Automotive Atrocities!: The Cars We Love to Hate

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious!!
Review: Great design and extremely humorous text. This book is a lot of fun--you will enjoy it!

Rating:
Summary: This book was too much fun!
Review: Most automotive books I review are serious...mainly they're historical or technical. What we all need, sometimes, is humor and that's where <u>Automotive Atrocities</u>: The Cars We Love to Hate comes in.


Automakers have flimflammed an unsuspecting public with plenty of bad and/or laughable cars over the years. Millions have been sucked into buying mistakes-on-wheels. Millions more have drive these cars, which, after the new-car smell is gone, reveal themselves to be truly atrocious automobiles.



<u>Automotive Atrocities</u> is a totally awful collection of fake muscle cars, clown-car compacts, faux "luxury" cars, sales disasters and other truly disgusting and/or ill-conceived four-wheeled follies. This book gives the motoring public the last laugh as everyone's (well..almost everyone's) least-favorite cars are skewered, big-time.



Indeed, just about every car in this book is one we love to hate but most of them are, also, cars we all have joked about and the others are just pathetic or weird. I mean...who can keep a straight face while reading about Yugos, Renault Fuegos, Daihatsu Charades, Ford Mustang II King Cobras or AMC Pacers. Then there are (pathetic) Camaros with four-cylinder engines and (weird) Zil limousines.



Courtesy of Eric Peters, who's written about cars for 11 years and, currently, is an automotive correspondent for America OnLine, Netscape and CompuServe, we get the stupidest, funniest, most ridiculous and the most atrocious cars of all time. Peters mixes an often sarcastic, humorous style with some history, not too much techie talk and some good fun and comes up with a book that is both amusing and educational.



At times, <u>Automotive Atrocities</u> is even provoking. For example, Peters claims the California-only, 1980 Corvette 305 is an "automotive atrocity". While I like this book, I am in complete disagreement on this issue. Clearly, Mr. Peters knows enough about Vettes to be dangerous...or maybe a Porsche marketing guy. Peters claims the Vette with the 305 is an atrocity because it was a poor performer...which it was. But, there are mitigating circumstances. First, all cars of that period, performance or otherwise, were slugs. Author Peters, an admitted third generation Pontiac Firebird owner (I mean, hey, the guy owns a car with a big freakin' chicken on the hood), was unaware that 1980 Corvette LG4 was actually an automative milestone, not an atrocity. It was the first production GM car to have digital engine controls and those controls gave this car's 305 (which existed solely because of California is the land of environmental whackos) only 10 less horsepower than the engine used elsewhere in the U.S. which was 45 cubic inches larger. This car began the EFI revolution in performance automobiles which made performance cars of today, such as the Z06, possible.



Another car Eric Peters incorrectly terms atrocious is the Chevy Cosworth Vega. Yeah, the Vega's aluminum block/iron head engine had a lot of durability problems....but mainly if it was not cared-for properly. Overheat those Vega motors and they became wheezing, oil-burning clunkers. The most interesting thing about the "Cos Vega" is that it was the first GM car and the first modern American car to have electronic fuel injection. Yep, a vast majority of the cars on the road in America, today, use port fuel injection which is similar in design and operating principle to what was first introduced on the 1975 Cosworth Vega. Some of Peter's comments about the engine's durability might be a tiny bit exaggerated and his irrelevant statement that the engine put out 30-hp less than a modern economy car must have been made while under the influence of a mind-altering substance. So what if it only made 110-hp. Back then, that was a ton of power for a two-liter engine. Economy cars of that era were lucky to make 75.



Uh, ok...I know I'm ranting. Ok back to the review.

Actually, I had a heck of a good time reading this book, even if I think a few of Peters' choices suck. <u>Automotive Atrocities</u> has a place of honor on my coffee table. Guests pick up the book asking, "What the hell is this?" but then, as they begin to read it they chuckle, then break out in laughter.

Rating:
Summary: Bring Back the Bad Old Days
Review: Reading this books brought back memories of the sorry excuses for cars that we spent thousands of dollars for in the 1970's-80's.

Some of the Losers from that era that were in the book in my own words:
1980 Thunderbird: Styling done by stacking 3 "Chunky" candy bars together. An insult to the 2-seat T-birds (1955,2002)
1984 Fiero: A good looking, but less practical Chevette
1982:Cadillac Cimmarron: at $12,000 Cavalier. Worst example of badge engineering.
1982-1984 Dodge Rampage: A sad excuse for an El Camino, and even sadder excuse for a pickup.
1974-78: Mustang II; The "Pintang". A heavier and slower Pinto.
They should have put this horse in the glue factory.
1980-90 Cadillacs: Standard of how not to design a car. Much worse performance and reliability than a modern Dodge Neon (which costs half as much or 1/4 as much in 2004 dollars).
1981 K-cars: Johnson&Johnson band-aid cans on wheels.
1971-1977 Chevy Vega: Set the world standard for fastest car to fall apart. Had to buy gas and oil at the same time, like a 2-stroke.




Rating:
Summary: Another book on the "bad" old days
Review: Seemed like an interesting and fun read. However, this book very quickly became another unoriginal attempt at preaching the "badness" of '70-`80's cars (except with a little more humour and an easier-to-read format).

Main problem with this book is that it too easily takes pot-shots at an industry that was reeling from a number of blows (OPEC, Gov't/insurance involvement, etc). Yes, the book was meant to be humourous and in some cases it was. But overall, it seems to brow-beat an era that perhaps, undeservedly, has been the black sheep for most writers. An era that's problems and lacklustre-ness has been constantly rehashed over and over again. How about writing about some real atrocities such as GM's early `80's X-cars (most recalled cars in history), the entire '58 line-up (never had more chrome been used), the 1923 Copper Cooled Chevy (a good idea very poorly executed), the Isetta 300 Bubble Car (now that was an atrocity), etc. These were cars not made under the same harsh circumstances as the ones featured and thus had less excuses for their (poor) creation.

Yes, the Cadillac Cimarron, the Yugo, Le Car and a number of others should have been immediately transferred to the scrap yard and un-ceremonially crushed. However, many of the other makes selected, the decaled post-muscle cars, K-cars, the AMC Pacer (too easy!) and numerous others all were solutions to problems not easily solved. And how much of an atrocity can a decal package on a car really be? No worse then some of those "standard" spoilers on today's sub-compacts?

Overall, an interesting topic but one whose main focus has been needlessly repeated to the point of predictability (you knew the Gremlin would be in there). It's just another clichéd book telling us how "bad" cars were in the 1970 - 80's. Oh ya, and the Aztek too.

Maybe the author should have renamed the book: Automotive Atrocities: The Cars We're "Told" to Hate.


Rating:
Summary: I liked it and I am car illiterate
Review: This is a very funny book. I know next to nothing about cars, but I found Eric Peter's non-stop verbal jabs at these truly terrible cars an absolute hoot. Even if, like me, paint color is the only option you select when buying a car, you'll like this book.