The Alleged Car: Difference between revisions
Rescuing 2 sources and tagging 0 as dead.) #IABot (v2.0.8
(Rescuing 2 sources and tagging 0 as dead.) #IABot (v2.0.8) |
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*** "Lucas invented the three position switch -- dim, flicker, and off."
** Another notable example was the Triumph TR7, and not necessarily for reliability reasons. Auto designer Giorgetto Giugiaro — who created the bodywork for iconic cars like the Lotus Esprit, De Lorean DMC-12, Maserati Ghibli and Volkswagen Golf — had a memorable reaction upon seeing Triumph's notoriously ugly TR7 during the 1975 Geneva Motor Show. After viewing the profile of the car, with the sculpted curve running along the side, he took on a puzzled expression, slowly walked around the car and exclaimed in startlement: "My God! They've done it to the other side as well!"
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20130825144607/http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1658498_1657839,00.html The below-mentioned Time article] said of the Triumph Stag, which it uses as a representative for British Leyland cars as a whole, "The Stag was lively and fun to drive, as long as it ran. The 3.0-liter Triumph V8 was a monumental failure, an engine that utterly refused to confine its combustion to the internal side. The timing chains broke, the aluminum heads warped like mad, the main bearings would seize and the water pump would poop the bed — ''ka-POW!'' Oh, that piston through the bonnet, that is a spot of bother."
** How bad was British Leyland? Rover's [https://web.archive.org/web/20130909041639/http://www.carlustblog.com/2008/07/car-lust--sterl.html Sterling 827 SLi] was essentially a license-built version of a mid-80s Honda (Accura) Legend, one of he best-engineered cars of its day—but even Honda engineering was no match for British assembly quality!
** To top it off, BMW purchased British Leyland (by then known as the Rover Group) and reputedly ended up losing billions of dollars in the six years it owned them. Inverted with the Land Rover (sold for a profit) and MINI (kept by BMW and now bigger than ever) divisions, but still played straight with the rest of the Rover Group which was effectively given away for next to nothing.
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* In China, the worst are the Xiali (based on a Toyota design) and Suzuki Alto, two of the first to enter market. The latter is often joked to have been designed to drive on sidewalks. The former is joked for its design's 2-decade production without major change.
* The Lancia Beta, which rusted to point of scrap, ruined the reputation of Lancia (a manufacturer of otherwise decent cars) in the United Kingdom, forcing the company to pull out of the UK entirely, much to the chagrin of ''[[Top Gear]]'''s presenters years later.
* [[Time (magazine)|Time Magazine]]'s [https://web.archive.org/web/20160420212738/http://
** The 1920 Briggs and Stratton<ref>Yes, the lawn mower people</ref> Flyer: "...A motorized park bench on bicycle wheels."
** The 1956 Renault Dauphine: an ultra-cheap rust magnet that went from 0-60 in ''32 seconds.''
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