What the heck were they thinking?!

Takumi Fujiwara

Takumi Fujiwara

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WRBWRXMAX
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Max Archer
Every once in a while, there comes a car so bizarre, or so ugly, or so crummy that it's nearly impossible to figure out what on earth made the manufacturers produce it. This is a thread devoted to those cars.

My candidate for the WTHWTT thread is something that was mentioned in passing on the boards the other day, the Volkswagen Golf III Harlequin.

The picture can speak for itself.
 

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I've seen a Golf with that color scheme before, out on the streets (I'm not claiming it's the same car, but my guess is that someone had a Golf, saw that, and got a bit of "inspiration"). Bloody awful, that was.
 
There's a Beetle that I drive by occasionally that looks like that... I've always wondered if if was a factory paint scheme, or if someone saw the Golf and decided they wanted a beetle like that.

Actually I'd have to guess it was an aftermarket thing, I don't think Beetles were offered in bright colors like that :p
 
Lol my uncle told my dad that in america they did a survey of what gay people drive, and the number one car was a vw jetta,lol he got mad, ironically isn't the sign for gay pride a rainbow flag? hence the them on the golf? I could be wrong but it seems logical
 
It is a factory paint scheme, Sage. I've seen two different ones on the East coast. I had forgotten about them! They look cool in real life, like a Lego car or something.
 
I dunno... the idea's intriguing (and I like Lego :D), but the colors are really disagreeable to me. I guess it just stems from the fact that I'm almost obsessive about color-coordination.
 
The colors on the ones I saw were much better than they appear in that pic - the green was more of a True Green, and the others were pretty clear primaries.
 
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Those two immediately pop into my head - the vehicle on the left (GMC Safari/Chevrolet Astro) is the second-worst vehicle of all time (not even because it's bad, but because it was bad in 1995 and yet ten years later it's still around and completely unchanged) and the vehicle on the right is probably the worst SUV of all time.

Of course, nothing is a match for the worst vehicle ever, the all-time champion of crap, the single worst piece of **** in world history:

cimarron-2m.jpg


Imagine Cadillac today producing a Chevrolet Cavalier twin. Basically, it was a car that Cadillac is only now recovering from. I don't know how long it was produced, nor do I care. Probably about the time the GMC Safari began. Anyway, it's total ****. I call the Toyota Prius the worst car of all time fairly frequently, and it's bad, but it's NOT the worst - the Cimarron is so much worse than anything EVER that it will ALWAYS be the worst car ever. The Golf Harlequin wishes it were this bad.

Incidentally, you think resale on the Golf Harlequin is bad? Try to sell a Cimarron. They're going for less than its downscale Cavalier twin. It's just bad and everyone knows it and people who own Cimarrons only own them because they got them off a neighbor for $20.
 
Heh, you think the Cimarron is the worst car ever? Funny, we have a nearly identical thread over at the GTX that has nominated:

Yugo
Trabant
Ford Mustang II
Hyundai Pony
Renault Dauphine
FSO Polonez
Austin Allegro
Zaporozhet
Oldsmobile Cutlass 260 Diesel

But I have no clue what any of this has to do with the styling of the Harlequin...
 
No, the worst car ever was the 1978 Chevette Diesel Automatic. 0-60mph in (I'm not kidding) about 32 seconds. So slow it was actually dangerous to drive on American roads even under perfect conditions.
 
Look - they were bad. But they're no match for the Cimarron. I don't think many products - cars or not - are as bad as the Cadillac Cimarron.

How do so many people call the Trabant a bad car?
 
There was a Golf like that parked at a Honda dealership here in STL for a while, think it was for sale.
 
That Golf is actually a promotion for Harlequin books.
Yes it's un-pretty. But it's really just a publicity stunt for those damned soft porn Harlequin novels.
 
I'm assuming that must be a colour coding thing for VW, I found a simmilar pic for my MK4 Polo when I was doing a bit of research on the car.

image011.jpg
 
Originally posted by neon_duke
Inanimate objects can be homosexual? That's news to me...
:irked:
Click to expand...

What he said, and more. The damn Golf is a promotion for Harlequin books.
Most of the women I know that read them, including my roomate, have told me that there is no "gay-ness" in Harlequins. Soft porn, yes. "Gayness", no.

No flame-age Hell Patrol, but pretend the Planet is the military. If I don't ask, you don't have to tell. Nor will I make any assumptions based on your underlying Homophobia.

And, to jump way off topic...Since gay men tend to have more female friends than straight men do, maybe us straight guys, especially those that are still single and don't know why, ought to pay a bit more attention to gay men, in the area of interpersonal relationships.

I'm not condoning the gay lifestyle, but a little tolerance will go a long way toward increasing the peace.

(steps off of soapbox)
 
har·le·quin ( P ) Pronunciation Key (härl-kwn, -kn)
n.
1. Harlequin A conventional buffoon of the commedia dell'arte, traditionally presented in a mask and parti-colored tights.
2. A clown; a buffoon.

adj.
Having a pattern of brightly colored diamond shapes

The Golf and Polo Harlequins has nothing to do with Harlequin books :rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by Gil
That Golf is actually a promotion for Harlequin books.
Yes it's un-pretty. But it's really just a publicity stunt for those damned soft porn Harlequin novels.
Click to expand...

Incorrect. It's actually a promotion for VW's production methods. They were so stoked about their production process, they ran a whole campaign about how you could have whatever you wanted, and to "prove" this, they produced a car where every panel was a different colour. As Race Idiot showed, they did it with the Polo also.

Personally, I don't understand why. To me, it looks like someone's had a shunt in it, and can't afford to repair it, so they've gone down to the local scrappy and got panels off other wrecks.

As to the worst car in the world ever, I think you have to look at things like the Cityrover. The worst car I have ever driven is the Citroen Picasso. Doug thinks that the Picasso is a great car, and (more worryingly), thinks that I think it's a great car, when in fact it is a feculant blot on the landscape.
 
Yes - anyone can build a ropey car, but it takes some genius, like the people at Rover, to buy in a ropey old car from India, stick bits on it and pretend it's great and innovative.
 
Originally posted by GilesGuthrie

Doug thinks that the Picasso is a great car, and (more worryingly), thinks that I think it's a great car, when in fact it is a feculant blot on the landscape.
Click to expand...

I was only kidding; I know you hate it. Also, I'm not exactly in love with the thing - I think it's fairly average. But then again, I've never driven it or any members of its segment, so what the **** do I know?
 
Originally posted by Race Idiot
I'm assuming that must be a colour coding thing for VW, I found a simmilar pic for my MK4 Polo when I was doing a bit of research on the car.

image011.jpg
Click to expand...

I bet insurance is really low on a car like that. It's an inexpensive car in a VERY noticable paint scheme. You'd stick out like a sore thumb.
 
I remeber seeing one of those Golfs like 2 months ago...at IKEA.....in the parking lot.....while i was shopping for a bed....and eating 2 hot dogs and a pop for $2. :rolleyes:
 
If anyone here watches Trailer Park Boys, they will know that Ricky's car is the worst car ever. Picture a '76 Monte Carlo with a disintegrating paint job and the front passenger door missing, and you're getting close to this car's crappyness.
 
I would have to say that the best one is the 1983 chrysler lebaron (2.6L). its like they made the car to be the most complicated thing ever! soo many vacuum lines and the carb has about 10 solenoids, and they put these "jet valves" in the head to even the air/fuel mixture for cleaner burning but what it really does is lower compression, burn pistons and raise oil cunsumption. the 2.6L engine also has about 2 or 3 chains inside of it all of which break consistantly at about 120K miles. the head warps if you dont re-torque it when it is new and it has cold weather running problems.

(end rant)
 

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