The Alleged Car: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''[[Honest John's Dealership|Crazy Vaclav]]''': She'll do 300 [[Unit Confusion|hectares]] on a single tank of kerosene.<br />

'''Homer''': [[Made in Country X|What country is this car from?]]<br />

 

It was cheap. It was easy to buy. Charitably, it can be called a car. Unfortunately, it tops out at about 40 miles per hour (45 if you're going downhill), [[Plot-Driven Breakdown|it breaks down a lot]], you get parking tickets for it ''[[Driving Stick|while it's in drive]]'', and you probably have to special-order replacement parts from overseas, since you're the only one in your time zone who was enough of a sucker to buy one (and cars like this are inevitably foreign, often from countries that [[The Great Politics Mess-Up|no longer exist]] due to civil wars and political turmoil). The only reason it hasn't fallen apart yet is because the rust holds everything in place. Often it has some kind of cute or derogatory nickname. Sometimes a car like this is referred to as a Rolls-Canardley: rolls down one hill, can 'ardly get up the next.

The polar opposite of the [[Cool Car]]. Often found in [[Injun Country]] and [[Ruritania|Ruritanias]], or in the parking lot of [[Honest John's Dealership]]. Expect [[My Car Hates Me]] to happen a lot.

 

 

Paradoxically, in both fiction and sometimes in real life, a person who operates any such alleged vehicle for any length of time can often become quite emotionally attached to it. Sometimes a person gets in touch with all the car's little quirks, such that [[Only I Can Make It Go|only he or she can keep the heap running]].

 

== Anime & Manga ==

** It belongs to Yukari's parents. Presumably it looks like that because it ''is'' driven by Yukari. The way that thing gets camera treatment, it is the closest thing the series has to an outright villain. Not even Kimura-sensei is quite as traumatizing.

* Coach Yamazakura's car in ''Slow Step''. Bikes are faster and factories produce less exhaust.

* Brad's perpetually worked-on Chevy Nova in ''[[Luann]]''.

* The 1962 VW Microbus Jeremy and Hector are "restoring" in ''[[Zits]]''. It has wildlife living in the engine compartment and creates its own smokescreen as it drives.

 

 

* The [[Ruritania|Transbelvian]] Belv in [[Eyrie Productions Unlimited]]'s ''[[Street Fighter]]''/[[Mega Crossover|whole bunch of other stuff]] fic ''Warrior's Legacy''. The author/narrator describes it quite well:

{{quote| I insist, though, that when in Transbelvia, the truly discriminating tourist is obligated to drive the national automobile, the one and only Belv. The Belv is the quintessential East European car, a tiny tin box with a two-stroke motor that sounds like a mimeograph machine on Self-Destruct and smells like a burning blackwall tire. This particular one had a four-speed manual gearbox that liked to crunch and jitter on shifts, brakes operated by cables, and no gauges that worked. }}

 

 

 

== Films -- Live Action ==

{{quote| '''Nick:''' This is not a cab, my friend, I promise.}}

* Inspector Clouseau's car in ''Revenge of The [[Pink Panther]]''. It looks like a pimped-up Batmobile, but falls apart in the driveway.

* ''Smoke Signals'' has one that's permanently stuck in reverse and thus driven backwards everywhere. According to the makers, this is actually [[Truth in Television]] on some Indian reservations.

* ''Pow Wow Highway'' has a car stuck permanently in reverse, too.

* The "Wagon Queen Family Truckster" from ''[[National Lampoon's Vacation]]''. "You think you hate it now -- but wait til you drive it!"

* The car that the title character drives in ''Mr. Hulot's Holiday'' is so underpowered and rickety, duct-tape and bailing wire could be considered luxury extras.

* The [[James Bond]] movies have a few examples.

* Speaking of Citroën 2CV, the one driven by Soeur Clotilde in ''The Gendarme of Saint-Tropez'' is literally broken apart by the ride's end, losing its doors, wings, windscreen and even the rear axle. Though it's mostly because the nun [[Drives Like Crazy]].

* ''[[Dragnet]]'' (1987). "After losing the two previous vehicles we had been issued, the only car the department would release to us at this point was an unmarked 1987 Yugo; a Yugoslavian import donated as a test vehicle by the government of that country and reflecting the cutting edge of Serbo-Croatian technology."

* The VW bus in ''[[Little Miss Sunshine]]'' has to be push started because it needed a new clutch, but the family would have missed Olive's contest if they had waited for it to be fixed. Also, the horn had a loose connection and beeped intermittently.

* The second ''Enterprise'' is like this in ''[[Star Trek V]]'', allegedly because it was a quick refit of another ship still under construction.

* Andrew Steyn's car in ''[[The Gods Must Be Crazy]]!'' is nicknamed "The Antichrist" (for multiple reasons) or "Son Of A Mlakka" depending on who you ask.

* As much a [[Cool Car]] as the DeLorean of ''[[Back to The Future]]'' is, it would always break down at the worst time. Apparently this is [[Truth in Television]]. It's implied that Doc Brown installed some sort of override on the ignition; he fiddles under the dash and she starts right up, or the ignition wires are just that loose.

* Mrs. Larusso's car in ''[[The Karate Kid]]''.

* Frank's "piss yellow" junker in ''[[The Frighteners]]''.

* Troy's truck in ''[[High School Musical|High School Musical 3: Senior Year]]''.

* Inverted in ''[[Wanted]]''. The Lada driven by [[Action Girl|Fox]] in the train hunt scene is the quintessencial crappy car in (ex-)Soviet culture. Only she does some [[Car Fu|really crazy shit]] with this alleged vehicle: unbelievable stunts, ridiculous speed, aerobatics, you name it. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Awesomeness]] and [[Crowning Moment of Funny|hilarity combined]].

* Denzel Washington's introductory movie, ''Carbon Copy'', has one of these. Denzel's character purchased it for 14 dollars and a record player, leading his (white) father to reply, "you were overcharged." It has no horn, no brakes, a nonexistent paint job, coughs black smoke everywhere it goes, and becomes a permanently-converted convertible by the end of the film.

* Watts' Mini in ''[[Some Kind of Wonderful]]''.

* The Dude's Torino in ''[[The Big Lebowski]]'' was a pile of crap, even before the events of the movie that led to his car being burned by nihilists.

* Turned completely on its head in [[Woody Allen]]'s ''[[Sleeper]]''. While on the run from (future dystopian) authorities, Woody's and Diane Keaton's characters discover what appears to be a dust covered, 200 year old, mid-Sixties vintage Volkswagon Beetle. When Woody turns the key in the ignition the car starts without a millisecond's hesitation and purrs happily. Woody observes, "Wow, they just don't make 'em like they used to."

* Polish Communist film ''[[Mis]]'' (''Teddy Bear''), which generally sent up life in the Polish People's Republic, had a sequence in the opening credits where the hero sneezed and his Polish Fiat car fell apart in the middle of traffic.

* The ''[[The Blues Brothers|BluesMobile]]''

 

* [[Bill Cosby]]'s bit from his 'Why is There Air' album about his first car, a 1942 Dodge he bought for $75, which wouldn't go over 50 mph.

* Scott Faulconbridge had a routine where he talked about his car. It was worth about twenty bucks. After he filled it with gas.

 

 

== Literature ==

** Newton Pulsifer has a Wasabi. He praises its incredible gas mileage, but tends to gloss over the amount of time it spends being repaired; he also calls it Dick Turpin (after the British highwayman), because "wherever I go, I hold up traffic." At one point it's described as having been designed on that fateful day when Japan stopped copying Western designs and began coming up with their own, during the brief period of paradigm shift, and ended up with not only all the flaws of Western cars, but also some entirely new ones. Aside from the repair time, it also has a voice that recites, in a particularly bad Japanese accent, "Prease to frasten sleat-bert" regardless of whether the seat-belt is fastened, and an airbag system that deploys on dangerous occasions like when you're traveling slowly on a dry straight road but are about to crash because an airbag just deployed into your face. Newton's attempts to convince others to buy one are motivated by the idea that misery loves company.

** Crowley drives a 1926 Bentley, which qualifies as a [[Cool Car]]. But near the end of the book, he drives it like mad to get from London to Tadfield during a huge traffic jam (including ''leaping through a wall of fire caused by a cursed motorway Crowley designed''), and what's left of it afterwards definitely qualifies as an Alleged Car, assuming it qualifies as a car at all.

** A third main character, Anathema Device, has an Alleged ''Bicycle'' possibly made of drainpipes. All three vehicles get better over the course of the book. Anathema's bicycle and Newton's Wasabi get ''better than new'', with the Wasabi gaining ridiculous gas mileage and its warning system changing to pleasant-voiced haikus.

** Shadow buys a "Pee-Oh-Ess" '83 Chevy Nova for $450 which "had almost a quarter of a million miles on the clock, and smelled faintly of bourbon, tobacco, and more strongly of something that reminded Shadow of bananas." It goes, and that's about all you can say for it.

** There's also "a lumbering and ancient Winnebago, which smelled non-specifically but pervasively and unmistakably of male cat".

* One set of ''Beachcomber'' columns describes the saga of the Alleged Ship ''Saucy Mrs Flobster'', flagship of the Lots Road Power Station, and an attempt by the Government to sell her to Afghanistan. The ship is too waterlogged to burn, is missing vital components such as masts, sails, rudders and most of the hull, and the previous purchasers (Lichtenstein) offered sevenpence but pulled out when they saw what they'd be buying. It's only at the very end that anyone wonders why the Lots Road Power Station ever needed a navy in the first place.

* [[Stephanie Plum]] frequently has one of these, due to her financial constraints and how frequently her cars get destroyed. Though this is also somewhat subverted by her Uncle Sandor's powder blue '53 Buick Roadmaster (aka Big Blue). This is the car she drives when her usual one is inevitably destroyed. The Buick is basically indestructible, though Stephanie absolutely hates it (mostly cause it's ugly and large). Women, especially Lula, share her disdain, while men unanimously love Big Blue.

* In ''[[Shoefly Pie]]'', the Alleged car is a Dodge Dart, with the most valued component being the half pizza in the back. t didn't have problems driving (until they took it into a field and the driveshaft fell out), the floor was flintstones style, and the original color might possibly have been blue.

* In William Gaddis's ''A Frolic of His Own'', the protagonist's troublesome Japanese car, which runs over him, engendering a lawsuit, is called the Sosumi.

* The protagonist of Laurie Halse Anderson's ''Catalyst'' has a Yugo [[I Call It Vera|named Bert]], which she describes as "a tissue box on wheels with a bulimic hunger for motor oil."

* The Doctor from ''[[Doctor Who]]'' apparently has a particular affection for this trope. In the [[Eighth Doctor Adventures]] novels, he has a Trabant, as featured in the [[Real Life]] section of this trope page. Even better: he drives it during his stint as a single father and wealthy business consultant, working with the kind of people who drive "Porsches and BMWs", next to which the Trabant looks like "an old drunk uncle at a wedding". He keeps a ton of books in it and it often stalls (in one scene, his would-be-love interest is foiled by his [[Oblivious to Love|generally oblivious personality]] and the fact he's preoccupied by trying to get the car to start), but at the end it has its own little [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] when the Doctor needs to go rescue {{spoiler|his daughter from being whisked off the planet}}:

* In the early ''[[Spenser]]'' detective novels, Spenser drives several of these. The first was a 1968 Chevy convertible in such awful condition that everyone he meets remarks on it. He justifies keeping it by saying that if it gets damaged in the line of duty, he doesn't care all that much. He later wrecks a Subaru somewhere near the Charles River locks. By the 1990s, he's switched to something better, but he still loses cars with some frequency after that, and implies he's never too attached to them.

** Carried over to the TV series; in one instance, Spenser complains that his car was nearly totaled, and Hawke [[Deadpan Snarker|quips]], "that would be redundant."

* [[Ephraim Kishon]] had one, from France BTW. [[I Call It Vera|He called it "Madeleine".]]

* 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.

* The March 1980 edition of Australian car magazine ''Wheels'' [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.

 

** Giles' first car, a potentially very cool but dreadfully run-down Citroën DS, is one of these until it gets crashed by Spike in the Season 4 episode "A New Man." He replaces it with a [[Midlife Crisis Car]], a BMW 3-series convertible (still used, but much more contemporary). The Citroën is also mocked in the Buffy tie-in novels. Oddly, it's actually totaled in one of them.

** The entire series seems to revel in this trope. Xander and Oz have both confessed their own personal off-screen road-trip-gone-wrong stories that begin with their vehicles breaking down.

* The Reliant Regal three-wheeled van owned by the main characters of ''[[Only Fools and Horses]]'' is a famous example, the [[So Bad It's Good]] of the car world. It's popular enough that more than one [[Real Life]] Reliant Regal owner has painted his vehicle to look like it, and it came second only to the [[The Dukes of Hazzard|General Lee]] in a poll of the best-ever TV cars.

* [[Mr. Bean|Mr Bean's]] 1977 Mini, complete with latch and padlock door system and non-working handbrake, is constantly "The Alleged Car" in its repeated collisions with a certain Reliant Supervan.

* The title character of ''[[Harry O]]'' drives a rust-bucket roadster that's always either prominently featured in at least one scene, or conspicuous by its absence, with Harry riding the bus because it was in the shop.

* Federal Marshall Mary Shannon drives a beat-up purple Ford Probe on ''[[In Plain Sight]]'' that is an ongoing topic of conversation.

* Steve Urkel's Isetta "microcar" on ''[[Family Matters]]''

{{quote| '''Steve:''' Boy, I'm glad I paid the extra four dollars for that sunroof!}}

* ''[[Pimp My Ride]]'' is entirely about turning an Alleged Car into a [[Cool Car]].

* ''[[Top Gear]]'' naturally has a ton of these.

** And in a complete subversion of this (and the jokes against Toyota above in the Jokes folder) we have the Toyota Hilux. The first one certainly looked like this trope when Jeremy got it. However it was proven that it can't die no matter what you put it through. The little [[Determinator]] was driven down stairs, against rock walls, into a tree, lost to the tide, dropped from a crane, had a caravan dropped on it from a crane, hit by a wrecking ball, driven through a shed, set on fire, and dropped from a controlled demolition site. It still drives. Sure it has seawater in a headlight, the dash was destroyed, and there are dents and scrapes everywhere... but it runs. Later they used (new, fresh, and modified) Hilux to drive to the North Pole, ''and to an active volcano'' (...after that one ''also'' drove to the north pole).

** Played with in the Albania episode, where the trio were asked to see which of three premium luxury cars (A Rolls-Royce, a Mercedes, and a Bentley) was best for a ''Leading Light'' in the Albanian Mafia. Bentley pulled-out due to not wanting to be associated with organized crime and a suffering a sudden sense-of-humor deficiency. Undeterred by this Jeremy purchased a none-too-gently-used Yugo and for the rest of the series they pretended this car was in fact an example of the Bentley Mulsanne they were originally scheduled to test as a [[Take That]] for chickening-out.

** In the Alaska Special, Tanner's Chevy allegedly had a diesel engine. The fuel gauge even said it "diesel fuel only". It turned out to be a Chevy Small Block. {{spoiler|He still won, and it was the only truck to finish.}}

** The show has had some variation on "get a car for cheap/really cheap/obscenely cheap" as the central premise of an episode several times.

* The chevy that SClub got in ''Miami 7'' and later sold in ''LA 7'' was one of these. It had travelled nearly a million miles in its time, and when it reached that number, it unexpectedly transported itself and its occupants 40 years back in time.

* In one episode of ''[[Chuck]]'', Morgan buys a DeLorean with a stuck passenger door that cannot go over 22 miles per hour. Sort of a subversion in that Morgan considers it to be a [[Cool Car]], and even gets a [[Vanity License Plate]] for it.

{{quote| '''Cowboy:''' ''(from the [[Village People]])'' Hey, sorry about the Dodge out front.<br />

'''Kelly:''' Why, did you hit it?<br />

* Most cars on ''[[The Red Green Show]]''. Many of these were repurposed on the "Handyman's Corner" segment. For instance, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh5XVPSx9Dk in this clip] two alleged cars were combined to make [[Blatant Lies|a luxury mid-engine car]]. Red's own Possum Van was a prime example. Numerous references were made to the crappy cars driven by many of the other Lodge members, to the point where one of the books written by the show's creators noted that having an "old car that barely runs" pretty much confirms its driver as a member of Possum Lodge.

** Another episode, on the Handyman's Corner, showed Red cutting two cars in half and interconnecting the steering to make a car with front and rear steering. It actually moved several feet.

** Gives us this lovely exchange:

{{quote| '''Detective:''' Nice wheels, Stone.<br />

** The "Shitmobile".(1975 Chrysler New Yorker 4 door hardtop) It's missing the passenger side front door entirely, and requires a specific method of key turning to start it. It breaks down periodically, but is also shown to be nigh indestructible. The boys have knocked down parking meters and even ''walls'' with it, and still been able to drive away.

** Most of the cars in the show start out in good condition, but usually end up this way by the end of the season. Mr. Lahey's car ended up providing parts for the Shitmobile, and later his cop car ended up without a roof of any sort, which didn't stop any of the characters from driving it.

** Also fitting in this categories have been alleged snow plows, cranes, cement trucks, motorcycles, airplanes, war machines and just about every other kind of moving contraption.

* In ''[[Doctor Who]]'', Time Lords other than the Doctor see the TARDIS as one of these.

{{quote| '''The Master:''' Overweight, underpowered museum piece... Might as well try to fly a second hand gas stove.}}

* The Ghostmobile MK-I as seen in ''The Ghost Busters''. It's a 1929 Willys Whippet that always has something wrong with it (usually the brakes).

* Cedric's Hyundai on ''[[The Steve Harvey Show]]''. It and Steve's El Dorado are never seen in the show. With Cedric's car, it has multiple bumper stickers on it to hold the body up and cover up its many dents, it frequently breaks down because Cedric tries to listen to the radio while he drives, and once it would not start simply because Cedric rolled the windows down. When he and Lovita are expecting their baby, she implors him to sell it but in the end, he keeps it and Lovita buys a used minivan.

* One of the "contestants" on the fifth season of ''Canada's Worst Driver'' was nominated for owning ''several'' Alleged Cars. He proudly declared having never paid more than 400$ for a car.

* In ''[[I Love Lucy]]'', Fred is put in charge with buying a blue Cadillac convertible. The first tip-off is that he bought it for $300.

* The car Tony bought for Sam on ''[[Whos the Boss]]'' would qualify.

* Greg's first car in ''[[The Brady Bunch]]''.

** Starbug, the transport craft, may qualify as an alleged ''ship''; it frequently breaks down or malfunctions and the interiors are as cramped and dingy as you'd expect from something built by the lowest bidder. Granted, much of the former two may be down to the number of crashes it's survived, but there can't be too many ships where going from Blue Alert to Red Alert involves [[Crowning Moment of Funny|changing the light bulb]].

** The original, pre-[[Chicken Walker]] Blue Midget also counts. It resembled a shabby cross between a chinook, a tank and the space shuttle, was cramped, slow and had a dodgy gearbox. Somehow. When it sprouted legs for Season VIII (and the remastered versions of I-III) it shed most of these qualities.

* In ''[[Adam-12]]'''s "The Beast," Malloy and Reed are assigned the eponymous patrol car that's just a few hundred miles away from mandatory retirement.

* On ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', Seth Meyers quipped: "A highway safety spokesman said that if you have a Toyota, you should just stop driving it. Toyota owners said 'We're trying!'"

* ''[[The Now Show]]'' talked about how they're saving money with the high-speed rail connection from London to Scotland by running it from London to Birmingham and having Toyota supply the brakes.

* In the earlier seasons of ''[[Boy Meets World]]'' it's mentioned a few times that Eric has one of these, but it is never actually seen onscreen.

* On ''[[The Roy Rogers Show]]'', there was Nellybelle, who was run down to the point she often refused to start. Hence Pat Brady's [[Catch Phrase]] "Aw, NELLYBELLE!"

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* In the unlikely event that a vehicle from ''[[Paranoia]]'' (especially one from [[Mad Scientist|R&D]]) isn't one of these to begin with, then carrying around a handful of mildly unhinged T-shooters with secret society missions to waste each other will probably seriously damage the systems before long. The second edition sample adventure, for example, featured a six-legged [[Spider Tank]] submarine built by taking a ''van'' and bolting on legs; the bot brain is going senile, and there's a bewildering array of unlabeled and/or mixed-up controls and gauges (pushing down the gas pedal fires a torpedo, for example, and some of the levers snap off as soon as you try to pull them, and as usual the operating manual is above your security clearance).

** All that above said, it is not totally unreasonable when you consider that it is a real-life ''World War II'' era design. Go look it up, we'll wait.

* Subverted in ''[[Warhammer 40000|Warhammer 40,000]]'': anything the Orks build or salvage will be the alleged buggy, but thanks to the crude-but-effective nature of Ork tech [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|combined with the fact]] that [[Xtreme Kool Letterz|red wunz go fasta]] means that they're surprisingly serviceable.

 

== Visual Novels ==

 

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[Project 0]]'': Owen doesn't think too highly of the Buggy, but it's Aatu's vehicle of choice. [[Free-Range Children|But, as a bunch of 13 year olds,]] they're lucky to have a car at all.

{{quote| "Why aren't we shooting at them?"<br />

"Budget interlock. The computer recognizes Sam and won't let us shoot a missile that's worth more than the predicted value of his ship."<br />

* 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 [http://bukucomics.com/loserz/go/200 this strip] of ''[[Loserz]]''.

 

 

== Western Animation ==

** Crazy Vaclav, whose cars are prone to breaking down. ([[Rule of Funny|And for those of you playing at home]], [[Unit Confusion|a hectare is a unit of area, not length]])

** Comic Book Guy's car, a "Kremlin", isn't much better. As he brags in the game ''[[The Simpsons Hit and Run]]'': "I cannot drive 55 because my car only goes to 38!" Of course, if you have the speedometer turned on while driving as him that's clearly not the case... but still.

{{quote| '''Maude''': "Come on, Ned, Move this thing!"<br />

'''Ned''': [[Take That|"I CAN'T, IT'S A GEO!"]] }}

** There's this jewel:

{{quote| '''Fry''': "I've never seen a supernova blow up, but if it's anything like my old Chevy Nova, it'll light up the night sky!"}}

'''Fry:''' Yeah yeah, I've gotten used cars before. }}

* ''[[Kim Possible]]'' - The Roth SL Coupe (a.k.a. 'the Sloth') Kim's father gives her in the episode "Car Alarm"... before the tweebs soup it up. Ron's scooter definitely qualifies as The Alleged Motorcycle.

** Tom's [[Every Car Is a Pinto|Pinto]]. Tom also drives two different cars in the series that Daria both describes as something you'd want to get a tetanus shot before handling.

** Trent's Plymouth Satellite.

* In ''[[Mission Hill]]'', Jim knows Andy hates the Bilgemobile.

** [[The Cape]] drives a car that looks cool, but has a tendency to fall apart every episode.

** Mumbly, a clone of ''[[Wacky Races]]'''s Muttley, is a parody of ''Columbo'' right down to the car which literally fell apart into a pile whenever he parked it.

{{quote| '''Salvation Armed Forces Employee:''' We only received one car donation today, and it was not in drivable condition.<br />

'''Dan:''' Yes! That's the one! }}

* Stanley Ipkiss's indiscriminate-model clunker, complete with a portable driver's side door, from [[The Mask]].

* On ''[[Re Boot]]'', Bob's car ''never'' works properly. He describes it as a classic, but it's a recurring gag that the thing never runs -- not even when a virus is about to infect Bob and company and turn them to stone (they have to resort to [[Percussive Maintenance]] to get it going again).

** The Lame-o-sine, complete with an obnoxious set of bull horns on the front.

** The Boat of Losers, though it was probably in the best of shape compared to the other alleged vehicles.

* The Subaru 360. When it was imported, it had to lose weight to under 1000 pounds. Why? Because then it could be exempt from the safety regulations and be considered a ''motorcycle''! [[Consumer Reports]] labeled it "Not Acceptable"; with its laughably feeble 16 hp engine, it is more likely than not to stall while trying to climb a mildly steep hill.

* The [[wikipedia:Citroen 2CV|Citroen 2CV]] - the vehicle which inspired this trope - fits this trope very well in some aspects, though others were averted; mainly, the 2CV was easy and cheap to repair and somewhat more reliable than its competitors, and with all the broken-down and abandoned ones, combined with minimal changes to its design over its production life, made it a good purchase for anyone with a low budget. Still, it did have extreme flaws; early models used a small engine and had doors without locks, so anyone could steal the car simply by ''opening the door and pulling the ignition cord''. It is also remembered for inspiring the term "lemon" ("citron" being the French word for it and obviously resembling the brand's name). <ref>Though said term apparently dates back to at least 1906.</ref>

* 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.

* [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).

** 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.<br /><br />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 [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].

* In the early 1970s, when the oil crisis forced American manufacturers to crank out small cars or die, the [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.

* A contributor to Reader's Digest had her alleged car publicly displayed. She had driven to Florida to visit a friend just before a hurricane struck. When a news crew was speaking afterward of the devastation, they used a close-up image of her car. The car was completely untouched by the actual hurricane.

* 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.

* A similar contest was held in Canada by [[Auto Trader]], called "[http://cliffyourride.autotrader.ca/ Cliff your Ride]".

* Some cars that are genuinely good manage to earn this reputation over time nonetheless.

** The redesigned, front wheel drive 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme was praised by critics upon launch and is considered to be a good car in its own right, but the disastrous "This Is Not Your Father's Oldsmobile" marketing campaign used to launch it was a massive failure that caused sales of the Oldsmobile brand as a whole to crater, leading to the brand's eventual demise in 2004. The 1988 Cutlass is thus considered to be [[Creator Killer|the car that killed Oldsmobile]]. As a result, today they are undesired and valueless.

* The Goggomobil Dart. "If you needed a sudden burst of acceleration, it was best to jump out and run". (A certified lunatic in Germany has fitted [http://www.deutsche-werke.de/goggo2.htm one] with a 9-cylinder, 10-liter radial aircraft engine. It out-accelerates Porsches.)

** The Alfasud had similar rust issues despite some decent engineering and design.

* In the fifth season of ''Canada's Worst Driver,'' one nominee for the title bought and drove only these. You can't get much of a car when you'll only spend $300 on it.