The Alleged Car: Difference between revisions
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'''Archie''': Some of it dates back to 1926! }}
:: Throughout its [[Long Runner|very long run]], they had to constantly replace the base car as the car starts to become a classic or an an antique -- something that actually had some worth.
* [[Donald Duck|Donald Duck's]] famous 313. In one comic Donald manages to get the car to do 40 mph downhill, gets a ticket, and the cop remarks it's the first time he's ever given a speeding ticket to someone in a Belchfire Runabout (the make of car). In the story [https://web.archive.org/web/20120414180056/http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?s=date&loc=AR105 Recalled Wreck], Donald tells that he actually build the car himself from parts that by now are all out of production and can't be replaced. It's not hard to guess what happens to the parts next...
* In ''[[Sin City]]'':
** Gail has an unfortunate tendency to saddle Dwight with crappy cars when he's helping her. Once, during ''The Big Fat Kill'' she even forgot to make sure the car had enough gas to get where it was going. A similar car was given to him in ''Family Values''.
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* In [[Daniel Pinkwater]]'s ''Yobgorgle: Mystery Monster of Lake Ontario'', one character purchases one during the course of the book. He gets it dirt cheap(less than a hundred dollars), on the condition that he has to wear a chicken suit whenever he drives it.
* Jen from ''[[The Cornersville Trace Mythos|Extraordinary*]]'' has a car that stalls all the time, usually at the worst moments.
* The March 1980 edition of Australian car magazine ''Wheels'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20131101093321/http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Wheels_magazine/id/1997816 controversially declared] "No Car of the Year" for 1979, with the front cover featuring a giant lemon on four wheels. This prompted Ford Australia to hit back with an advertisement for its then-latest model Falcon, depicting a page full of literal lemons with popular car brands printed on them and declaring, "[[When Life Gives You Lemons|There are times when being a lemon is not a bitter experience at all]]". ''Wheels'' also declared "No Car of the Year" in 1972 and 1986.
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* Arrogant Worms's song "Car Full of Pain"—complete with a verse describing how it is literally possessed by the Legions of Hell.
* [[Weird Al]] Yankovic's car in "Stop Dragging My Car Around".
* The guys at [[Car Talk]] have been collecting these for some time now. [https://web.archive.org/web/20100608152926/http://www.shamelesscommerce.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=ROADSONGS Have a look.]
* The tour bus in [[Eric Bogle]]'s "Eric and the Informers":
{{quote|''We drove ourselves round in a Kombi van,
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** ''[[The Sims 3]]'' continues the tradition of having various cars of various expense available for purchase. Notably, the less expensive cars are indeed more likely to breakdown, meaning you might be late for work or school or whatever you're trying to get to, and you ''will'' get a negative moodlet.
* Some of the cars in ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' qualify. They look ugly as hell, and are painfully slow.
** In ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'' a few of the cars come in a 'beater' variant which is in horrible condition, with rusty bodywork, oxidized paint, missing panels and inferior performance (also, they backfire constantly). [https://web.archive.org/web/20131229131150/http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/gtawiki/images/e/e7/Vigero_(GTA4)_(beater_2)_(front).jpg This one is a perfect example], and yes, that is duct-tape holding one of the windows in. And some of them even have alarms.
** Beater cars such as the Tampa were introduced to the series in ''[[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas]]'', with the sole intention of being customized by the player (also a new addition to the series.) [[Magikarp Power|These cars specifically were designed to allow for the maximum number of modifications and thus became the best cars in the game.]]
* In ''[[The Simpsons Hit & Run]]'', most vehicles which get destroyed are reduced to their frames, Buford T. Justice-style. They are still drivable, but have horrible acceleration, very low top speed, and terrible handling.
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{{quote|'''Esther:''' "I have a surprise for you," says my dad. "You know [[wikipedia:Volkswagen Beetle|that car Hitler liked so much]]? I made you one out of rust."}}
* In ''[[Girl Genius]]'', one strip involves Agatha receiving [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20050328 a...rather poorly maintained] walking house.
* Eric Remington's, as seen in [https://web.archive.org/web/20110417174800/http://bukucomics.com/loserz/go/200 this strip] of ''[[Loserz]]''.
* In ''[[Drive (webcomic)|Drive]]'', the Machito is one of these, until the Emperor has it upgraded.
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** There was a parody of the famous Citroen "Dancing [[Transformers Generation 1|Transformer]]" ad that featured a 2CV—it held up surprisingly well until the end...
* The Lamborghini Espada. Don't let the maker fool you out on the feeling that it's a [[Cool Car]], because this bull sucked; its glass on the door panels can shatter if knocked in a car park, and the engine starved itself of oil quickly and corrosion sets in, causing electrical faults on the out of control switch placement.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100126054146/http://mongolrally.theadventurists.com/index.php The Mongol Rally] challenges its participants to drive from London to Ulanbataar in The Alleged Car. Cars can be disqualified for having too powerful an engine (though exceptions are made for cars of [[Rule of Funny|"significant comedy value"]], e.g., ice cream trucks).
* And who could forget the [[wikipedia:Trabant|Trabant]], vehicle of "[[But Thou Must!|choice]]" for [[East Germany|East Germans]] before the country collapsed. Affectionately called "Trabbi", it would seem like this car was designed as a Communist backlash against Western cars—which then embodied the capitalist principles of freedom and prestige—by creating a car whose sole and only purpose was moving people from A to B (noisily, and with an exhaust plume trailing all the way back from B to A). There are a number of reasons it qualifies:
** The engine was a two-stroke, 15-20 hp, 0.5 liter in-line 2 cylinder with a fuel efficiency of 34 mpg (7 liters/100 km, 14.28 km/l) -- ''same as a modern 150 hp, 1.8 liter L4''. Top speed was 112 km/h (70 mph—even a modern compact can reach 110 mph/170 km/h), and acceleration was ''0 to 60 mph in 60 seconds''. Quite ideal for the limited number of destinations available, for a country that asked for travelling passes to cross the state borders.
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** Rather amusing, since these days, most Škodas are built on last generation [[V Ws]]. The Fabia, for example, is a Mark IV Golf underneath the skin.
* During [[The Eighties]] Britain imported a fair number of cars from the Eastern Bloc to satisfy demand for a low-cost alternative to Western cars; the Russian Lada Riva serves the same role in British humour as the Yugo does in American humour. Škoda cars also used to, but see above.
** Lada Niva, arguably the first crossover in the world, is remembered fondly by many, on the other hand. It experienced a short period of popularity in Brazil after the market was opened for imported cars in the early 90s, and has a small number of enthusiasts. [[Your Mileage May Vary]], but [http://www.noticiasautomotivas.com.br/lada-niva-mostra-quem-e-que-manda-no-pedaco/ after this]{{Dead link}}, it might count as [[What a Piece of Junk!]].
** As a subversion of the "Eastern Bloc cars suck" idea, the Fiat 126p (built in Poland under licence) was actually better regarded by British drivers than its Western counterpart because its heavier construction (either a consequence of engineering constraints or so it doesn't fall apart if you try driving it on Polish roads, depending who you ask) made it easier to control and less prone to rust.
* [[Harry Potter|Actor Rupert Grint]] purchased an ice cream truck as his first car. ''Definitely'' overlaps with [[Cool Car]] (and totally owns Ashton Kutcher's International CXT super-pickup...). Small wonder his website has the subtitle "Ice Cream Man".
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** 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!"
** [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.
* There is now a competition devoted to the Alleged Car: the [http://www.24hoursoflemons.com LeMons], a two-day event for cars bought and fixed up for $500 or less, excluding safety equipment. Prizes are awarded to the car with furthest distance on the track before it breaks down completely, the amount of horrible vapors that exude from it, and which one is just plain worst. And for those who are too proud of their beloved Alleged Car (we're looking at ''you'', [[Top Gear|Richard Hammond]]) to smash it up, there's a [https://web.archive.org/web/20130909100251/http://www.carlustblog.com/2009/08/concours-dlemon.html Concours de LeMons], whose [http://www.concoursdlemons.com/participants.html show categories are worth a read just for laughs].
* The [https://web.archive.org/web/20130808215655/http://www.carlustblog.com/2009/02/edsel.html Edsel's] gotten a [[Shout-Out]] in everything from ''[[Garfield]]'' to ''[[Destroy All Humans!]]'' as one of the worst cars ever made. Ironically, it apparently wasn't that bad a car (it is said to have roughly the same level of reliability as other American cars of its day), it just was [https://web.archive.org/web/20130808215655/http://www.carlustblog.com/2009/02/edsel.html marketed wrong, priced wrong, named wrong and, most of all, just plain ugly] [[Your Mileage May Vary|to most people]]. (''The Book of Heroic Failures'' quotes [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]] as calling it "a classic case of the wrong car for the wrong market at the wrong time." The book also claims that half the Edsels sold were defective in some way: doors that wouldn't open, trunks that wouldn't shut, push-buttons that wouldn't do anything, etc.)
* In the early 1970s, when the oil crisis forced American manufacturers to crank out small cars or die, the [https://web.archive.org/web/20130809080510/http://www.carlustblog.com/2010/12/the-chevrolet-vega-what-went-wrong.html Chevy Vega,] AMC Gremlin and [[Every Car Is a Pinto|Ford Pinto]] gave American small cars this reputation: having absolutely ''zero'' experience in building small cars, the American manufacturers, to put it lightly, stumbled ''quite a bit'' in their attempts at building small vehicles, to the extent that the Ford Pinto ''[[Every Car Is a Pinto|would actually explode]] [[Trope Namer|when crashed!]]''. In fact, Ford officials [http://motherjones.com/politics/1977/09/pinto-madness knew perfectly well] that the Pinto's gas tank tended to explode, could have rectified the situation, and ''chose not to'' on the basis of a "cost-benefit analysis" (basically saying "It's cheaper to let people burn to death, wrongful death lawsuits and all, than to change the car"). It's often held up as an example of why punitive damages should be legal in lawsuits. This is why Toyota, Honda and Datsun (now Nissan) became popular in the States—being manufacturers from fuel-deprived Japan, they had ''way'' more know-how on subcompact design, and the Toyota Corolla, Datsun B-210 and Honda Civic ended up ruling the day.
** As a further illustration of the incompetence of American auto manufacturers of the time, the exploding gas tank was not a problem until the ''second year'' of production. The first production year automobiles were perfectly safe; which makes sense, since most of the car was by Lotus, with a Ford body dropped on it. It wasn't until 1972, when they started doing everything themselves, that the problems started. Interestingly, the problems that plagued the Pinto did not necessarily translate to the Mercury Bobcat or Ford Mustang 2; both of which were nothing more than a modified Pinto chassis with a different body dropped on top.
* The [https://web.archive.org/web/20130809073326/http://www.carlustblog.com/2009/02/chevrolet-chevy-citation.html 1980 Chevy Citation] and its Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Buick derivatives, intended as GM's world-beating answer to the Honda Accord, was instead a world-beating mashup of poor engineering and atrocious build quality. Among its many flaws were over-enthusiastic rear brakes that would lock up and cause an "atomic death-skid" at the slightest provocation. [[Unfortunate Implications|Having the same name as a term for a parking ticket probably didn't help, either.]]
* Ford (Jokingly referred to as an acronym for "Found On Road Dead" or "Fix Or Repair Daily) seems to have had a problem with quality control, at least at its British assembly plant, well into the 1980s; the phrase 'Friday afternoon car' is alleged to have originated with their products.
** With Honda motorcycles you can occasionally encounter the 'Friday Afternoon Design': a part from one model that ''almost'' fits earlier or later models, but is subtly different for no apparent reason.
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* During the 1960s and 1970s, Chrysler foolishly took control of the Rootes Group in Britain which supplied them with cars smaller than what Chrysler Corporation proper wanted to build, with generally poor results. The nadir was the 1971-73 Plymouth Cricket (aka Hillman Avenger) which had poor workmanship and tended to rust like crazy. To add insult to injury to the Chrysler-Plymouth dealers, the Dodge sales channel got the far better Mitsubishi-sourced Colt.
* Conan O'Brien started a contest for people to send in videos of their alleged cars called "[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Conan, Please Blow Up My Car!]]" where the winner received a new Lexus HS 250h in its place (replacing a 1980 Toyota Corolla two-door with the roof hacked off to make a "convertible"). He also frequently mentions his own alleged car, a 1992 Ford Taurus SHO.
* A similar contest was held in Canada by [[Auto Trader]], called "[https://web.archive.org/web/20111129094600/http://cliffyourride.autotrader.ca/ Cliff your Ride]".
* Some cars that are genuinely good manage to earn this reputation over time nonetheless.
** The Dodge Neon earned large amounts of critical acclaim upon its launch in 1994 and was a huge success in both the showroom and on the track, as well as being a very influential design and concept that all of today's compact cars are modeled after to some extent. However, the quality/reliability problems that plagued early models (Its tendency for head gasket failure being the most notable), its "cute" design and the fact that many were turned into "rice burners" during the street racing fad of the mid-2000s lead to the Neon being a common Alleged Car today.
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*** The company's production process was so inefficient that the cost of building a Bricklin was over three times the price it sold for. ([[You Fail Economics Forever|They probably expected to make it up on volume.]])
** The 1976 Aston Martin Lagonda: A beautiful supercar filled with cutting edge electronics and gadgets that refused to work.
** The [https://web.archive.org/web/20130808142626/http://www.carlustblog.com/2009/02/cimarron-by-cadillac-19811988.html 1982 Cadillac Cimarron]: An alleged luxury car—basically a rebadged, 4-speed manual transmission Chevy Cavalier sold at Cadillac prices. Nearly killed the Cadillac brand and remains an [[Old Shame]].
* The Czechoslovak Velorex company is quite a name in motorcycle sidecars. They also built something that [http://abc.se/~m9805/eastcars/velorex/Velorex_250.jpg might be described as a car], but which is basically a motorcycle sidecar without the motorcycle. If you've looked at the pic and are unsure about what the bodywork is made of: yes, that's actually ''vinyl-coated canvas'' over steel tubing. The frame is attached to what is effectively the rear end of a motorcycle with a 125cc or 250cc two-stroke single-cylinder engine (later models had a 250cc twin) driving the single rear wheel. [[Top Gear|Tiff Needell]] took one for a spin once, and reported, yelling over the din of the engine that "braking is accomplished by writing a letter politely asking to reduce your speed, oh, sometime next week".
* An Alleged Motorcycle is the Chang Jiang [[CJ 750]]: a Chinese copy of a Russian copy of a pre-[[WW 2]] BMW. Using tooling the ''Russians'' considered worn, having by then been in production use for 20 years already. Chang Jiang also builds a copy of the Jawa 353, again using the ''original'' tooling.
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* The early '80's Cadillacs were saddled with the 8-6-4 engine which used a crude cylinder deactivation system, or the [[Genre Killer]] Diesel 350, which left buyers with a choice of buying a car that would leap and shake or one that wouldn't start if it was near freezing temperatures.
* The Reliant Robin can't be easily considered an [[Alleged Car]], because it's hard to classify it ''as'' a car. It has two defining features, one being the fact that it only has three wheels, the single wheel is in the front. The other? Rolling over. One takes a sharp turn in a Reliant Robin at their own risk. It may be the only car in history to roll over 360 degrees from cornering to hard. In the UK, especially [[Oop North]], the Robin became popular as it only required a motorcycle license to operate and thus avoided many taxes that car owners were saddled with. In spite of—or because of—this, the Robin has become something of an icon of British popular culture. The yellow van in ''[[Only Fools and Horses]]'' was a Robin, as was the light blue van that was [[Running Gag|always getting tipped over]]. ''[[Top Gear]]'' has done several segments on the Robin (and it's [[Running Gag|tipping over]]) and the Robin even has a racing circuit where [[Running Gag|tipping over]] is so common there are established techniques for righting oneself right there on the track.
* Yahoo automotive contributor Tim Cernea has several of these stories, the most tropeworthy being his [http://voices.yahoo.com/the-best-car-ever-owned-11309842.html?cat=27 1965 Ford Falcon Ranchero.]{{Dead link}} In true handyman fashion, he described the car losing its fuel tank on the highway as "a minor setback".
* The G-Wiz is a very tiny electric car. Ok, technically it is legally a "Heavy Quadbike" in Britain for it's extreme lack of power. It has extremely poor acceleration, you can't use any of the electronics such as the radio, since it will kill the G-Wiz's very small battery life, and basically disintegrates in a crash.
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