The worst subcompact in history

Pinto was worst in my list. Ford Pinto tend to catch on fire much like the current Ford Explorers do! Dealers actually started to sell Pinto cars with a free fire extinguisher believe it or not but unfortunately propaganda did not work! Amazing car..go Ford!

Pinto was worst in my list. Ford Pinto tend to catch on fire much like the current Ford Explorers do! Dealers actually started to sell Pinto cars with a free fire extinguisher believe it or not but unfortunately propaganda did not work! Amazing car..go Ford!

My family had a '71 red Gremlin X that I drove as a teenager. Strange? Desperate? Cheap? All true. But outside of a twitchy back end (fun for a 16 year old, BTW), there was nothing wrong with it. It was NEVER in the shop until it decomposed. I call that closed-loop life cycle, and the way every car should be.

It definitely goes to Yugo.

It definitely goes to Yugo.

Actually, I find that the Gremlin is quite a cool looking retro design.

It embodies what must be the diametric opposite of what looks sexy on a modern sports car. It has tiny wheels, a low shoulder and tall greenhouse.

But this is what makes it look so cool IMHO. Much like the UFO-inspired Pacer, the Gremlin comes from a time when designs were more playful and bit naive.

That's why the Gremlin and Pacer are now design icons for people who enjoy mid-century pop culture for all its irony and macho-free optimism.

... are you saying that I meant to call the Gremlin a sports car?

If so, please re-read my post. I said the Gremlin is the DIAMETRIC OPPOSITE of a sports car.

To simplify the English (in case you have problems with the language) I am saying that the Gremlin is NOT a sports car, design-wise, by today's standards.

The true test of how really awful a product is is if nobody cares. The Gremlin was what it was: quirky. Built to be talked about as an oddity. The Yugo, on the other hand? Nobody cares. It was built out of the scrap bin of otherwise undistinguished losers, e.g., Fiat 128's, and was meant to be taken seriously. Ha.

The true test of how really awful a product is is if nobody cares. The Gremlin was what it was: quirky. Built to be talked about as an oddity. The Yugo, on the other hand? Nobody cares. It was built out of the scrap bin of otherwise undistinguished losers, e.g., Fiat 128's, and was meant to be taken seriously. Ha.

The true test of how positively dreadful a product really is is whether anybody really cares. From this perspective, I think the hands-down winner is the 1985 Yugo. The vehicle, and I use that term loosely, was built from the spare parts bin of discontinued Fiats (themselves nothing to write home about)and was designed to compete with the Hyundai Excel (which, at least, was the foundation for whatever Hyundar cars are today). While AMC's show up at car shows, Yugo is the puncline to a bad joke. The Gremlin was always understood, by AMC and its target demographic, as a "quirky" oddity. Remember the commercial where the cute young woman pulls into the gas station and the grizzled old attendant chews on his cigar butt and says "hey, toots, where's the rest of the car?"