Wombat
New Member
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2003
- Messages
- 425
- Reaction score
- 16
- Points
- 0
- Age
- 59
- Location
- Bluff, Queensland
- Members Ride
- VX-II Lumina Sedan
Just thought this might be good for a giggle...What is the most frightening car you’ve been in?
Not the most powerful, not the fastest, or whatever, but the worst excuse for a car which has put the fear of god into you?
For me, it was a mates girlfriends car…a mid-eighties Suzuki HandiVan, with the big block 800cc three cylinder engine. This pitiful vehicle, I should add, was almost new, so don’t think I am talking about a worn-out bucket which was ready for the scrap yard. It had, for a start, the wonder of being one of the last vehicles available new in this country with cross-ply tyres…at any cornering speeds above walking pace, you could feel the tyres rolling on the rims, and in the wet it was truly scary. That is, what feel there was coming back through what laughably passed for the “steering”. It was gutless, and lived up to all the old clichés about not pulling the skin off a rice pudding. God knows how many, or more precisely, how few horsepower it had…but I am betting a 50cc scooter could drag it off handily from the lights. The gearshift had all the subtlety and feel of stirring a Milo tin full of gravel with a wooden spoon, and I don’t think it even had synchro on first…maybe not second either, from the crunching that would emanate from up front on anything but pristine gear changes. The dash was blessed with plastic which would not pass quality control on the production line of the shittyist Korean toy cars, and it cracked and warped up nicely after a few central Queensland summers. The rest of the interior was outfitted in finest hard brown vinyl, which baked your backside on anything but the coolest days. Another worrying part is that this was not a bottom-of-the-range model…it had the up-spec 800cc engine, and a few options such as a baby seat hook, and metallic paint…ooooooh…happily no-one ticked the air conditioning option box, as it had little enough power already without lumbering it with air-con.
It ended it’s life as it so richly deserved, in a wreckers yard, after having proved it could beat Alfa Romeo’s of the era in one respect…it rusted like hell as soon as the weather even looked like turning damp…
An honourable mention must go to my late uncles mid-seventies Valiant station wagon. He bought it new, and while I love Valiants, this thing was a pearler…you see, Valiant, alone amongst Australian car makers, was of the firm belief that while the customer might be an idiot, foolish, totally lacking any knowledge about cars and what makes them pleasant to drive, but while he may have been all these things, the “customer was always right”…
So my uncle actually ordered this thing on purpose with baby-cack-yellow paint (as close as you can get to Caterpillar Bulldozer paint as possible I reckon), a brown vinyl roof, and a white interior…
The dealership must have just sat back and let him tick whatever and wherever he liked, and agreed to it happily…the customer is always right, remember? A 360 cube V8? Hey, go for it pal. Non-power-assisted drum brakes? Sure buddy…it’ll save a few bucks over these new-fangled discs anyway. Towing package with heavier radiator? Hey, who needs it…so what if you’re buying the car with the stated purpose of towing a 22 foot dual-axle Viscount van up the Queensland coast in the middle of summer…we don’t have to watch you sit frustrated the other side of Bowen in 36 degree heat with steam pouring out of it. Handling package? Why bother…my uncle was an ex-sailor on a cargo ship, so he was used to the wallowing, oil-tanker-like ride quality. Hey, don’t bother ticking the box for those ROH mags wheels or the five spoke pressed steel “sports wheels”…just stick with the skinny steel wheels…that’ll help keep it on the road.
That damn car had torque alright, but, as with all Valiant V8’s (except the sweet little rare-to-Australia 340 cube V8) they were glorified truck motors, and a decent 2 barrel 265 Hemi six cylinder would piss all over it for acceleration and outright power. It drank like a fish and towing the huge van would be lucky to crack 10 to 12 miles per gallon, and not much more around the city streets. After a few years, even a present we gave him of a professional detail wouldn’t return the white interior to it’s as new shine…it sorta stayed grey…
Nice roomy car, and nothing that couldn’t have been fixed by fitting gas shocks, sway bars, heavier torque rods in the front, a few extra leaves at the rear, bigger radiator, turf the 360 V8 and put in a manual-box 265 Hemi 2-barrel, and repaint it. In fact, that is what my nephew did when the old guy passed on and inherited it! Now it is a great car.
Not the most powerful, not the fastest, or whatever, but the worst excuse for a car which has put the fear of god into you?
For me, it was a mates girlfriends car…a mid-eighties Suzuki HandiVan, with the big block 800cc three cylinder engine. This pitiful vehicle, I should add, was almost new, so don’t think I am talking about a worn-out bucket which was ready for the scrap yard. It had, for a start, the wonder of being one of the last vehicles available new in this country with cross-ply tyres…at any cornering speeds above walking pace, you could feel the tyres rolling on the rims, and in the wet it was truly scary. That is, what feel there was coming back through what laughably passed for the “steering”. It was gutless, and lived up to all the old clichés about not pulling the skin off a rice pudding. God knows how many, or more precisely, how few horsepower it had…but I am betting a 50cc scooter could drag it off handily from the lights. The gearshift had all the subtlety and feel of stirring a Milo tin full of gravel with a wooden spoon, and I don’t think it even had synchro on first…maybe not second either, from the crunching that would emanate from up front on anything but pristine gear changes. The dash was blessed with plastic which would not pass quality control on the production line of the shittyist Korean toy cars, and it cracked and warped up nicely after a few central Queensland summers. The rest of the interior was outfitted in finest hard brown vinyl, which baked your backside on anything but the coolest days. Another worrying part is that this was not a bottom-of-the-range model…it had the up-spec 800cc engine, and a few options such as a baby seat hook, and metallic paint…ooooooh…happily no-one ticked the air conditioning option box, as it had little enough power already without lumbering it with air-con.
It ended it’s life as it so richly deserved, in a wreckers yard, after having proved it could beat Alfa Romeo’s of the era in one respect…it rusted like hell as soon as the weather even looked like turning damp…
An honourable mention must go to my late uncles mid-seventies Valiant station wagon. He bought it new, and while I love Valiants, this thing was a pearler…you see, Valiant, alone amongst Australian car makers, was of the firm belief that while the customer might be an idiot, foolish, totally lacking any knowledge about cars and what makes them pleasant to drive, but while he may have been all these things, the “customer was always right”…
So my uncle actually ordered this thing on purpose with baby-cack-yellow paint (as close as you can get to Caterpillar Bulldozer paint as possible I reckon), a brown vinyl roof, and a white interior…
The dealership must have just sat back and let him tick whatever and wherever he liked, and agreed to it happily…the customer is always right, remember? A 360 cube V8? Hey, go for it pal. Non-power-assisted drum brakes? Sure buddy…it’ll save a few bucks over these new-fangled discs anyway. Towing package with heavier radiator? Hey, who needs it…so what if you’re buying the car with the stated purpose of towing a 22 foot dual-axle Viscount van up the Queensland coast in the middle of summer…we don’t have to watch you sit frustrated the other side of Bowen in 36 degree heat with steam pouring out of it. Handling package? Why bother…my uncle was an ex-sailor on a cargo ship, so he was used to the wallowing, oil-tanker-like ride quality. Hey, don’t bother ticking the box for those ROH mags wheels or the five spoke pressed steel “sports wheels”…just stick with the skinny steel wheels…that’ll help keep it on the road.
That damn car had torque alright, but, as with all Valiant V8’s (except the sweet little rare-to-Australia 340 cube V8) they were glorified truck motors, and a decent 2 barrel 265 Hemi six cylinder would piss all over it for acceleration and outright power. It drank like a fish and towing the huge van would be lucky to crack 10 to 12 miles per gallon, and not much more around the city streets. After a few years, even a present we gave him of a professional detail wouldn’t return the white interior to it’s as new shine…it sorta stayed grey…
Nice roomy car, and nothing that couldn’t have been fixed by fitting gas shocks, sway bars, heavier torque rods in the front, a few extra leaves at the rear, bigger radiator, turf the 360 V8 and put in a manual-box 265 Hemi 2-barrel, and repaint it. In fact, that is what my nephew did when the old guy passed on and inherited it! Now it is a great car.
