20 motoring misfires

Even great marques slip up now and again

Every famous car maker has a skeleton in the closet: a design it wishes it had never signed off, an engine it should have left on the test bench, or a disastrous tie-up with another brand it would love to forget.

But we’re here to remind them. Here are 20 legends’ lowest ebbs.

1. Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk3/IV

Technically, the Golf GTI wasn’t the first hot hatch, but it was definitely the first that mattered. Introduced in 1976, it owned the 1980s, but come the 1990s it was blunter than a toddler’s cutlery set.

The lardy Mk3 GTI 8v’s additional 3bhp over a late Mk1 was nowhere near enough to offset a near-200kg kerbweight increase, meaning it took nearly 1.5secs longer to hit 60mph. And don’t get us started on the naturally-aspirated MkIV GTI…

2. Pontiac GTO (1974)

Pontiac’s GTO was the Golf GTI of the 1960s muscle car years. But as with the GTI, a new decade meant a dramatic change in fortunes.

By 1974, the GTO was relegated to an option on the Pontiac Ventura, a bland Chevy Nova clone, and the only engine on offer was a meek 200bhp V8 that trickled the former hero to 60mph in an embarrassing 9.4secs.

It didn’t make it to 1975 – or maybe it just hasn’t arrived yet.

3. Ferrari Mondial 8

What is a mid-engined Ferrari if not beautiful and fast? A Mondial 8, perhaps.

This limo-take on the gorgeous 308GTB used the same running gear but in a chassis stretched to fit two extra seats. Unfortunately, it lost all of its beauty, and much of its brio in the process, particularly in US trim.

Car and Driver Magazine’s 1981 test car made just 205bhp and wheezed its way to 60mph in 9.3secs, though later European-spec cars such as the one pictured were much quicker.

4. Cadillac Cimarron

Keen to field a rival to small, sporty, premium European imports, but unable to justify the time or expense to build one from scratch, Cadillac rehashed Chevy’s compact Cavalier to create the Cimarron.

It wasn’t the first front-wheel drive Cadillac – the Eldorado had been front-drive since ’67 – but its feeble 88bhp 1.8 made it the first four-cylinder Caddy since the Great War.

5. Aston Martin Cygnet

In an even stranger case of badge engineering, Aston Martin threw a load of cow at the interior of Toyota’s IQ city car, calling the result the Cygnet after the small, ugly baby bird that’s not yet turned into a swan.

Bizarrely, while derided at the time, Cygnets are often now changing hands for close to their original £30k list price, which makes them more expensive than a DB9…

6. AC Invacar Model 70

AC might be most famous for classics such as the Ace and its musclebound Cobra alter-ego, but the company also churned out scores of these now rarely seen two-cylinder disability trikes before production ended in 1977.

The UK Government, which had only leased them to users, recalled and crushed them in 2003, though some enthusiasts (yes, really) rescued examples for the benefit/amusement/bewilderment of future generations. Whatever floats your boat.

7. Citroën LN

Here’s a sobering reminder of just how fast fortunes can change. In 1970, Citroën was riding high with the futuristic SM and GS, planning sophisticated rotary powertrains and marshalling Maserati and De Tomaso.

But by 1976 only intervention from arch-rival Peugeot had saved it from collapse and it was facing a future of building Pug clones such as the worthy, but so, so dull, LN.

8. Porsche 911 Carrera

By now we’re used to Porsche prostituting the Carrera tag it once saved for its most special cars and engines, but back in the 1970s it left a bad taste in the mouth.

Unable, or unwilling, to homologate its proper 210bhp 2.7 RS for a US market that wanted in on the Carrera action, it simply slapped a Carrera badge and some fatter Fuchs wheels on a 911S. In California in 1975 it made just 152bhp.

9. Triumph TR7

There’s nothing like going out on a low. The TR7 was the last of the fabled TR range, and certainly the least appealing.

Even if you can make peace with the odd rear-window line, the lack of a convertible shell and the undeersteery chassis, losing the gutsy TR6’s beefy 2.5-litre ‘six’ for a 2-litre slant-four was harder to forgive.

10. Chevrolet Corvette 1975

The last year for the convertible body style; the first for power-sapping catalytic converters: ’75 was a depressing year for fans of America’s favourite sports car.

That federally mandated cat and the weedy single exhaust system that came with it meant the base ’vette pushed out just 165bhp. Muscle car? Mr Muscle car, more like.

11. Peugeot 205 GTI automatic

The 205 GTI consistently ranks at, or very close to, the top of every greatest hot hatch poll. The only real debate is whether the sweet 1.6 (pictured) beats the grunty 1.9.

But there’s another version that combines the two – and ends up with the worst of both worlds. Fitted with a detuned 1.9 making the same as the earliest 1.6, but saddled with more weight, rear drums, and – worst of all – a four-speed auto ’box, the Japanese-market GTI is wrong, wrong, wrong.

12. Vanden Plas 1500

Once a respected coachbuilder clothing chassis for exclusive marques from Alvis to Rolls Royce, by the 1970s Vanden Plas was relegated to a BL sideshow act.

Most infamously its name was affixed to the Vanden Plas 1500, a gussied-up Austin Allegro featuring a daft grille and walnut picnic tables fixed to the back of the leather front seats.

13. Any modern Ford with Ghia trim

Taking a leaf out of BL’s book, Ford acquired Italian coachbuilder Ghia in 1970 and set about affixing the blue and red badge to the poshest versions of its own cars.

One minute Ghia was building Mille Miglia winners for Alfa Romeo; the next it was a vanity mirror and sliver of fake wood trim on a Fiesta.

14. Riley Elf

Formerly respectable sporting marque Riley suffered similar indignation in the hands of BMC a decade before Ghia hit the skids.

The revered 1930s Kestrel sports car’s name was stuck on a glammed-up Austin 1100, while the absurd-looking Elf (pictured) was a Mini, Riley-fied with a boot, tail fins and a vertical chrome grille. At least it handled.

15. Ford Mustang II (1974)

Arguably the right car at the right time, when that right time was the middle of a crippling fuel crisis, 1974’s Mustang II is still viewed as one of the least desirable ’Stangs.

That initial year introduced a four-cylinder option, and for the first – and only – time in the Mustang’s career, you couldn’t order a V8 in the US.

16. Jaguar X-type

This Detroit-designed fusion of old-worlde Jag styling cues and Ford Mondeo chassis architecture didn’t cut it with thrusting young execs weaned on premium German metal from BMW and Audi.

And by the time the diesel and front-wheel drive versions had joined the range, even the most ardent Jag fans struggled to recognise any real Browns Lane DNA.

17. Rover 100

They rebadged it, you fool! What started as the Austin Mini Metro ended its days as the Rover 100, a cynical attempt to borrow some cache from the stately P4 100 of the early 1960s.

When a disastrous two-star Euro NCAP crash test suggested drivers might end their own days behind the wheel, the 100’s fate was sealed and it was pulled from sale.

18. Rover CityRover

But Rover wasn’t done with prostituting its once-good name on second-rate small cars. In 2003 it rebadged Tata’s awful Indicar as the CityRover and actually managed to sell a few to myopic Brits before MG Rover collapsed into administration.

Great Rovers such as the P5 were genuine Prime Ministerial-grade wheels, but we can’t imagine Ted Heath or Harold Wilson cruising through the Downing Street Gates to Number 10 in the back of one of these.

19. Bentley T1/T2/Mulsanne

A Le Mans legend in the 1920s, Bentley was forced to capitulate to Rolls-Royce control to avoid financial collapse in the early 1930s.

That inevitably meant shared hardware in the years to follow, which reached its low point in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s – when the T1, T2 and Mulsanne saloons were just mildly less gauche (and wildly less popular) versions of the Rolls Silver Shadow and Silver Spirit.

20. Chrysler TC by Maserati

Legendary auto exec Lee Iacocca’s golden goose was the Ford Mustang, but he was also responsible for his fair share of turkeys, including the TC by Maserati.

This was a disastrous experiment to make something special from Chrysler’s front-wheel drive K-car platform – and a real low-point for one of Italy’s most storied brands.