The 50 Worst Cars of the '80s

Some pretty bad cars have been made throughout the years, and most of them seem to have been the result of the questionable engineering and design of the '80s. Seriously, it might be best if we just pretended that this stretch of 10 years never happened, and if it took most of the '70s with it that would be OK too.

We've gone back and looked at the various automotive horrors of the decade, and we can definitively say that these are The 50 Worst Cars of the '80s.

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Year Introduced: 1982

Why It's Terrible: The Chevrolet Cavalier is so bad that all its cousins are on this list. The Oldsmobile Firenza was basically just a more expensive Cavalier. [sarcasm] Yay. [/sarcasm]

Year Introduced: 1982

Why It's Terrible: Cadillac had always specialized in making massive cars, but times were changing and in 1982, the company's first small car was introduced. It was a terrible rebadged Chevy Cavalier, and it has taken Cadillac 30 years to get it right with the awesome ATS.

Year Introduced: 1984

Why It's Terrible: The Fiero, Pontiac's attempt at a mid-engined sports car, was almost brilliant. The fact that it was usually on fire and didn't perform terribly well even when it wasn't burning killed the deal.

Year Introduced: 1981

Why It's Terrible: Triumph tried to make its return with this car, but why. Triumph was best known for wedge-shaped sports cars, why try to come back with a boxy Honda clone? The company died slowly over the next three years, sadly just a year shy of its centennial.

Year Introduced: 1983

Why It's Terrible: It's quite clear that Sbarro was, rather than being cheap pizza by the slice, the '80s equivalent of Mansory; making beautiful cars horrible. Amazingly, this isn't even the Swiss firms worst car.

Year Introduced: 1986

Why It's Terrible: The Suzuki Samurai wasn't so much a car that could serve as an off-roader as it was a roll-over risk that could serve as a car.

Year Introduced: 1985

Why It's Terrible: The Rover 200-Series needed to carry British Leyland through the '80s but instead it was just an expensive Austin. There's no luxury to be found in sitting on the side of a rainy English motorway after your new car just broke down.

Year Introduced: 1987

Why It's Terrible: Sterling, the North American division of Britain's Rover, only lasted four years in the United States. That's how terrible the 800-series was.

Year Introduced: 1981

Why It's Terrible: The DeLorean is an automotive icon, but that's entirely due to its appearance, and nothing to do with the car's terrible performance, reliability, or cocaine fueled business plan.

Year Introduced: 1984

Why It's Terrible: Austin, as well as all of British Leyland, was dying, and it desparately needed a savior. The Montego was supposed to be that car, but due to the usual British Leyland quality issues, it was terrible.

Year Introduced: 1983

Why It's Terrible: This monstrosity used to be a Range Rover, one of the few vehicles from the '80s that didn't suck. Then Glenfrome rolled in, tossed on some psuedo-Italian sports car body, and sold it to the Arab market. Bad things were going on in the Middle East during the '80s, thankfully today we see things like the Nissan Juke coming out of the insatiable market for speed and power.

Year Introduced: 1989

Why It's Terrible: Back when GM owned Lotus, the Elan was made. While it may have still be light, it was front wheel drive, which made it the '80s equivalent of a Mitsubishi Eclipse. Lame.

Year Introduced: 1985

Why It's Terrible: Alfa's compact executive sedan was, quite simply, crap. It may have been fun for a moment or two, but it was always broken, constantly rusting, and the onboard diagnostic computer was usually overworked. This is probably what killed the brand in the U.S. (We're hoping the 4C brings it back though).

Year Introduced: 1980

Why It's Terrible: It took all the class, pomp, and circumstance out of the Rolls, and simply replaced it with disgusting excess and hideous door rails. Franco Sbarro, a Swiss coach builder, transformed this Rolls-Royce Camargue into a hunting car for an Arabian aristocrat. Its considered unholy by anyone with taste. Proof that money can't buy everything.

Year Introduced: 1983

Why It's Terrible: AMC's dying effort involved a bunch of under-engineered French imports. Judging by the fact that there's no such thing as an AMC dealer anymore, it didn't work...if you can find an Eagle—the name given to AMC after acquisition by Chrysler in '87—we'll happily hand you keys to an Alliance.

Year Introduced: 1980

Why It's Terrible: If we had to pick the moment that Pontiac's downfall began, we'd have to say it was this: When the rear-wheel drive Ventura was replaced with the front-wheel drive Phoenix.

Year Intoduced: 1981

Why It's Terrible: The '80s were what killed Mercury, and the unsexy but expensive Lynx is probably the ugly, FWD harbinger of the demise.

Year Introduced: 1983

Why It's Terrible: This overpriced car was essentially just a stretched LeBaron, and was so unpopular that Chrysler never broke four digits in sales over the course of a year.

Year Introduced: 1980

Why It's Terrible: Yeah, putting a giant Porsche-style spoiler on your little econobox (econobean?) will make it cool. These were among the '80s biggest custom failures.

Year Introduced: 1984

Why It's Terrible: The Pontiac Fiero is on this list. Zimmer's addition of a ton of tacky aftermarket styling elements certainly doesn't help propel the car in our estimation either. Though the company made some $25 million during the decade, Zimmer did little to elevate the automotive styling of the period.

Year Introduced: 1980

Why It's Terrible: GM's X-Body cars were all crap, through and through. Between the fact that they were terrible, and the fact that these were the generation of cars that switched from RWD to FWD, we don't like 'em. We'd like to retrospectively issue the designers and engineers a citation.

Year Introduced: 1983

Why It's Terrible: It really, really should have been called the Lancia Arrugginire, which is Italian for "rust."

Year Introduced: 1985

Why It's Terrible: Subaru's strange coupe might not have been terribly fast or sporty, but it's design certainly was weird for the sake of weird. It's like Subaru went through a sci-fi French phase. Weirdest steering wheel ever.

Year Introduced: 1981

Why It's Terrible: Vanilla Ice has one.

Need more evidence? No German car needs to look like a bastardized Italian. Gemballa, a German tuner specializing in Porsche, did little to extend the legacy of any of the gorgeous models it touched back then.

Year Introduced: 1982

Why It's Terrible: The '80s were rife with reasonable front driven faux-sports cars, thankfully not all of them featured questionable French unreliability.

Year Introduced: 1980

Why It's Terrible: It sounds like it should have been very fast, but the Pontiac Trans Am Turbo was painfully slow. IN FACT, it wasn't even any faster than the non-turbo version of the same car.

Year Introduced: 1984

Why It's Terrible: This was Ford's response to the atrocious Chevy Cavalier. Why did Ford need to respond to the Cavalier?

Year Introduced: 1981

Why It's Terrible: The Lada Riva was little more than a face lifted '70s car that used '50s technology. It was worth little more than $10. A far cry from what the Russians have been pumping out in the last year.

Year Introduced: 1980

Why It's Terrible: The Omega was subject to who knows how many government mandated recalls. It was also powered by the abysmal Iron Duke engine, adding insult to proverbial injury.

Year Introduced: 1987

Why It's Terrible: The Subaru Justy was small, powerless, and incredibly boring to look at. Yet another compact hatchback that set the whole bodystyle's public perception in the USA back by decades.

Year Introduced: 1988

Why It's Terrible: Maserati was expected to accomplish great things when it finally created a successor to the Bora. Sadly, the Karif was awkward looking, and usually broken, due to its use of the biturbo.

Year Introduced: 1984

Why It's Terrible: This is a perfectly good Ranger Rover, that has been molested with an extra axle and the inexplicible front end from a Mercedes.

Year Introduced: 1987

Why It's Terrible: The Allante was designed to compete with the Mercedes SL-Class; this FWD Caddy didn't.

Year Introduced: 1985

Why It's Terrible: These days Hyundai is known for making extremely capable cars that are well equipped for a reasonable price, in 1985 Hyundai was known best for excelling at absolutely nothing except rust cultivation.

Year Introduced: 1981

Why It's Terrible: Ford gave the bland Granada a lot of updates throughout its life, but nothing could convince people to actually buy the damn thing.

Year Introduced: 1983

Why It's Terrible: The Caravelle's name, a misspelling of the class of Portuguese sailing ship Caravel, was its best feature. The rest was a product of cynical badge-engineering so bland and formless that there's not much else to be said about it.

Year Introduced: 1984

Why It's Terrible: This is a car with such bad quality, and so few redeeming factors that it spawned a whole host of jokes in Europe.

"Have you got a wing mirror for a Skoda?"
"Okay, seems like a fair swap."

Lost? So were the designers.

Year Introduced: 1980

Why It's Terrible: The Skylark used to be a perfect balance of sport and luxury, but the 1980 Skylark marked the turn to front wheel drive. Which is basically the moment Buick turned into (for a period of time) a brand that was strictly marketed to octogenarians.

Year Introduced: 1981

Why It's Terrible: These days, engines with twin turbos are becoming commonplace, but back in the '80s even a single turbocharger was considered exotic. This Maser's exotic set up was mildly cool for about 13 minutes, at which point either the engine or the turbos themselves blew up.

Year Introduced: 1987

Why It's Terrible: Kia is now known for selling cars that are surprisingly well equipped for their prices, but in 1987 the Kia Concord was just cheap. You didn't even get what little you paid for.

Year Introduced: 1980

Why It's Terrible: Even Ferrari was not immune to the car sapping effects of the '80s. When one buys a Ferrari, one wants performance. The Mondial 8 did not deliver—the thrill of "practicality" was about as exciting as the 214hp engine.

Year Introduced: 1983

Why It's Terrible: This custom kit was marketed as making the VW Golf look like a "Testarossa." It really didn't.

Year Introduced: 1980

Why It's Terrible: K-Body luxury cars are just as terrible as regular K-Body cars, but with a little bit more leather. That droopy butt was weird as hell too.

Year Introduced: 1980

Why It's Terrible: The Corvette 305 "California" may have looked the hairy-chested part, but it was powered by a wheezing 180hp V8 that was hooked up to a pathetic three-speed automatic. Try and find the muscle in that!

Year Introduced: 1982

Why It's Terrible: GM has only recently figured out how to make small cars that aren't terrible, and the Cavalier—last produced in 2005—was the long running proof of that fact.

Year Introduced: 1989

Why It's Terrible: GM's rebadged Suzuki is still a poster child for crappy small cars. In fact, this is a big part of the reason why Americans hate small cars on principle.

Year Introduced: 1980

Why It's Terrible: Not only was the engine a loud, slow, inefficient, dirty, and small piece of crap, but it managed to create a massive prejudice against diesel in America. Us journalists now have a ton of public opinion to fight against when trying to convince people that modern diesels are clean and efficient.

Year Introduced: 1981

Why It's Terrible: The idea of variable displacement is brilliant, but can only be pulled off now, with today's computing power (and didn't become common place until 2005). In 1981, people who bought this Cadillac hated the feature so much they usually took the car back to the dealership to have it disabled.

Year Introduced: 1982

Why It's Terrible: In 1932, one could get an Auburn with twice as much horsepower as this 1983 Chevrolet "muscle" car. Pathetic.

Year Introduced: 1980

Why It's Terrible: The Yugo 45 was named for the amount of horsepower coming out of the engine, and by the end of its lifetime, Yugos were literally being refused when offered as a freebie with other cars.