The General Motors Firenza

Here's an article about what's been called the worst car ever to hit Canada.  It was meant to be their Chevy Nova (an affordable compact with some flair) and ended up being worse than the Edsel, Pinto and Corvair -- combined.  The Vauxhall Firenza basically birthed the Canadian class-action lawsuit.  However, comparing it to the three cars named above is a little misleading...

1) The Edsel was a decent car, but it was poorly positioned in the market, price-wise.  It had an odd front grille.  It hit the scene just as a recession set-in.  Yet it was marketed as the greatest car ever made.  Combine all that, and it was DOA.
2) The Pinto was affordable and fairly reliable for its time.  It's reputation was eventually destroyed by lawsuits over fatal fires caused by rear-collisions. To this day, people claim this was due to Ford engineers carelessly placing the gas tank in the rear.  FALSE -- almost every American car at the time had a gas tank in the rear; the engineers did what everyone did.  It was the later internal memo that said protecting the gas tank would be "cost-prohibitive" (a few dollars!) that is the real culprit.  Bean counters winning over engineers.
3) The Corvair had two generations: 1960-64 and 1965-69.  The latter car was stylish, fun-to-drive and economical.  The former was just economical, but had odd understeer/oversteer that could be dialed out by tweaking the suspension and tires.  Nobody at GM thought to tell the public this.  So the car was easily attacked by Ralph Nader, just as the Ford Mustang loomed to eat the Corvair's market share.  Part of the problem was its rear-mounted engine: GM had never done a rear-mount, and figured "imports (i.e. the VW Beetle) are selling well.  We want to compete with them.  Let's make a car with the engine in the back -- that must be the reason the VW sells."  Cynics.  This is also the same company that, despite the Canadian Firenza's issues, picked the name up and slapped it on an Olds in the 1980s.  So maybe they have a sense of humor.  I must say, I think the Canadian car is pretty sharp-looking in coupe/sedan form.  The hatchback -- like ALL hatchbacks -- looks terrible.