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This feature is simple: we asked everyone in the Autocar office which car disappointed them the most.
We approached all these cars with fascination and a hearty appetite - but then things went wrong...
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Honda CRZ (2010)
Inspired by the iconic CR-X, the CR-Z was billed as an eco-friendly, affordable sports car with a hybrid powertrain and, unusually, a manual gearbox - but the promise of the sporty styling and 124bhp powertrain never quite lived it to the hype.
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Honda CR-Z (2010)
The engine note was uninspiring, it was slow, and despite green credentials, not all that economical. I’d much rather have a 2.0-litre diesel Scirocco or Peugeot RCZ, both good-looking front-wheel-drive sports cars capable of delivering better economy than the CR-Z ever could. RACHEL BURGESS - NEWS EDITOR
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Aston Martin DBS V8 (1969)
Let’s time travel back to the latter part of the ‘80s. Classic cars were becoming all the rage and it seemed that anything would sell. This even applied to a then deeply unfashionable Aston Martin DBS. For those old enough, it was the Lord Brett Sinclair one (6-cylinder) from the Persuaders TV series. When I saw a 1971 H plated V8 with ‘47,000 miles’ advertised at £7900, I had to take a closer look.
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Aston Martin DBS V8 (1969)
Sadly it was was atrocious. Every panel had been bodged with filler. I had to drive it and the old thing rattled, crashed and banged like a knackered two-stroke lawnmower. The ‘will it, won’t it?’ brakes were a worry and the power steering hissed like a snake. The vibration was seriously intense, much like the whole, frankly terrifying, experience. Here was a car that I wanted to be truly wonderful and in a way it was. JAMES RUPPERT - USED CAR CORRESPONDENT
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Austin Allegro 1750 SS (1973)
The company building the Alec Issigonis-designed, trail-blazing Mini and Morris 1100 should have served this second-generation front-driver with yet more brilliance. And the Allegro didn’t look so different to the Citroen GS and Alfasud either, its two genuinely brilliant rivals.
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Austin Allegro 1750 SS (1973)
The teenage, Mini-admiring me was desperate for the Allegro to be a winner, but serious cheese-paring (front subframe deletion was a late, refinement-destroying development change), the distortion of designer Harris Mann’s original vision and that weird square steering wheel did for it. So did the fact that its eager predecessor was the better drive. Despite this, I’m restoring a top-of-the-range 1750 SS (pictured), although I’m not quite sure why. RICHARD BREMNER - SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
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Alfa Romeo 4C (2013)
Who doesn’t love the idea of a lightweight Alfa Romeo sports car with knockout styling, bundles of power and a carbon fibre tub? The 4C should have been one of the highlights of 2013, but, as it turned out, it was probably that year’s biggest let down. Most unforgivable of all was the steering. At a time when every other manufacturer was beginning to switch to electric power steering - even the Porsche 911 had gone electric by 2013 - Alfa braved it out and left the 4C’s steering completely unassisted. It should have been the best thing about the car; a throwback to a simpler time for sports cars.
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Alfa Romeo 4C (2013)
The reality? The 4C’s helm was so inconsistent, so vague and so busy that it actually made the car feel dangerous. Driving the little Alfa along a challenging British B-road with traffic coming towards you, the car hunting across the road like a manic dog pulling on its lead, was actually pretty scary. DAN PROSSER - CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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Peugeot RCZ (2010)
From the moment it made its debut, I was extremely taken with the RCZ. Who wouldn’t be? From the double bubble roof to the slash-cut head and tail lights, it was a thing of beauty, and at a time when Peugeot seemed destined to a future of ever-drabber family boxes, it felt like a lifeline. I was smitten.
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Peugeot RCZ (2010)
Shame, then, that my first taste of one was such a disaster. It was a 1.6 THP; not the hot R, but still quick enough to be fun – in theory. But while the engine was pokey, it droned away up front like an adenoidal heifer. The steering was too light for my tastes, too, but the worst part was the ride, which was filling-rattlingly firm; so much so that it ruined the handling on anything but a billiard-smooth road. What a pity. ALEX ROBBINS, USED CARS EDITOR
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Renault Sport Clio 200 (2013)
Few car makers have consistently nailed the hot hatch formula as regularly as Renault. But then they went and made the current RS Clio. While objectively a very fine car indeed, subjectively it has always lacked that je n'ais se quoi of hot Clios of old. Much of that is down to its dual-clutch gearbox - we’re all for progress, but the Clio’s problem at launch was that they gearbox wasn’t actually any good itself, the gearbox ratios all over the place, and the paddles too big and cheap feeling to be operated with any satisfaction.
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Renault Sport Clio 200 (2013)
Renault has since evolved the current RS Clio into a much better car in its five years on sale, but never to the heights reached of its predecessor. MARK TISSHAW - EDITOR
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Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk1 (1974)
Never meet your heroes. Yes, it’s a terrible cliche, the sort I try to avoid using like, er, the plague (damn). But it’s also true - and I wish I’d remembered it when asked to briefly drive an original Volkswagen Golf GTI while helping on a photoshoot for the 2017 Autocar Awards. The Golf GTI was our People’s Champion award winner, and someone needed to drive VW’s prized, pristine press car from the entrance of Silverstone to the paddock. It was a childhood ambition fulfilled.
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Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk1 (1974)
My enthusiasm survived tinkering with the settings to get the car warmed up but soon faded when I realised the brakes were essentially non-existent, and the non-power steering assisted controls were painfully leaden. The VW Golf GTI Mk1 clearly isn’t a bad car: it’s a legend, a genuine game-changer. I just wish I could have driven one when it was cutting-edge, rather than as a museum piece. JAMES ATTWOOD - DIGITAL EDITOR
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Range Rover (1980s model)
As a stripling youth, fresh out of college, I managed to bag a job at a local Jaguar and Land Rover dealership. This allowed me to try out a number of cars, the most intriguing of which for me was the then-current (this being around 1987) Range Rover. Lauded by all the magazines that I’d long avidly devoured as one of the greatest cars in the world, it came as quite a shock to discover how much squat and dive and roll this tremendously tall car suffered.
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Range Rover (1980s model)
How hesitant was its transmission and how approaching a bend at anything like speed required furious mental calculations to work out if one could get round it alive. I drive many much more modern Range Rovers today, but to be honest, despite their obvious opulence, they all inspire in me the same emotions. MARK PEARSON - USED CARS DEPUTY EDITOR
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BMW M3 (E36) (1992)
It was the replacement for the original M3, but with a stack more power and a 50 per cent increase in cylinder count. What was not to like? Plenty as it turned out. While the iconic E30 M3 was quite literally a road going version of a racing car, its successor was just a hotted up 3-series. It may have been quicker and sounded great but where it really mattered, in the corners, the edge had gone.
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BMW M3 (E36) (1992)
In fact it was so quiet and comfortable I ended up concluding it would have been more honest to call it a 330CSi, and you can imagine how pleased BMW was about that particular observation. Thank heaven then that three years later the facelifted version cured almost all its ills and was, once more, a credit to BMW’s most coveted sub-brand. ANDREW FRANKEL - SENIOR CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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Ford Mustang (2015)
For some reason I’d never driven a Ford Mustang before it arrived in Britain finally in right-hand-drive form, but I was excited to drive it. Unfortunately my opportunity was at the hill route at Millbrook, perhaps the UK’s finest and most challenging testing location.
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Ford Mustang (2015)
For sure, its ups, downs, twists, turns, hairpin bends and changing cambers can make a fool of many cars - and their drivers - but the Mustang was a handful. Ultimately, it was too heavy, its V8 too lazy, reluctant to change direction and generally unwieldy. For sure, the circuit made the Mustang feel very far from its spiritual home on the very different road topography of the United States, where I’m sure it makes total sense. TOM EVANS - SENIOR CONSULTING EDITOR
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