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Top Gear, have already had their say: http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_550464-Lexus-SC-430-UZZ40-2002.html but I think it is worth us having a discussion of our own choices.
My nominations (I think a lot of people might find these somewhat unfair, but I have a deep, unyielding hatred of each of them and personal experience of all but one).
1. Vauxhall Nova/Opel Corsa A
If a car could just ooze crapness... It, and its successors, sold largely to a lowest common denominator market formed mostly of chavs and people who are somewhat dim or those who didn't like cars. Okay, some people on here may have had, or like the Nova and can feel free to to defend it's honour. I'm sure intelligent people have owned Novas. But I stand by its position at the top of my list. Indeed, I'd quite happily draw the entirety of my list from this car and the cavalcade of shite that have followed it in the name of small Opel hatchbacks.
2. Ford Escort MKV/Orion MKIII
Setting a low base and aiming slightly higher with a replacement isn't that uncommon, some might suggest that was what Ford planned with the forgettably average MKIV Escort. But no, they embarked on the great leap backwards and developed this automotive turd. Shapelessly styled, sparsely equipped, as characterful as Ian Duncan Smith and about as technologically advanced as a turnip. It was gradually refined over it's ten year lifecycle but remained not very good. Needless to say, in Britain where people would buy a turd if it had a Ford badge this sold quite well. The most enduring legacy of this car is that it was so bad that it signalled the demise of the Escort name due to Ford's fear that it would taint the replacement which came to be known as the Focus.
3. Vauxhall Astra MKII/Opel Kadett E
Beloved by car thieves and Mrs Ingo, but few others. Uncomfortable and uninspired, but as this is more of a personal dislike I rate it somewhat below the preceding two in this list. Shaped like a cockroach, the GTE version wasn't bad, I suppose. I just don't like them.
4. BMW Z3
So, as a car manufacturer with a sporting reputation what we want to make is a sportscar which (in standard trim) is slower, less fun to drive and more expensive than a contemporary Mazda MX-5, MGF and probably most of our range of saloons. It looked pretty, I guess, and did spawn the somewhat appealing M Coupe, but the base spec 1.8s and 1.9s deserve their place on my list. I was always amused by James Bond driving one of these. In The Man With the Golden Gun, Bond derided Goodnight's MGB as an 'inverted bedpan', yet just over twenty years later in GoldenEye he drove this, which was even more of a girls car than the B.
5. Rover CityRover
This should have ranked more highly, but whilst the cars above had development budgets of millions of pounds the lamentable CityRover was put together for the cost of some Longship badges, so to rank it higher would be unfair. A rebadged Tata Indica, it was truly the car that shamed Rover. Strangled at birth by an optimistic pricing strategy directed at profiteering rather than selling cars, it was also intrinsically unsafe, being noted in crash testing for a tendency to propel the steering column into the dummy's face. A friend of mine owned such a CityRover, and I travelled in it. An engine that revved itself as the car drove along, a broken passenger side seatbelt and construction that seemed to be as solid as the case for Scottish Independence being my abiding memory. I guess being in the passenger seat, even without a seatbelt, I'd have been better off as I'd avoid a steering column to the eye.
There are countless other cars that could be in the list but I'll leave it there.
My nominations (I think a lot of people might find these somewhat unfair, but I have a deep, unyielding hatred of each of them and personal experience of all but one).
1. Vauxhall Nova/Opel Corsa A
If a car could just ooze crapness... It, and its successors, sold largely to a lowest common denominator market formed mostly of chavs and people who are somewhat dim or those who didn't like cars. Okay, some people on here may have had, or like the Nova and can feel free to to defend it's honour. I'm sure intelligent people have owned Novas. But I stand by its position at the top of my list. Indeed, I'd quite happily draw the entirety of my list from this car and the cavalcade of shite that have followed it in the name of small Opel hatchbacks.
2. Ford Escort MKV/Orion MKIII
Setting a low base and aiming slightly higher with a replacement isn't that uncommon, some might suggest that was what Ford planned with the forgettably average MKIV Escort. But no, they embarked on the great leap backwards and developed this automotive turd. Shapelessly styled, sparsely equipped, as characterful as Ian Duncan Smith and about as technologically advanced as a turnip. It was gradually refined over it's ten year lifecycle but remained not very good. Needless to say, in Britain where people would buy a turd if it had a Ford badge this sold quite well. The most enduring legacy of this car is that it was so bad that it signalled the demise of the Escort name due to Ford's fear that it would taint the replacement which came to be known as the Focus.
3. Vauxhall Astra MKII/Opel Kadett E
Beloved by car thieves and Mrs Ingo, but few others. Uncomfortable and uninspired, but as this is more of a personal dislike I rate it somewhat below the preceding two in this list. Shaped like a cockroach, the GTE version wasn't bad, I suppose. I just don't like them.
4. BMW Z3
So, as a car manufacturer with a sporting reputation what we want to make is a sportscar which (in standard trim) is slower, less fun to drive and more expensive than a contemporary Mazda MX-5, MGF and probably most of our range of saloons. It looked pretty, I guess, and did spawn the somewhat appealing M Coupe, but the base spec 1.8s and 1.9s deserve their place on my list. I was always amused by James Bond driving one of these. In The Man With the Golden Gun, Bond derided Goodnight's MGB as an 'inverted bedpan', yet just over twenty years later in GoldenEye he drove this, which was even more of a girls car than the B.
5. Rover CityRover
This should have ranked more highly, but whilst the cars above had development budgets of millions of pounds the lamentable CityRover was put together for the cost of some Longship badges, so to rank it higher would be unfair. A rebadged Tata Indica, it was truly the car that shamed Rover. Strangled at birth by an optimistic pricing strategy directed at profiteering rather than selling cars, it was also intrinsically unsafe, being noted in crash testing for a tendency to propel the steering column into the dummy's face. A friend of mine owned such a CityRover, and I travelled in it. An engine that revved itself as the car drove along, a broken passenger side seatbelt and construction that seemed to be as solid as the case for Scottish Independence being my abiding memory. I guess being in the passenger seat, even without a seatbelt, I'd have been better off as I'd avoid a steering column to the eye.
There are countless other cars that could be in the list but I'll leave it there.