Marking the 50th anniversary of the failed Ford Edsel, Pulitzer-winning automotive critic and Los Angeles Times syndicated columnist Dan Neil has compiled a list of "The 50 Worst Cars of All Time" for TIME Magazine.
Entries range from the obvious (the Ford Pinto, the Chevy Corvair) to the obscure (ladies and gentlemen, the King Midget Model III). Pulling no punches, Neil also singles out the mythologized Model T:
Let's stipulate that the Model T did everything that the history books say: It put America on wheels, supercharged the nation's economy and transformed the landscape in ways unimagined when the first Tin Lizzy rolled out of the factory. Well, that's just the problem, isn't it? The Model T — whose mass production technique was the work of engineer William C. Klann, who had visited a slaughterhouse's "disassembly line" — conferred to Americans the notion of automobility as something akin to natural law, a right endowed by our Creator. A century later, the consequences of putting every living soul on gas-powered wheels are piling up, from the air over our cities to the sand under our soldiers' boots. And by the way, with its blacksmithed body panels and crude instruments, the Model T was a piece of junk, the Yugo of its day.
Photo: Ed Clark / Time Life Pictures / Getty
