Weird, Bad and Ugly Cars

So pointing out how another car is worse makes a car good how? Like I can say the Rover metro if great because it wasn’t the Yugo but it’s still not the best. Point is, I don’t see how this makes the Neon good.

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Neons are definitely underrated. Too bad that as bargain bin transportation, most everyone who had them ran them into the ground , so few were properly maintained.

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You misunderstand. You’re assuming I was using the Fiesta as a juxtaposition which I wasn’t, though I can understand why you may have seen it that way. Its a bad car unto its own and I was making mention of it merely to add another car onto the list as I will do again… now!

Here’s one that definitely belongs on the “Wierd” list, arguably “Bad” too:

The 1st Generation (1961-1963) Pontiac Tempest

So what is so weird about this car? It looks pretty normal right? Well the drive train and suspension is all sorts of fun:

  1. It had independent suspension front AND rear, which was extremely unusual for American cars of the era.

  2. Although it used a conventional FR layout, it had a rear-mounted transaxle.

  3. It did not have a drive shaft. It had a torque shaft. The linkage between the engine and the transaxle was a solid torsion bar that actually flexed and bowed downward at rest. This became known as the “rope drive”. Now why did it have a torque shaft? Why not a standard drive shaft? Well first of all, it helped keep the floor pan flat which was a selling point. And the second bit is the zenith of weirdness on the first gen tempest…

  4. Its engine. The Pontiac 195. AKA The Trophy Four.

The Pontiac 195 was a four-cylinder, as its alias implies, which in itself was odd considering virtually all American cars of era came standard with a straight 6 and then optioned V8s (in fact Pontiac was putting nothing but V8s in their other cars at the time). But that has nothing how Pontiac came up with this 195 cubic inch (3.2 L) curiosity. In order to save costs rather than design a new engine from scratch, Pontiac literally took their 389 (6.4 L) V8 and chopped off the left bank. And thus, the Trophy Four was born.

Now being that the 195 was derived from a V8, it was never properly engineered to be a large displacement 4-banger so it had no balance shaft. So what did Pontiac do? Detune it? Nope! Hell, they made performance versions of this engine with 10.25:1 compression and four-barrel carburetors. Consequently this engine shook like an earthquake and so they needed to isolate and dampen those vibrations however they could like through reinforced motor mounts and… the bonkers torque shaft. Even so, first gen Tempests with the 195 were known to shake themselves apart.

A few other bits of weirdness on this car:

  • It could be optioned with the Buick 215 (3.5 L) all aluminum V8 (Brits, you know this one! Its the Rover V8) at a time when sharing engines between divisions at GM was extremely uncommon.
  • It could also be optioned with the Pontiac 326 (5.3 L) V8 which was actually a 336 (5.5 L) cubic inch V8. Rumor has it the name was changed to avoid it looking better than the Corvette’s 327 (5.4 L) V8.
  • The car is somewhat famous for its role as a plot point in the movie My Cousin Vinny.
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This fits the weird category certainly:

The Angelica, a 600hp electric supercar with a ~300km range designed and engineered in Finland to be sold by the Chinese



It’s certainly (at least imo) a looker but it’d be interesting to know how this came about in the first place

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For me it looks like a slightly retarded Ferrari that didn’t grow up yet :smiley:
Or sth designed in Automation by… some people.

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I agree, it’s quite strange. Why is the roof so strangely upright? And the lights look like slapped on fixtures that don’t match the body in any way. The premise is cool and the interior doesn’t look terrible, but that exterior looks like they fired the designer partway through.

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It has some good ideas design wise I feel but it’s just not “polished” enough, like you can see inexperience

Quite frankly, it looks unfinished, and even though it’s an EV, what’s the point if the exterior design is so forgettable?

I swear to God those headlights are actually fixtures in Automation.

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The new C4 Cactus is… interesting?

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Eh. It looked better before.

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They got rid of the rubber pads!? That was my favorite part of the stupid car, aww :cry:

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Tbh I absolutely LOVE both versions, although the new version looks like a C4.

TIL that the Duster is also sold as a Nissan Terrano in some markets which interestingly enough also sell the Renault Duster?

image

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But the Tempest was still cool. Weird, but not that hard on the eyes! And at least it was interesting.

If mechanics hadn’t had such a hard time with that torque shaft, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see more cars running the rear transaxle setup in order to improve weight distribution. The Tempest actually handled pretty well for a car of its era. With the little aluminum V8, it was a really fun ride! I’ve had the pleasure of riding in one, once.

Thanks for the in-depth writeup on this oddball!

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I dread to think what the rear of this monstrosity looks like…

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It’s almost as if someone strapped a kit car to a missile silo.

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Schmidt-GTA2-ingame
Just look back to Grand Theft Auto II.

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Isn’t that the famous Estes Model Car Rocket?

lol

TIL the Honda Accord Crosstour is a thing


What is this and why is this who needs this who at Honda thought “let’s make a first gen panamera but on stilts!”

It actually really looks like a panamera “guess the car” picture if you frame it right in the first picture

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The Accord Crosstour is what happens when you forget the stilts when building your crossover.