One of our favorite car ads from the 80s was the Tron inspired marketing campaign for the Holden Camira. The Camira was Australia’s version of GM’s J car program and when first released was a huge success, it even won car of the year. Holden’s marketing line for the Camira was “Supercar” and the early purchasers of the Camira soon found out the only thing that the Camira had in common with a real supercar was poor reliability. The issues that dogged the first model (the JB) affected sales on the whole series, so much so that the New Zealanders refused to take the follow up JD model and imported the Japanese version instead. Some people claim the later models like the JD or JE were fantastic but you still have trouble even giving them away.
The Zastava 101 is a car built by Serbian car maker Zastava Automobili sometimes better known as Yugo. The 101 was based on the Fiat 128 that first hit the roads in 1969 with the Zastava version going into production in 1971 and also spinning off a hatchback variety not found on its Fiat cousin. While many people pointed out the more popular Fiat 128 was a bit long in the tooth when it was finally retired in 1985 the Zastava 101 is still produced today as the Skala 5 door hatch with a 55-horsepower, 1.1-liter engine on its one trim level. The Skala is available for around 4000 euro’s and is popular in its home country of Serbia and a few other eastern European countries. These cars were once exported across Europe and along with its bigger brother the 45 but the Balkan war put trade sanctions on the company with NATO later blowing up part of their factory.
Official Site (not in English but good pics of it anyhow)
The AMC Gremlin has to go down in history as one of the worst ideas in automotive marketing history, named after creatures that cause mechanical problems it was released on April fools day 1970. AMC had very little money to invest at the time so when they need a car in the subcompact market they cut the rear off their compact Hornet model and created this horrid looking box. It could come with either a 2l 4 cyl or a 3.3, 3.8 or a 4.2 6 cyl and a 5 lt V8 engine and this was in a market that was compeating against the VW Beetle, despite all that seems wrong on the surface the car sold well and was one of AMC’s largest production runs with just over 670,000 cars produced over 9 years. The car even has developed a cult following partly thanks to its over the top 1970s looks and the fact that the larger engine cars are resonable performers if not a bit thursty. But many think this along with a few of AMC’s other products are dogs and is probably the car that marked the start of AMC’s downfall.
When designers come up with new car designs you would think they would go out to market research just to check that the public like it and then do a few tweaks. Even if they stuff up you would think management would say.. hey no one is going to like that and send them back to the drafting table, well what went on here? The AMC Pacer would have to be the ugliest car of all time, there isn’t a bit you could like. There have been several polls for the ugliest car over the year but the Pacer comes up tops most times, The AMC Gremlin (its sister) always ranks high, as does the Ford Pinto, The Chevy Aztek and the poor old Edsel from Ford. The Pacer was a two door compact produced between 1975 and 1980 it more resembled a jellybean on wheels than a car. You might remember the “Mirthmobile” in the Hit 90’s movie Wayne’s World and they had a stretched and convertible one in the sequel. The car also came in a station wagon form and with lovely wood panelling that was also just as hideous. The only thing I can’t understand with the whole Pacer story is AMC made 280,000 of them, who would have bought one?
If you have a Pacer and think we are being a bit unfair or have another ugly car to note drop us a line!
