Worst movie cars of all time? I vote Uncle Buck!

Anyone here have their idea of the worst movie cars of all time. My vote of course goes to Uncle Buck with his classic hoopty style car. See

and

I assume they probably made the car worse on purpose for the movie. What type of issue would cause that much smoke? Leaking intake manifold? For all we know they had something injecting some type of smoke generating fluid into the exhaust system.

Anyone have a car from a movie or TV show that beats this one

The Griswold Family Truckster!
https://cars.usnews.com/static/images/article/201605/125655/525598258.jpg

Space Balls! has to rank up there as one of the “groaniest”.

The 1954 Movie Johnny Dark with Tony Curtis and Piper Laurie was about a fictional American car company entering sports car racing. The sports cars were fine. They were 1953 Woodhill Wildfires a fiberglass body on a sic cylinder Willys chassis and engine. However the 4 door sedans from that fictional manufacturer were Willys Aero Aces. Don’t remember the Willys Areo Ace? No one else did either,even in 1954, which is why it failed. It was the slightly larger cousin to the Henry J (Kaiser) but the Aero was 4 doors and had square fins rather than the pointy imitation Cadillac ones on the Henry J.

The RV in Christmas Vacation probably would also make the list now that I remember that one.

Then there was the Lincoln with the suicide doors that they destroyed in Animal House.

I used to live on the road to a pretty run down trailer park and you had quite a few “Uncle Buck” caliber cars go by on a daily basis. You got to know which vehicle it was without seeing it by the way they sounded after a while. Yes, cars can backfire that loud in real life.

I also had an old Jeep at one point that had been converted to a Ford 302 motor and it was done all wrong. They simply blocked the PCV off by putting .45 shell casings, .410 shotgun shell hulls, and such over the nipples. That is just one example of the fine rigs I found under the hood. The intake manifold had a large crack and it burned coolant and oil. It also backfired frequently like the Uncle Buck car which I assume also came with the Ford 302 or similar. I started to fix up the Jeep but it was a money pit and I had no idea of how certain things were done as it was a Frankenstein model… I finally gave up and sold it after the last engine fire. The guy who bought it from me said it backfired like a rifle going off when they first got it running. I told him that was normal.

Uncle Bucks car backfired just like so many Fords of that period with the 460 engine. There was a chronic problem with the air injection after burner system and also the carburetors were often idled too high to make up for retarded spark. And just like in the video there would be a very loud and predictable backfire when the engine was shut off.

6 hours in and this hasn’t shown up!?

Or this?

And don’t forget this awesome little number, which is from a stinkburger of a movie that should only be watched with the guys in silhouette:

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How about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and engine that sounds like that and backfires all the time, really find a mechanic! :wink:

Corvette Summer Stingray. It’s so ugly that Richard Rawlings bought a clone.

Here’s a particularly hideous Opel, which I believe was in a “cult” movie

I didn’t consider the ugly ones, just the junk. Those are some really ugly examples though. I saw some of those old cars with 6 wheels for whatever reason but don’t understand what this was for. That Corvette is also hideous.

AMC Hornet, from the James Bond movie “The Man With the Golden Gun”. The car’s styling seems like a reasonable first attempt at a sporty car design by a just-out-of-design-school staff employee, then AMC ran out of money for any improvements.

The Tyrrell 6 wheel F1 cars had some success but had problems with tire development of the 10 inch fronts and their smaller brakes.

The manager of the grocery store where I worked bought the first 1968 red, white, and blue AMX in town. 390cu in 4 speed M/T. He took me for a ride. Holy crap! An AMC hot rod (at that time an oxymoron). I still want one.

I can see that. Years ago a fellow co-worker of mine, here in the USA on a work visa, bought for his first car a brand new AMC Javelin. You wouldn’t believe the change in personality when he got into his car. He was staid and unemotional at work; almost sullen. Once in the parking lot he was like a kid in a candy store, smiling and so happy to have that car to drive. Sort of looked like this, only it was a bright yellow.

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Most of the ones in those lame Fast and Furious movies… :frowning:

That reminds me of that hoopty in “The Grapes of Wrath” with Henry Fonda

I considered buying a new 1972 AMC Javelin AMX. Sexy styling yes. Performance? Not so much.

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What is hoopty?