Design icons like the Chanel jacket or the 1963 Corvette Stingray coupe are the result of taste, inspiration and good timing. But what goes into a design so bad that it goes down in history as an example of what not to do?
A bad car can be the product of inadequate engineering, questionable taste, or poor manufacturing quality. Some vehicles combine all three. Others make their way into the automotive rogues' gallery for their own, unique reasons - like the Ford Explorer, which helped melt the polar ice caps by launching North America's obsession with oversized sport-utility vehicles.
I decided to choose an automotive "dirty dozen" -- 12 of the worst cars ever built. There were many candidates, from the well-known Soviet-era Lada, to obscure mechanical travesties like the Wartburg Knight and the Mahindra Chief (a Jeep clone built in India, with a Peugeot diesel engine.)
Read Full Article »
