What Was Dad's Worst Car?

We've all learned some positive car lessons from our fathers, but sometimes it turns out that we learned the most valuable lessons about cars from Dad's automotive mistakes. Let's wrap up this Father's Day by discussing our fathers' bad cars!

Having grown up in the Malaise Era, I have no problem making this call: the 1979 Ford Granada sedan my dad bought from Hertz in 1980. Prior to that, he'd been batting pretty close to 1.000 with his car-buying decisions; when the photograph of newborn me and my Lucky-smoking, Buddy-Holly-specs-equipped Dad was taken, his daily driver was a '56 Olds. Soon after, he got a '67 Ford Custom with 3-on-the-floor and overdrive box. Even the Fiat 128 he bought a few years later was cool, despite the fact that it disintegrated with 15,000 miles on the clock. But that Granada was a genuinely miserable motor vehicle, and it stayed in the family as the much-abused "extra car" long enough for me to drive— and loathe— it as a teenager. I learned many extremely valuable lessons about Detroit Malaise Iron from that car, and much of my love of junkyards stems from the many parts runs I made to keep that heap running back in the day.

How about you? What was your father's most terrible car? Bonus points if he's still driving it now!
Top photo source: Old Car Brochures

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