100+ years of terribleness

[exdeath]

Why don't you compare the Yugo to something in its price range. Oh wait...


It's the exact same thing. A dirt cheap car that poor people could afford that was crap compared to the other vehicles out there.



Never said it was. You asked what the competition of the day was that made it a Yugo, and I gave you a perfect example. Unlike you, who called the Model T a Corvette, which doesn't make any sense at all, and wasn't in any way true either.

The difference? There were millions of cheap and much better cars on the road when the Yugo was produced, plenty of alternatives well within reach. Not having access to a Rolls Royce did not force you to have a Yugo, you could have a Chrysler or Toyota instead.

But you're comparing the Model T to a Rolls Royce? How many of those Rolls were made per year exactly and were rolling down the streets in droves every day? How many other options where there exactly? Give me a break.

In the real world of the early 1900s you either had a Model T or you were walking, so how about them blacksmithed body panels?

My car being a Ford has nothing to do with my opinion on the matter. Bottom line is that the author here is complaining about something because he is a car and material possession hating leftist that thinks we should go back to environmentally friendly and status-less horse and buggies, not because he finds genuine fault with car.

 

[Pariah]

Would you prefer a 1905 Buick? Or is that still too exotic wall poster only material for 15 year olds like me living in their parents' basement?

 

[Ronstang]

Would you prefer a 1905 Buick? Or is that still too exotic wall poster only material for 15 year olds like me living in their parents' basement?

It takes a truly accomplished idiot to miss the significance of the Model T, let alone compare it to the rather insignificance of the Yugo. Bravo sir!!

 

[Strk]

The model T starts at around the five minute mark. It really was a pretty shitty car.

 

[exdeath]

Would you prefer a 1905 Buick? Or is that still too exotic wall poster only material for 15 year olds like me living in their parents' basement?

You still don't get it. We aren't talking about the poorest of poor of the population who had to settle for a budget shit box because they couldn't afford a nicer economy car. This is the 1900s; for the massive majority of the pupulation of a very wide range of incomes it was Model T or nothing.

Even if you were in the top 1% elite of the elite, hell lets say 10%, and had the means for that Rolls or Buick, you still weren't guaranteed to get one with only so many that could be produced until assembly line techniques were implemented. So you still waited in line and had nothing, or got a Model T like everyone else when they came out by the dozens. It wasn't just about price or quality, but numbers and availability regardless of price. Back then a car was a car, nobody gave a shit as long as they could get their hands on one, and for rich and poor alike, that was more likely than not a Model T. Doesn't really leave much to complain about for the time.

 

[Pariah]

No, you're the one that still doesn't get it. The Model T was still out of range of even the average household. But that didn't matter, because the car was obviously not nearly the necessity it is today. Average income in 1910 was $750 a year, which means the median was likely a whole lot lower. While a Model T in 1909 cost $850. By comparison, today, the median individual US income is about $35,000. Which would mean the Model T would sell for about $40,000. Back in 1910, there were no auto loans. What percentage of Americans today do you think can afford to plunk down $40,000 in cash for a car?

The great contribution to society that the Model T made was the development of the assembly line. That had nothing to do with the Model T itself which started production in the early years just like all the other cars, being built by hand. It just happened to be the first car Henry Ford implemented it on.

"Henry Ford's ideological approach to Model T design was one of getting it right and then keeping it the same; he believed the Model T was all the car a person would, or could, ever need. As other companies offered comfort and styling advantages, at competitive prices, the Model T lost market share. "


So your theory that it was Model T or nothing, wasn't true either.

 

[exdeath]

The great contribution to society that the Model T made was the development of the assembly line.

Didn't I just say that in my last post? I'm going to bed now, feel free to get the last post and win teh internetz, since that's really all this has turned into.

PS http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/vintage-speed/4284734

$260

As other companies offered comfort and styling advantages, at competitive prices, the Model T lost market share.

Would this be before... or after... the Model T set the standard?

And

The Model T is an icon because it introduced the assembly line into manufacturing and because it was the first relatively cheap car that a more average household could afford.

The Model T was still out of range of even the average household.

 

[Stefan Payne]

Oh gawd. D:

I expect you never saw one of those in real life, did you?
I saw some of those..

The reason for making that ugly thing could be the toll in Italy, wich depended on how high the hood was...

But there are some things missing, like the BMW Isetta or the Volvo P1800 ES (Schneewittchensarg as it was called here in Germany)

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I read several and I had to stop. Absolutely poor writing style, and full of agenda. Essentially they're saying we all need to go back to horse-drawn carriages?

I didn't know the word "crap-tastic" would ever appear in a big magazine like Time...

In fairness, Dan Neil is the only Pulitzer prize-winning automotive writer in the world.

 

[Pariah]

PS http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars...-speed/4284734

$260

As noted in the article, that was 10 years after release. As noted in that same article, the 1909 Model T was $950 which was even higher than the initial price I had found.

As for your other quotes. You do understand the difference between more average and average, correct?

The IBM PC ushered in home computing largely because the price made it accessible to more people. In 1981, about $3000 was dirt cheap compared to similarly capable systems of just a few years earlier, however it was still comfortably outside of the budget of the average household to spend on something like that. It would be another 15-20 years until PC's truly became ubiquitous. The Model T didn't suddenly have everyone in America driving cars. It just opened the market to a slightly larger pool of people who still had money.


Regardless, none of that really has anything to do with the Model T being crap. All you've done is try and justify why it was acceptable for it be lower quality, while doing nothing to dispute the actual point that it was the Yugo of its time.

 

[CurseTheSky]

I think what exdeath is saying is the car was an icon and it largely paved the way for us to be the "on the go" country that we are. Love or hate what we have become, I find it hard to call something as revolutionary / evolutionary (whether it's the car or the way the car was built) and fondly remembered as the Model T a piece of crap, regardless of the build quality. It may pale in comparison to other (individually hand-built) cars of the time, but it definitely doesn't deserve to be listed as one of the worst cars of all time.

 

[Arkaign]

I think what exdeath is saying is the car was an icon and it largely paved the way for us to be the "on the go" country that we are. Love or hate what we have become, I find it hard to call something as revolutionary / evolutionary (whether it's the car or the way the car was built) and fondly remembered as the Model T a piece of crap, regardless of the build quality. It may pale in comparison to other (individually hand-built) cars of the time, but it definitely doesn't deserve to be listed as one of the worst cars of all time.

^^ This.

 

[c3p0]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CurseTheSky
I think what exdeath is saying is the car was an icon and it largely paved the way for us to be the "on the go" country that we are. Love or hate what we have become, I find it hard to call something as revolutionary / evolutionary (whether it's the car or the way the car was built) and fondly remembered as the Model T a piece of crap, regardless of the build quality. It may pale in comparison to other (individually hand-built) cars of the time, but it definitely doesn't deserve to be listed as one of the worst cars of all time.

^^ This.

x2

c3p0

 

[TwinsenTacquito]

That's a terrible list.

The Gremlin?! REALLY?! It's better than just about every econobox that is made today. It's hard to say a cheap car is a terrible car, especially if it comes with a brick shithouse of an inline 6 that for 40 years every grease monkey in the USA knew how to rebuild blindfolded.

The Model T? What? Shut up.

The 1995 Ford Explorer? It was a decent SUV back then, but it was automatic only so it got overlooked by offroaders. Not a huge deal. Not even memorable.

Propane Morgan. A car uses propane today and people think it's magic. They use hydrogen which is far less safe, magic and wonderful! A car uses propane injection to put up big power numbers, magic! Morgan does it? Oh how awful!

Late model BMW 7 series? I'm no BMW fanboy, and that's not even close to being in a list of the worst cars of all time. That's just being ridiculous. Somebody on the staff of Time was a whiney bitch.

The list must have been assembled by some guy pointing at pictures of cars and saying "that's ugly, somebody find a way for me to say it was a terrible car".

 

[LOUISSSSS]

nice, 7 of the last 10 1990-current cars are american. How sad.

1990-Current
1. 1995 Ford Explorer
2. 1997 GM EV1
3. 1997 Plymouth Prowler
4. 1998 Fiat Multipla
5. 2000 Ford Excursion
6. 2001 Jaguar X-Type
7. 2001 Pontiac Aztek
8. 2002 BMW 7-series
9. 2003 Hummer H2
10. 2004 Chevy SSR

 

[PhoKingGuy]

nice, 7 of the last 10 1990-current cars are american. How sad.

Who allowed you back in here

 

[SparkyJJO]

nice, 7 of the last 10 1990-current cars are american. How sad.

troll, troll, troll your boat...

 

[Arkaign]

troll, troll, troll your boat...

Hahah so true. With Trolllouis, all you get is 'Domestic bad' 'Import good', with absolutely no thought of good vs. bad models/years.

1990-current is a huge range though, twenty years. Audi was flat-out garbage until the mid to late 90s. Mercedes has been up and down, but had some pretty bad years during the Chrysler fiasco. Mazda has improved tremendously, they were pretty terrible back in the 90s compared to Honda/Toyota/Nissan. Things change, that's just the way of it.

There are some odd choices for sure on the list though. I am totally not an SUV nut, but the 95 Explorer, really? How about the Plymouth Prowler, a great concept that was mired with a gutless powerplant? How about the Dodge Neon, which pretty much all fell apart aside from the much tougher but rare SRT variant? How about the late 90s full-size trucks, which all had terribad safety ratings? Hell, if you're going to pick an SUV, the mid to late 90s Blazer was a certified death trap. What about the Honda automatic sudden death syndrome that plagued them for a few years? 6cyl auto Honda/Acura? Good luck seeing 100k miles without a replacement tranny (talking the late 90s-03ish obviously).

Nobody has a stranglehold on bad cars. And neither does any region have a stranglehold on good ones

 

[MrDudeMan]

As noted in the article, that was 10 years after release. As noted in that same article, the 1909 Model T was $950 which was even higher than the initial price I had found.

As for your other quotes. You do understand the difference between more average and average, correct?

The IBM PC ushered in home computing largely because the price made it accessible to more people. In 1981, about $3000 was dirt cheap compared to similarly capable systems of just a few years earlier, however it was still comfortably outside of the budget of the average household to spend on something like that. It would be another 15-20 years until PC's truly became ubiquitous. The Model T didn't suddenly have everyone in America driving cars. It just opened the market to a slightly larger pool of people who still had money.


Regardless, none of that really has anything to do with the Model T being crap. All you've done is try and justify why it was acceptable for it be lower quality, while doing nothing to dispute the actual point that it was the Yugo of its time.

I am completely impartial to car debates as a whole, but you seem like a tool. It isn't hard to search the net and find technological advances the Model T offered that others didn't. Hell, it's listed in that Popular Mechanics article. You are purposefully glossing over any and every detail that goes against your own agenda. Hypocrite.

 

[feralkid]

The difference? There were millions of cheap and much better cars on the road when the Yugo was produced, plenty of alternatives well within reach. Not having access to a Rolls Royce did not force you to have a Yugo, you could have a Chrysler or Toyota instead.

But you're comparing the Model T to a Rolls Royce? How many of those Rolls were made per year exactly and were rolling down the streets in droves every day? How many other options where there exactly? Give me a break.

In the real world of the early 1900s you either had a Model T or you were walking, so how about them blacksmithed body panels?

My car being a Ford has nothing to do with my opinion on the matter. Bottom line is that the author here is complaining about something because he is a car and material possession hating leftist that thinks we should go back to environmentally friendly and status-less horse and buggies, not because he finds genuine fault with car.

Just an observation.
A horse and buggy was not something most people could afford.
Definitely a "status" item for many people in that era.

 

[feralkid]

The model T starts at around the five minute mark. It really was a pretty shitty car.

The Model A, on the other hand...:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Well, let's just say one wouldn't have happened without the other,


edit: watch the guy faint at 5:06...what's up?

 

[exar333]

Time has been around for 100+ years? It has sucked that long? Is this really a garage topic?

 

[ShawnD1]

This. Nothing bad to say about the car itself, just blaming it on making people want cars, caused today's pollution, oil consumption, all the world's problems, etc.

Their description of the Ford Explorer is even worse.

How could the best-selling passenger vehicle in America 14 years running, the mother of all mom-mobiles, the beloved suburban schlepper of millions, wind up on this list? Forget about the whole Firestone tire controversy. In its very success, the Ford Explorer is responsible for setting this country on the spiral of vehicular obesity that we are still contending with today. People, particularly women drivers, discovered that they liked sitting up high. Even though more fuel-efficient minivans do the kid- and cargo-hauling duties better, people came to prefer the outdoorsy, go-anywhere image of SUVs. In other words, people became addicted to the pose. And, as vehicles got bigger and heavier, buyers sought out even bigger vehicles to make themselves feel safe. Helloooo Hummer. All of that we can lay at the overachieving feet of the Explorer.

Yes, blame the vehicle because it was exactly what people wanted

 

[SparkyJJO]

Their description of the Ford Explorer is even worse.

Yes, blame the vehicle because it was exactly what people wanted

Didn't you get the memo? Ford, GM, Chrysler all made SUVs that nobody wanted, everybody wanted econoboxes! But they forced them to buy those SUVs, oh yes they did....:|

oh wait :hmm:

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Model T? How can you call it a piece of junk when there is really nothing else to compare it too...

If yo read the actual snippet for the model T you will see that the writer has a view point and thinks that automobiles are evil and destroying the world.

A century later, the consequences of putting every living soul on gas-powered wheels are piling up, from the air over our cities to the sand under our soldiers' boots.