The Worst Car You've Ever Driven.

[GlenAnderson]

My mother had 2 Allegros from new.

They were good cars, no problems. I quite liked the "square" wheel. Once driving you never noticed it.


 

I had, briefly, a 1500tc Allegro. It was the first five-speed car that I owned. It wasn't bad at all, although I only ran it for a month or so as a stop-gap while my Beetle was undergoing repairs. The boot was big enough to get an entire VW transaxle in, including the swingaxle drive shafts, and it was pretty brisk by the standards of the day. Too "old man" for me at the time though. I did make a modest profit on it too, which was an unexpected bonus. My mate Simon had a 1750 which went like a scalded cat; a properly surprisingly fast car. I think their poor reputation largely reflects the standards that the base models were built to; the 1.1 and 1.3 A-series powered cars were pretty awful.

[Alan Drover]

Years ago my mate bought an Allegro Vanden Plas from a near neighbour of mine. The brakes were stuck on but a tow from my Series 3 sorted that out.
It was a reasonably pleasant car to ride in.

[Wittsend]

It can take a little while, a few road miles, a couple of weeks.

Remember when you 1st got into a Series Land Rover
The steering was weird - you were over compensating, if you are/were used to power steering.
To say nothing of the brakes 

I quite liked the Corsa we got as a courtesy car about 10 years ago.

(Our 1.3 Allegros were quite frugal on petrol, around 45 mpg IIRC and would cruise at 70 ish on the motorway.)

It's what's it like after a few months of ownership. Anything that's radically different to your everyday driver will feel strange 

[Worf]

Many years ago after starting a new job, I was told "you need a more reliable vehicle". I bought a "modern" s/h Simca 1501. Big mistake. It came with a warranty "engine gearbox and back axle". They were the only bits that never went wrong. Flimsy build and horrible to drive long distances as steering wheel didnt seem to line up with pedals (designed for LHD??).
It had rust coloured paint that soon turned into the real stuff. Managed to swap it for a rather good Morris Traveller that was a vast improvement!

[Wittsend]

Not everything about the Allegro was bad.

They had a multifunctional wiper/washer column switch which can be mounted on a Series steering column to save reaching over to the wiper switch. Plus you got a "flick wipe" feature which IMHO is more useful than a fast speed wipe.





You just need to make a simple bracket to clamp it to the steering column.

[Uffddd]

We were given a 2018-ish Vauxhall Corsa as a courtesy car for a few days last year. It look literally 20 yards of driving (me putting it back on our drive from where the delivery driver left it) to realise that I never wanted to drive it again - fortunately, we had other vehicles so I was happy to leave it untouched until it was collected...

...which it wasn't! They forced me to drive to the workshop a few days later and swap it over!

I can't recall the full details of the horror - I think it was beyond gutless with a hideous clutch (possibly just worn out by courtesy use) and dreadful over assistance of the brakes and steering.

I'm always fairly happy when I rent a car and they point me towards a Corsa. Nothing to write home about but a much better drive than say the Fiat 500 hybrid I got saddled with a few months ago.

[Ken]

I remember ( I usually try not to ) briefly owning a Renault Clio. Amongst its faults the engine cut out every time you turned left and the brakes caught fire at 30 mph. It had more faults on the one car than the sum total of every car I ever owned and it was new.  I'd NEVER go near a French car again.

[Alan Drover]

I once drove a Corsa from Bolton back to Hampshire. I thought it wasn't too bad at all for a modern. It transported me and 6 black puddings no problem.

[klaxon]

This may sound a bit odd but the wosrt car I have driven was a 1978 Porche 911 Targa belonging to my boss at the time, I couldn,t get my head under the roll bar (it must have been designed for a smaller bloke than me) the seats were hard the long gear stick was very much biased for left hand drive, the pedals came up from the floor from a single point (like an old beetle) and having big feet didn't help, it was basic and noisy and bounced about like my series 2.
Then came a later Porche I remember it being a fibreglass body, this was an improvement but it hated driving in traffic and needed coaxing along till the turbo kicked in.

[diffwhine]

And when the turbo kicked in the next thing you usually knew was that you were facing in the opposite direction or half way up a tree... One of my first jobs was as a driver for a performance car rental company in London... I remember them well!

[Alan Drover]

Many years ago a mate had a 1974 BMW 2002 turbo. They were only lhd because the turbo was in the way of an rhd steering column. It was fast but with massive turbo lag.

[Ken]

We had a Porsche 911 at jaguar in the 80s. A drive across the car park was as far as I was prepared to go in it for all of the reasons described above, it was horrible.
One of the younger engineers took it out soon after and crashed it into the car of an old couple up near Door mill coal mine north of Coventry, a tricky ie fun section of road normally. Both of the victims died sadly.

[Dopey]

Every French car ever

[Gareth]

By a country mile the worst car I have ever driven is a Reliant Regal. Absolutely crap.

[Richard]

That must be the epitome of the worst car ever, a worst car ever that isn't even French, takes you off guard, you don't expect it, moves you beyond worst car ever territory, through the worm rust hole, where no car has gone before 
Richard