Tthere are some basic flaws in the reasoning behind Forbes’ “The Worst Cars of All-Time” list (which are typical of Forbes magazine in general):
1. That it was the “inferior” makers in the American market that were drummed out by the more “quality” Big Three. This rests on the assumption that the Almighty Marketplace shall always pick the best product. The pre-eminence of Microsoft is as good a counter-example as any of that phenomenon, but Studebaker, Rambler-even Hudson, for goodness’ sake-produced automobiles in the 1950s that were superior in design, quality and performance than most of what came out of Detroit. They just spent too much on making their cars good and too little on making them popular.
2. That bad marketing makes for a “bad” car. The Edsel is a prime example. It seemed, in retrospect, to have suffered mainly from a bad name. The car was no uglier than anything else circa 1959 (the Mercury Highway Cruiser for example was a styling disaster, a positive ogre, along with anything Virgil Exner was ever a part of), was vastly superior than most in terms of performance, and was a step up in quality as well. Even my beloved Mustang, while an absolute marketing coup, was really just a Falcon underneath, prone to rust, crack, disintegrate.
But at the risk of being cliched, I’m picking the Yugo. It had nothing going for it. As one car reviewer said at the time: “I’d rather have a used Chevette than a new Yugo.” Ouch.
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