[dont overfill]

I worked in the motor trade for a large part of my life so had the opportunity to drive the good, bad and the ugly.

One that stood out was the Rover City, an Indian built, re bodied Austin Metro. I drove it at one of the Ford "True Blue" drive events where we were supplied with a selection of competitors to the Ford range to compare. It may be hard to believe but Tata actually managed to make it worse than a Metro.

Some competitor cars were actually dangerous. We were invited to compare the Ford C Max with the Citroen Picasso driving them through a slalom of cones. We could get the C Max up to around 35 mph through the cones. When it came to the Citroen we were warned not above 15 mph as there was a surprise. Too right! After negotiating two cones the power steering ran out of puff with some interesting results.

Then there was the ESP and braking tests in the huge car park at Donington. The Audi A4's had to be rationed as there were several with broken exhausts. Under the emergency braking tests the front wheels tramped so badly the exhausts broke.

Who remembers the origonal Dacias from the '80's. The saloon was based on the Renault 9 which I thought was quite good. The Dacia's were so bad the importers went bust and the remaining stock was sold through British Car Auctions. They were sold new registered for between £1300 and £1800 depending on how canibalised they were.

I could go on but the weather is too good today to just sit here reminiscing.

[MarkOlding]

Ah yes,the Ford Crapi.
I hired one once*; I wanted a Fiat 124 but the hire firm hadn't got one straight away so let me have the Ford for the same price.(Ford was 1.6l and Fiat was 1.2l.)
It had about 8000miles on it; the driver and passenger windows had a gap at the top about one inch (wouldn't wind up any higher) and when I opened the boot, there was about 3 or 4 inches of rainwater in it.
Midweek the hire firm phoned me - they had the '124 available. It was far superior, the acceleration alone knocked the Crapi into a cocked hat. A few months later when I traded in my Vauxhall Viva, I got a second hand '124. It was a bit rusty (as were all Fiats of that era - the 70s) and suffered from carb icing in winter but it was a flier.
* I was detached to Glasgow Airport and BEA were offering a weekend special; fly one way the first weekend and return the next weekend for £12.50p the return ticket. hence I hired the car at Heathrow to get to my home in Chesham.

Whoa - don't knock the Ford Capri ! Drive a 2.8i with a bag of cement in the back and then tell me the Fiat is better. Lovely smooth V6, enough power to get a move on, and with the cement bag the handling was entertaining rather than scary.....

[bar shaker]

Volvo V60 1.6D 2008 - Utter pile of animal excrement. OK - purchased it second hand, but the list of issues is longer than the M1. I have bought cars with far tougher histories that just seemed to go and go.. this hunk of junk takes any excuse to down tools and go on strike..

Next worst car - XC90 - bought new build quality of a Lada....

I had a V40 car from Europcar in Switzerland, last weekend. They haven't got any better.

In 11 different hire cars over the last 18 months, this was by far the worst beating even the dire Opal Meriva. The handling was best measured against that of a narrow boat, the auto gear box was awful (think Smart car), the seats were uncomfortable, the brakes massively over servo'd and the car design seemed to have no reasoning other than to make the boot smaller than it needed to be.

Out of interest, the best have been a really hot Audi A1 and the Skoda Superb Estate.

[PilotU]

Fiat Cinquecento without a shadow of doubt.

[The Other Ian]

Citroen AX 1.4D. Without a doubt the worst car I have ever had the misfortune to own.

I took on a job which involved a fairly lengthy commute. My Vauxhall Cavalier 2.0i petrol engine was a bit thirsty for this journey. "Get a nice little French diesel," my so-called mates said. "They go forever and hardly use any fuel."

Noisy, rattly and uncomfortable; the foot pedals were offset in one direction and the steering wheel offset in the other, which meant adopting a strange, twisted driving position. The steering was so vague that it handled like a supermarket trolley on even the slightest of bends. It felt like the front end wasn't attached to anything. The engine was gutless (a massive 50 BHP when new, probably producing about half that when i got it) and seemed to be slowly shaking itself apart.

As it happened the head gasket went after a couple of weeks of struggling through my 90 mile round-trip daily commute. I paid a scrap dealer to take it away.

I've never had a French or diesel car since.

[Paul_Sengupta]

"Get a nice little French diesel," my so-called mates said.

To be fair to your friends, they probably assumed that you'd know to get a Peugeot!

[ChrisRowland]

The worst I've driven is probably a Bedford FWD ex army lorry. Purists may claim this isn't a car but I drove it on my car license so I think it counts.

It was set up as a drilling rig and registered as an agricultural vehicle so none of the goods vehicles rules applied. We ran it perfectly legally on red diesel. Noisy, heavy, restricted to 45 MPH and no motorways. The gear lever was somewhere by my elbow. It's only advantage was that people tended to get out of it's way.

[Bill Haddow]

The worst I've driven is probably a Bedford FWD ex army lorry.

....

The gear lever was somewhere by my elbow.

Aha ! The Bedford RL. When changing up from 1st to 2nd or down from 3rd to 2nd you had to remember to lean forward to avoid your elbow from hitting the back of the cab. (At least you weren't constricted by seat belts [or for that matter any other modern nanny-state inconveniences])

In fairness to the truck, it was a variant of a design which first went into production in 1950, some 67 years ago, and a mere 61 years after the 1889 Paris World Exhibition which launched the first practical internal combustion engine driven vehicles.

It was a very practical vehicle, the flexibility of the chassis helped it's off road capability and the 4.9 litre petrol engine could be started using a starting handle (remember them ? ), and it continued into relatively recent use in its Green Goddess version.

I have a fond affection for them, having driven them as a 17 year old

Bill H

[ChrisRowland]

See entirely what you mean, a perfectly sensible and practical vehicle in the context of its time and what it was designed for.

We could probably say that about every car that's been mentioned.

Even the Reliant Robin I learned to drive on. We had that because Dad could drive it on his motorcycle license.

The trick with the Robin was to do all your braking in a straight line, before the corner, then go round with full throttle. This shifted the weight to the rear where there was a wheel. Loosing your nerve and breaking round a corner was exciting because the weight shifted to a corner with no wheel. The Top Gear people never cottoned on to this.

[Paultheparaglider]

Fiat Cinquecento without a shadow of doubt.

My dad had one of those. It was a real heap of junk. Double declutching, underpowered, terrible handling, mechanical problems, leaky sunroof. It definitely ought to qualify for a special award here.

The strange thing is I have a lot of fond memories of it. Goodness knows why.

[cockney steve]

IIRC, they had the audacity /stupidity/ naivite to market a Lancia-badged version (Y10)
despite the Marques' appalling reputation for self-destruction (the Beta with the rotting cross-member)

[Paultheparaglider]

I didn't realise they did that model, Steve, and after googling I realise the Fiat Cinquecento is a different car to the one I had in mind. My comments related to the original Fiat 500.

[nallen]

IIRC, they had the audacity /stupidity/ naivite to market a Lancia-badged version (Y10)
despite the Marques' appalling reputation for self-destruction (the Beta with the rotting cross-member)

The Lancia Y10 was derived from the Uno, both of which were perfectly decent little cars of the 1980s (though rot prone: three of the four doors on my Uno evaporated around the window frame; the fourth remained immaculate).

The original cinquecento (60 years old this year) is certainly an acquired taste to drive, but is not short of charm.

[Paul_Sengupta]

The Y10 wasn't a bad little car, but it was a bit of a squeeze driving around Italy with three burly engineers plus our suitcases and bags. After one such journey I managed to go back to the hire car office and swap it for an Alfa 156 which was better!

[JoeC]

Top Gear people never cottoned on to this.

I think they did!