Sunday, November 04, 2007
The Fifty Worst Cars of All Time
OK, I concede it *is* a bit blokey, but I have to confess to having had some wonderful moments over the past few days idling through The 50 Worst Cars of All Time, presented by Pulitzer Prize winning automotive critic, Dan Neil, for Time magazine. Produced to mark the 50th anniversary of the ultimate hell on wheels, the 1958 Ford Edsell, the page offers a panorama of pure delight. The images are great, the cars' credentials for the award cannot be faulted, and Neil's turns of phrase and conceptual gestalts are sublime.
I mean, what could possibly top this appraisal of Colin Chapman's 1958 fibreglass-bodied disaster, the Lotus Elite? "It was also a lovely little coupe, which which made the moment when the suspension mounts punched through the stressed-skin monocoque all the more pathetic. The unreinforced fiberglass couldn't take the structural strain. In Chapman's cars, failure was always an option."
But don't take my word for it, or this one example -- after all it could be an isolated occurrence. Check it out for some outrageous fun. Along the way you'll be pleasured by eye candy like the incomparable 1958 (it was a wicked year) Zundapp Janus.
Enjoy. This one's for you, boyz.
