Most embarrassing car you ever had to own...

1986 Cadillac Cimmaron. Maroon with maroon interior. 2.8 + automatic awfulness. Struggled to break 75mph. Crashed it twice in two months. The second one did it in

Hungary Bill wrote: 1986 Cadillac Cimmaron. Maroon with maroon interior. 2.8 + automatic awfulness. Struggled to break 75mph. Crashed it twice in two months. The second one did it in

84 chev cavalier. Same car. Less power. The lq5 4 cylinder produced an eye popping 86hp from a 2.0 backed by a 3 SPD auto. Also it was my grandmas car handed down. Not even a tape deck.

Chrysler K car. Autotragic, Holly carb nightmare. The lowest point of my life.

Let's see... my current DD is a 2008 Grand Caravan. I wouldn't say I'm embarrassed by it. I bought it for specific reasons and it does those jobs adequately. Naturally, I receive no small amount of grief for being a single guy and owning a minivan. Not that I really give a berk.

In reply to Ian F:

I loved my mini van. And I was a young (late teens early twenties) single guy when I had mine.

1958 Plymouth Belevedere, 4 door two tone greenish, 318 2 barrel, push button automatic. It kept catching on fire; but nothing ever broke badly enough to get rid of it. Paid $45 for it and promptly spent $75 on a dual exhaust. The first step down the road to perdition. In my father's words what was wrong with exhaust that was there? 50 years later there are family members who suggest I should stop fixing things that aren't broken.

Only one that ever really embarrassed me was my acr. And then only when the engine was on the way out and it would smoke bad enough at idle that you couldn't see if the headlights were on. Going through the drive through was fun....

Loved that car. WILL own another.

my 1987 econoline van i guess could be considered embarrassing to some with it's frilly throw pillows and curtains. Then again i took it to prom. with 7 girls.

My first car wasn't too embarrassing- 1998 jetta GLS 5-speed. slow for sure, and broke down all the time, but i wasn't embarrassed. My wife's current car is a 2014 focus with a 5-speed, it's fairly appliance-y except for the stick, but there's nothing to be embarrassed about driving an economy car.

In reply to Hungary Bill:

When I crashed my Malibu last year I looked for a Cimerron to drop the 3.1 in.

After owning so many cars, there were quite a few that would embarrass most people. The one that I would choose was a late 70s Oldsmobile Cutlas wagon w/cracked wind shield and faded/peeling paint. I like wagons and I bought it to be a winter beater. However, the V6 had a burnt valve and broken rings or a holed piston in separate cylinders. It cranked fast and started every time in a very cold winter. Performance minimal. One day a female coworker told me she saw me driving it and could not believe that I would drive something that old and ugly.

My wife and kids have always asked me to park around the block so their friends wouldn't see, so I am pretty sure everything I've ever owned was pretty embarrassing to someone.

I didn't own it, but I rented a Prius once and got 2 speeding tickets driving it in the same weekend. Why couldn't it have been a Magnum??

Ian F wrote: Let's see... my current DD is a 2008 Grand Caravan. I wouldn't say I'm embarrassed by it. I bought it for specific reasons and it does those jobs adequately. Naturally, I receive no small amount of grief for being a single guy and owning a minivan. Not that I really give a berk.

Strangely the only time i ever owned a minivan for myself was before i had kids. Originally bought it cheap because it needed a waterpump (93 with 3.0, should have been even cheaper but i was 18). I loved how practical it was! Everything from parts hauling and people hauling. Id own another in that bodystyle happily if it wasnt a v6.

My first car was a 1988 Hyundai Excel 4 door. 1.5L automatic. It was no Mustang, IROC, or Monte SS , but as a 16-1/2 year old, I was happy as a pig in E36M3 to have that new found freedom.

Anything, Anywhere, Anytime. Put a wheel in front of me, I have no shame

JohnRW1621 wrote:

WildScotsRacing wrote: 1976 base model Corolla. The utter lack of any high school cool factor was rather humiliating in a parking lot full IROC Zs, Corvettes, New Mustang GTs, Shelby Chargers, 300ZXs, GTIs, 240SXs, RX7s, Firebirds, Sciroccos, etc... You name it, my high school parking lot had it.

And now, your Corolla is likely the rarest to find of all the cars you listed. Sure, maybe not the most expensive but very hard to find a survivor in good shape.

There's a reason for that. Cheap cars that nobody wants don't survive.

I didn't get a car until I was in my 20s. No shame in anything I've owned, although my 1987 Subaru wagon wasn't a prize.

But I commuted in university on a mountain bike with a bent frame built out of scavenged parts. It would have been the equivalent of a K car with baling wire door handles and cardboard for a side window.

Some interesting rides people have gotten themselves into. I've never purchased a car I've been embarrassed to own. Even when I was between a rock and a hardplace, I still pushed to find deals on cars I wouldn't feel like driving into a gator infested swamp.

Car's I've had to be associated with, now that's another story. A college girlfriend had a 2004 Chevy Aveo. I hated every last thing about that car. The fact she paid $11,000 for it from CarMax was ridiculous. The fact it had two timing belts on it before 60k miles due to tensioner failures, it looked like an egg, it got horrible gas mileage for a four cylinder, the plastics on the inside could protect you from a nuclear blast, and my friends added a nice prefix to the beginning of the cars name and it was my nick name for a long time. When she left me shortly after we were engaged for a mid-30 yearsomething that was a stock boy at Target, I was actually happy I didn't have to be associated with that car anymore. Her dad called me to replace the timing belt once more, never returned that call.

Cars I've owned that at a time I questioned myself. 1) 2009 Honda Fit Sport A/T. It was the A/T part, why did I buy an A/T in a car that made my friends questioned me about depression and if I was thinking normally. In retrospect, I wish i would have kept that car because it'd be a great DD and fun little autoxer. It was associated with the succubus mentioned above so it was sold as well.

I got to drive my grandparents 86 Parrisanne wagon in high school. I hated it, I walked a number of days just to avoid driving it.

Now days, I wish I could find another one.

I got to drive my grandparents 86 Parrisanne wagon in high school. I hated it, I walked a number of days just to avoid driving it.

Now days, I wish I could find another one.

TeamEvil wrote: "1976 base model Corolla. The utter lack of any high school cool factor was rather humiliating . . . " Same here !! Same car, same year, mine was red. Sitting in a College parking with MGBs, Mustangs, Fiat 124s, and TVRs for company.

Worst of all was how miserably SLOW it was. In high school, "car coolness" could be measured two ways: either by brand/model snobbery or by having a respectably performing car (even if it was ugly). My best ET when it was still bone stock was a blistering 20.2 at like 71 mph. What made it worse still was that I knew what is was like to drive a truly fast car; I did, on very rare occassion, get to drive my dad's Z28 and 911, and one of my best high school friends was given a 69 Camaro and HIS dad was willing to buy all the parts required to build that old thing into a true screamer with a stunning electric blue paint job. By the time our senior year began, that Camaro was running low 12s on street tires. Through helping my friend with his Camaro I started to learn how to make a car faster. With some careful tuning and very low-cost mods (my dad predicated everthing on my GPA which was never to his satisfaction, so hence, no performance modding budget from HIM) we were able to get the Corolla down to mid 18s. Still unbearably slow, but a very respectable 2 second improvement. And then it happened: I met some Puerto Ricans, who had recently moved to Tulsa, at Tulsa Raceway Park, who had a couple of old Corollas that were running 13s!!! No nitrous, no blowers, no V-8 swaps. So I got to know the guys and learned a thing or three about the Toyota hemi engine. By the time I was two years into the Air Force, my ugly, embarrassingly slow, Corolla was rockin a balanced and blueprinted 1.8 liter 3TC block with a 1.6 liter 2TC head, ported and polished, 11.5:1 compression, Crane cam, dual Weber 40s, tuned equal length header, recurved distributor, Jacobs optical trigger ignition, and running high 13s to low 14s on 225 width Radial T/As in back. Being only a 4-speed it ran out of revs at 139 mph at 7800 rpm. And still got 30 mpg on the highway. My lack-of-power curse was solved. But being well past high school I never did get to show up those kids whose parents were more forgiving their GPAs.

Dusterbd13 wrote: Only one that ever really embarrassed me was my acr. And then only when the engine was on the way out and it would smoke bad enough at idle that you couldn't see if the headlights were on. Going through the drive through was fun.... Loved that car. WILL own another.

Reminds me of my old taurus. Dripped oil on the back exhaust mani from a leaky valve cover gasket. Only started on fire a little from time to time.

My folks gave me the tirest Aerostar you've ever seen the day I turned 16. My year older sister got a convertible Lebaron. I'm still bitter. My yellow striped v6 5spd hatch Corsica was miles better lol

Flat_Black13z wrote: My folks gave me the tirest Aerostar you've ever seen the day I turned 16. My year older sister got a convertible Lebaron. I'm still bitter. My yellow striped v6 5spd hatch Corsica was miles better lol

Oh, mine gets even better. My dad bought my sister (one year younger than me) a brand new '87 RS Camaro. With the V-8. Everyone here who felt Ferris Bueler and Cameron Frye's pain, raise your hands.

While I liked it, I am aware it was an embarrassment to be seen in. 1978 Cutlass wagon. Spray-can primer red. Rusty. Interior torn to shreds, both seats and dash. All the hard plastic was turning to powder so touching anything led to grit on your hands. Loud. Slow for how loud it was and how much gas it used (16.0's). It was far and away the worst vehicle at my private high school in 2003-2004. It was so, so awful that my friends were generally fond of it but I cannot imagine what other folks thought when I showed up to work...parents dropping their kids off at school...girls parents when I picked them up...people in traffic in Baltimore often had comments along the lines of "cant believe that thing is still goin'!"...oof. (of course there was no A/C. Only the front windows opened. Baltimore. Summer. This might be why I don't really care if my cars have working A/C to this day.)

The only time I can relate was one single event when future SWMBO fell through the floor of the truck I was driving at the time.

I totally fixed it (with sheet metal and pop rivets) that night. I even wrote a love letter on the new metal advising the future owner against any sort of long-term repair, as it was at least 75% iron oxide by that point.

A hand-me-down '98 Daewoo Cielo. As any Daewoo owner will tell you, those things do permanent damage to your sex life. Parked among some Fast and Furious stuff (which was "cool"), and boring but decent and respectable Japanese cars.