusters
’70s wagons
All of these were the types of cars that couldn’t be given away in the ’90s, yet in the last decade rarely sell for under 5K.
My parents’ ’73 Torino was a complete turkey, so I think that balances out your uncle’s.
Again, it’s easier to name the non-turkeys of the ’70s than the turkeys, there were so many. If I had to settle on one, though, I’d say the Chevy Vega. God, what a POS.*
I already have my choice for the ’80s phase of this exercise locked and loaded–just not telling anyone yet.
*Cosworth Vega excepted. Possibly.
In the 1970s, you had a lot of that. Someone could have a complete lemon, and another person might have the exact same model, but it was a peach.
So, really, Detroit quality control was the real turkey, when you think about it.
I must be an exception. Had a ’73 Vega GT. Ran it for three seasons in SCCA B Sedan autocross. Traded it in, still running fine, on a ’76 Monza 2+2. Still have fond memories of that car, especially beating an Alfa GTA out for the final podium spot on that Sunday’s autocross – and then getting cheated out of the trophy. Couldn’t afford a real sports car back then, it was a really good alternative choice.
Ford’s 1970s midsize lineup really had the Turkey category locked.
Torino/Montego/Elite/Cougar
I know lots of people will not agree but I’m going with the Honda Civic.
Rusted almost as bad as a Vega
Popped head gaskets like Chiclets.
Ate up $300 (wholesale) CV joints. (This was years before you could get reman units so the dealer, or wrecking yard was the only choice)
Brake rotors were captive so if one needed replacement you needed to replace the wheel bearing and most likely the hub too.
Seats that broke under the weight of a not so heavy for an American
More vacuum lines than the worst to come out of the big three.
Shifters that got real sloppy quick that combined with the snubber that was to keep the engine from rocking that meant the shifter was in a different position depending on how much throttle your were giving it at the time.
Torque steer despite a total lack of torque, not to be confused with it’s tendency to change lanes due to the suspension shifting based on throttle due to using a true McPherson strut suspension where the sway bar bushings did the fore/aft location of the control arm.
3bbl carb, to make that CVCC engine work that was an expensive nightmare to rebuild.
Wheels that rusted out from under the paint, despite the paint not being damaged, I thing the paint was hygroscopic or something.
Edit: Almost forgot the brake line running through a tab on the strut so if you do it per the factory procedures you need to disconnect the brake line and bleed the brakes after you are done. It only took a couple of those until I figured out the trick of cutting a slot in the tab with a hack saw and then bending the tab so the brake line could be extracted or inserted. The aftermarket caught on to that trick and soon the replacements had that slot out of the box.
Despite that it had 2 good points.
All those vacuum lines were imprinted with the circuit number every inch or so.
The first instance of a cooling system bleeder screw which made refilling the cooling system after changing a head gasket easy.
Re-edit: I almost forgot about the gas tank location that made the most likely vehicle, in it’s class and era, to catch fire when rear ended. The statistics showed it was about twice as likely as the much lamented Pinto which was actually about the middle of the pack. The B210 sedan with it’s tank up right behind the rear seat was the least likely.
Hondas over here were sold thru BL dealers and on that basis alone they looked good compared with Austin Allegros and the like. However to others like me it confirmed that FWD needed way more development before it would work as reliably as a RWD power train and I happily stayed clear of FWD cars untill 2003 repairing other peoples cars occasionally only confirmed my stance.
+1!
I thought I was the only one to suffer through the CVCC cars. 76 Civic and 79 Accord. Head gaskets, cracked cylinder head, flimsy transmission synchros, and a host of other minor problems related to the fiendishly complex emission control system. In spite of CR, I’d own a Civic today, but these cars from the 70’s were not ready for prime time in my experience.
Of course though, the Vega is the gold standard turkey from the entire millenium. My former spouse had a new ’72, these would be terrible even if GM had designed a thoroughly developed conventional engine. Part and assembly quality was non-existent. I could go on for days.
I have never owned a Honda.
But plenty of people have. And they keep coming back for repeat purchases.
The Civic, like all Japanese cars of the period, had issues with rust. And Honda products had to deal with growing pains; auto manufacture was a new program for them.
But it wasn’t a dead end, the way a Vega or Gremlin or Bricklin was. It wasn’t an intentional ripoff. A poor start? Perhaps in some ways.
I deliberatley left AMC off my list above, for the main reason they were somewhat out in left field all along, and many thought their offerings were turkeys from the git-go!
I still like Gremlins, though, as shown by the 1976 model we owned in 1978!
EDIT: Mom’s 1979 Concord was every bit as good as a car as her and dad’s 1950 Plymouth.
Only care to comment on those I have personal experience with. Both were from 1977. Olds starfire was the worst of the worst. Finally had all I could take when it caught on fire in traffic. Bought it new and went through 2 transmissions and 2 engines in a year. Traded for a 78 AMC concorde which I liked but it was not the best 70’s car I owned.
About 10 years ago I bought a high mileage 77 Impala. Went through some replacement parts like u-joints and brakes (truck items) and it had no compression to speak of in two cylinders. Strangely I could not kill it. I wish I had bought it new and never seen the starfire. What finally killed it was ugliness. After bearing the scars of a couple years of 100 miles daily commute across Houston, the wife did not want to see in in the driveway any more. If it had gotten better than 14-15 mpg, I think we would have had mortal combat over that.
I have to assume the starfire was a lemon and not representative of the whole model. If it were, half of GM headquarters would have been lynched. Can say though, that I’ve heard a lot of good stuff about the impala and it’s GM stable mates. The Starfire was even worse than the 2002 Vue that drove me close to slitting my wrists.
The B-Body Impala/Caprice was the anti-Turkey of the whole decade. I still see some of those around LA in reasonably original shape, and of course there are many that have been subjected to 22″ rims and the like. I still miss my ’87 wagon, which I gave up only due to the terminal cancer it developed from being driven in Wisconsin winters (as a poor grad student, I couldn’t afford a garage or many car washes those first few years). If I could find a good Impala coupe (with that cool rear window), I’d get one, assuming it could pass spousal muster.
Yup, you’re right – I wanted one of those s-o-o-o-o bad! Surely one of the most beautiful cars of the 70’s after the 1972 Chevelle/Malibus, especially the “Heavy Chevy” option.
I have to mention the 1978 GM A-bodys. Fixed quarter windows are one thing, but fixed rear windows in the back doors? And didn’t they have a self-destructing V6 on the early models?
How about a Turkey from Turkey? The Anadol A8-16, a bizarre update of the earlier Anadols.
I’ve been waiting for a Turkish Turkey! Thanks!
Oh baby. Where to start…
So many have been taken, that I find it almost useless to comment. Msquare hit it on the head; the 70’s we unwittingly dreaded the new car releases, almost because each succeeding year sucked more than the last.
It wasn’t until the end of the decade that there was a glimmer of hope, but that really didn’t materialize until the middle of the next decade…
Glad I made it through. I wouldn’t want to live through it again…
Since all of the “usual suspects” that I would have named are already taken, I nominate the Audi 5000 (C2), introduced in 1976. Its notoriety didn’t come until the 80’s, but it essentially destroyed Audi’s reputation in the US until the late 90’s. You can argue whether or not the “sudden acceleration” issues were overblown, but the cars simply had subpar reliability. Anyone I talk to who remembers these cars rarely has anything good to say about them.
Its predecessor, the Audi 100 (C1), wasn’t known for it’s reliability, either.
“Who cares now that they all got lower compression engines than their pre-’71 predecessors?”
You know what? I am sick to death of hearing about how the lowered compression motors of 1971, to help clean up air pollution, “ruined the car biz”. Now, we got clean air and high performance, get over the early 70’s.
Worst car of the 70’s is the Chevy Vega, period. Example of not caring about future customers and thinking small cars are ‘disposable’ and people will just buy a bigger car from you, even if you burn them with a bad small car.
People go on about 70’s car rusting and falling apart, but then why didnt pre 1970 cars last? They may have been simpler and faster, but they still rusted away.
The problem was inflation. People got more upset since sticker prices shot up over night, and people had to take out longer loans on cars that didn’t last long. Easy to write off a $2500 1963 Corvair that tanks, but a $5000+ 70’s car? No way.
When the average prices hit 10 grand, then car buyers expected better. Thus the ‘quality wars’ started in the 80’s.