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I don't know if anyone else out there is an automotive enthusiast like I am, but I stumbled across this article today while reading about BMW's design chief quitting, and I was sad that I hadn't seen it before today.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/com...1658545,00.html

Like any "Top X" lists, there's always some debate to the validity of the list, but I was actually surprised by how few disagreements I had with what I saw - of the cars I immediately knew, which was admittedly probably only about 80-85%, I could only put up reasonable arguments against excluding the Model T, the BMW 7, and the DeLorean, primarily for the notion that their technological and/or cultural impact outweighed any other factors. I also thought that selecting not one but three (maybe even four) cars for the list based solely on their negative environmental impact seemed to be piling on a bit too much, even though I don't actually disagree with their inclusion overall.

Anyone else care enough to weigh in?

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

id have to say, i agree with many of the cars on that list. BUT, to put a vehicle on there solely based on the environmental impacts is just plain stupid. the ford explorer might have paved the way for gas-guzzling suvs driven by soccer moms, but it was a wonderful vehicle. thats ther only exapmle ill use here, but theres many more.

i think they should rework that list to only include vehicles that were bad. not the effects they had on things.

Hahaha, The Yugo. I remember seeing that piece of crap when I was a kid. If I remember right, they were so bad that most car dealers started giving them away for free, with the purchase of a decent car.

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Climhazzard is the timeless evil robot who runs some of the cool stuff at CoN (mostly logging chat, since there are no quizzes at the moment), all the while watching and waiting for his moment to take over the world. -Tiddles

Quote (Sephiroth @ 5th February 2009 16:21)

If I remember right, they were so bad that most car dealers started giving them away for free, with the purchase of a decent car.

I'm pretty sure that's an urban legend, man. I've never heard anything like that.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

It was definitely an interesting list, and I didn't disagree with ALL of it, but the creators of it do seem to have a touch of the Luddite blues.

For instance, going in to and looking at the separate entries, against the Model T, the argument it seems to make against it is that it was successful and helped to bring about the boom in cars, and that it was perhaps not the best engineered vehicle that ever existed... which being very close to the start of the industry, we can hardly blame it for not having all the bugs worked out.

A better way of titling the list, perhaps, would be, "50 worst cars of all time in retrospect"


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If you've been mod-o-fied,
It's an illusion, and you're in-between.
Don't you be tarot-fied,
It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean?
~Frank Zappa

Sins exist only for people who are on the Way or approaching the Way

Quote (Rangers51 @ 5th February 2009 17:25)

Quote (Sephiroth @ 5th February 2009 16:21)

If I remember right, they were so bad that most car dealers started giving them away for free, with the purchase of a decent car.

I'm pretty sure that's an urban legend, man. I've never heard anything like that.

Nah, I looked more into it. It was my mistake for thinking it was numerous dealers. It was actually just one Cadillac dealer in New Jersey that did that, buy a car and get a free Yugo thing. Some people claim that it was multiple areas that this happened in, but I know there was at least one dealer.

This post has been edited by Sephiroth on 7th February 2009 05:54

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Climhazzard is the timeless evil robot who runs some of the cool stuff at CoN (mostly logging chat, since there are no quizzes at the moment), all the while watching and waiting for his moment to take over the world. -Tiddles