Cars your parents owned that embarrassed you? (luxury car, windshield, roadster)

[dsrich98]

'87 Plymouth Reliant --> What at gutless style-less car that was.

My parents bought it brand new in '87.

I remember my mom picking me and a few other kids up from school right after we bought it and one of the kids asking what year it was. My Mom told him it was an '87. He said, "No way!! An '87 would be WAY cooler than this!!"

That pretty much summed up that car for me. My Mom drove the Damn wheels off that thing finally traded it for a Bonneville in '97. Vacations, around town, that K car took us everywhere, with our heads hanging in shame.

[bmwguydc]

Generally speaking, I was not too scarred by my parents' choices in vehicles, but they did have some winners. Let me preface this by saying that they always had multiple vehicles and the garage would have something cool such as a a Porsche 911 Targa or Cabriolet, a Jaguar, a Mercedes, a BMW, a couple of classic cars, etc.

When it came to station wagons, however, they had lost all sense, hence the embarrasing models, a few that come to mind:

1. Volvo 265 GL station wagon. I will concede that for it's day, it was not a bad vehicle, but why did they have to get it in safety cone orange?

2. Mercedes 300TDT station wagon. Again, not a bad vehicle overall, save for the clouds of smoke the diesel liked to produce, and the fact that it was lemon yellow, albeit a pale lemon yellow.

3. Toyota Land Cruiser. Not an alltogether horrible vehicle, either, but why did it have to be brown? And, an ugly brown, at that. LOL

4. Toyota Corolla wagon. This was a vehicle that a sibling had to drive to teach them a lesson about responsibility when they crashed their car recklessly. My father bought it used and it was a rust brown color with wood paneling with a black interior.

[northstar22]

My parents certainly had some "interesting" choices in cars when I was growing up. My dad worked in the auto industry, so he always had a company car. Some of his worst were:

1993 Isuzu Rodeo - The thing came complete with the spare tire on the back. Looked like a box on wheels.

1994 Pontiac Bonneville - various colors.

1994 Pontiac Sunfire - a poor excuse for a sports car.


My mom also had some pretty poor vehicles:

1990 Acura Legend - one of the ugliest cars I have ever seen. This was long before Acura started making decent cars. It was charcoal gray, with light gray interior. Even as a small child I HATED that car. They drove that car until it finally died.

1996 Mercury Villager - This navy blue minivan was completely devoid of all style, and broke down frequently.

1998 Nissan Quest - My mom drove this van for a few months (it was a company car). Turquoise, gray interior. One of the most putrid vehicles I have ever seen.

2000 Ford Expedition - This was the car I learned to drive in. It was a huge, white, ugly tank that got 8 mpg and handled like a school bus. There was always something wrong with the car.

[cowboyxjon]

I'd say the only one I was embarrassed about had to have been a Plymouth Reliant K station wagon with wood grain siding on it. We had it for only a few years before it needed some sort of expensive repair (can't remember what it was) and my mom sold it to someone who wanted to fix it and instead bought a used subaru wagon.

[JR_C]

Originally Posted by hdwell

A long legacy of bad taste in cars was what my parents had. The worst I remember was a 63' ford galaxie 500 2dr htp. Talk about a tank! It would destroy most cars on the road today on impact.

Another I recall was a 58' Chevy Belair 2 door coupe. Brown (tan) and yellow. 58's had some of the worst styling ever.

My mom and dad never wanted a 4 door, always had 2 doors. I can't stand any 2 doors today because of that.

Wish I had those. The '58 Chevys were one of my favorites, (though I'm not sure I'd like that particular color combo) and the '63 Galaxies were just beautiful cars.

I was never embarassed by my mom's cars, but I probably should have been.
- One was a brown (metallic) '78 Chevy Monza wagon. You couldn't get in the passenger side door from the outside.
- Another I remember was a '77 Chevy Monte Carlo. It used to be silver, but had turned a mottled gray. There was a very large (8") rust hole behind the driver's door. The interior was a dirty, faded red with a cracked and disintegrating dashboard. Right before we sold it, the plastic trim around the rear wheel-wells fell out taking a couple inches of rusted fender with them.

Mom also had an '81 AMC Concord DL, but that was actually a neat little car.

[warren zee]

Well actually it was my car, I must have been out of my mind, a 1976 Mustang II stallion fire engine red, thought it was cool then, I really needed my head examined. WORST car I ever owned and I've had 20+ cars

[nightlysparrow]

First he owned an AMC Pacer, which was ok in a 1975 semi-futuristic style sort of way. But that was followed by an AMC Gremlin, which was a flimsy pos and completely embarrassing.

[Zen88]

A rotted 76 Dodge Aspen station wagon. Then an 87 Chevy Celebrity wagon after an accident, when they didn't repair it. It's almost as if they really wanted rotted junk with no exhaust system or functional air conditioning, or that ran well before fuel injection.

[SoHoVe]

All the cars my parents had were unattractive with the exception of a Mustang but my AUNT who could have chosen basically whatever she wanted (single professional, no kids) just had a knack for choosing THE UGLIEST CARS. She had a horrendous Mercury Capri with the horrid hige bubble back window. TAN exterior with GREY interior!!!

I probably shouldn't complain about that car though because after being passed around the family as a spare car it became my daily winter driver saving my Corvette from ever facing snow. Great beater car, eventually it had lots of minor problems due to neglect, antifreeze dripping on my feet and fogging windows but it never failed to run and drive pretty well. I can't even remember it even ever stalling on me. That damn thing must have been in the family for 10 years.

[ToyYot]

VW Thing, and yes, it was pink...and I was 12 - mortifying.