Okay, welcome back to another edition of My Car Guru.
I do a lot of confessing on this show.
It's cleansing.
It's a cleansing thing.
It's kind of like washing your car.
You got all that dirt and filth and you just got to get rid of it, got to wash it away.
That's what I'm doing right now, so here goes.
I do drive a little too fast.
I also occasionally will text while driving, and in my career, I have sold cars to people
who have no business buying the car that they're buying, and finally, I do get angry sometimes
when I'm driving at other drivers who don't know that I'm angry, but I'm angry at what
they do knowing full well that I probably do things that make them angry.
So that's pretty much it.
That's all the confessing for today.
I can already feel like I have a weight lifted off my shoulders, but there's one more confession
I have to make.
I have, I don't know how you say it, biases or biases.
I've got bias against certain brands of cars, types of cars, and it's pretty evident,
I guess if you listen to this program long enough.
My daughter pointed out one, my youngest daughter, Audra.
She said, Dad, you don't say really good things about Hyundai, and the way you say it,
it's almost like you're making fun of people who drive Hyundai's.
I'm not.
I'm really not.
I know why people buy Hyundai's.
I think that, hmm, let me think here just a sec.
Oh yeah, they used to have really competitive pricing.
They have very unique and innovative designs.
So that's about all I can say about them.
That's positive.
That is.
But you know, if you buy them, you got a good reason because they're pretty, right?
I mean, is that a good reason to buy a car?
I think for some people it is.
And if you feel like you're getting a lot of car for the money, I mean, that's
a great reason to buy a car if you ignore everything else.
And over the years, I have developed some opinions.
One of those I want to share with you today, I want to share with you the
top 10 best American cars that have been sold since 1960.
And I'm also going to talk about the 10 worst American cars since 1960, realizing full well
that there's a lot of you that haven't been around since 1960.
I was talking to somebody the other day.
They're actually driving a car and they were born in 2008.
I mean, to me, they should still be in diapers.
But yeah, I was thinking about this the other day.
My brother and I were having a little conversation trying to distract each other from our worldly
woes.
And I said, well, if you could have, let's say that you had a 10 car garage, we like
to do this.
If you had a 10 car garage, what 10 cars or trucks or SUVs would you put in that garage?
And this is all the vehicles that you will ever be able to have.
And so we start naming stuff.
And a lot of them are older stuffs, you know, not modern cars, just a few modern vehicles
that that we really like.
But you know, it's just the simple older stuff that really appeals to both of us.
And you know, and that has an, I guess, an artistic component to it.
So many vehicles just look so boring now.
I mean, my grandson had a baseball tournament.
I mean, he's six.
So and it's exciting, believe it or not, you can go to watch a bunch of six year olds and
seven year olds play baseball, actually followed the rules of baseball.
The coach is pitching, but other than that, and it's pretty enlightening.
I mean, like one of the games the score was like 14 to one.
There was another one that was like 19 to 16.
They ended up winning the tournament.
And they actually know where to run.
They know how to, whether they need to touch the base to get somebody out or they have
to tag them.
Isn't that amazing?
I don't think I could do that at six.
I didn't have that much awareness.
But one thing I am aware of, and that's how many boring cars there are in the
parking lots, all of them are SUVs.
And the ones that aren't SUVs are pickup trucks.
I don't remember seeing a single car.
I might have seen a Nissan Altima and a Honda Accord, but in a parking lot full of a
sea of small SUVs, Toyota RAV4s, Honda CRVs, Hyundai Santa Fe's, Nissan Rogues.
It's just, I mean, they're great vehicles.
People love them.
And I understand why they buy them too, but none of them are on my favorite list.
That's for sure.
And if I am a Nissan dealer, no, the things that turn us on as brothers are older stuff
for the most part, but also ground breakers.
And I'll get into that here in just a second.
Okay, 10 best American cars since 1960.
Number one, what would be your number one?
Everybody that lived back then, mostly males probably, but some females will be able
to pick something from the 60s that they really like, but really, probably one of the
most successful cars of all time is the Mustang, the 1964 and a half Mustang, which was introduced
at the New York World's Fair in 1964.
I was there, my dad won a contest to take us there, and it was quite exciting, except
he was a Chevrolet guy through and through at the time and could care less about Ford.
That Ford managed to sell over 400,000 units in that first year, making it a record breaker
for the Ford Motor Company.
And the first pony car, that's what they call them, pony cars.
It's the Ford Mustang, the Chevrolet Camaro, and the Dodge Challenger.
Oh yeah, I forgot, the AMC Javelin, remember them?
That was considered a pony car as well, but that all started with a car named after
a pony, the Mustang, or a baby Mustang, or a very small Mustang.
I don't know the difference between a pony and a Mustang.
I'm sorry.
Okay, the second best car made since the 60s, 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray.
It's just iconic.
Corvette people refer to that car as C2, so it was the second generation of the Corvette,
and it really cemented the reputation of the Corvette as really America's sports car.
Because it was really much more of a sports car, faster car than the original Mustang
was, but Mustang kind of caught up in certain ways, and they ended up racing a lot against
each other.
Okay, number three, 2015 through 2023, this isn't biased, folks.
This is fact, Ford F-150.
And you know what really made it unique?
A lot of people made fun of it, Chevrolet made fun of it, Ram made fun of it.
They're not making fun of it now.
It's made out of aluminum.
The whole body's made out of aluminum.
So Ford took a big risk, and it really paid off, and it helped them maintain status
as America's best-selling vehicle.
So take that.
Okay, number four would be the 1984.
This is surprising for some of you, but the Chrysler Minivans.
The Dodge Caravan, the Plymouth Voyager, the Chrysler Town and Country.
I mean, they invented, I say they, Lee Iacocca and his designing engineers, invented a segment.
It saved Chrysler, and it changed the family vehicle forever.
I mean, there aren't many, many van makers left.
I mean, Chrysler still makes one.
It's the only vehicle they sell.
And then you've got Honda and Kia, and let's see, Toyota.
So they're the ones making the minivans and making the money selling the minivans.
The number five best vehicle, 2020 through 2024 Chevrolet Corvette.
Yep, Corvette does it again.
So what's the difference?
Well, mid-engine layout.
They talked about it since the 60s.
At some point, they're going to put a mid-engine.
And why is that such a big deal?
It's because the fastest, most expensive sports cars in the world are mid-engine.
If you look at Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, all of those cars are mid-engine.
Now no, the Porsche is not its rear engine, but the Corvette finally decided, you know,
if we're going to capture this youth market and we're going to be able to beat everybody
at the racetrack, we're going to have to slap a mid-engine in this thing.
And they did.
And it was courageous and it paid off.
Now if you're wondering why there are things like Escalade's, GMC Denali's, Ford Expeditions
with the King Ranch or the Platinum package, it's because of one vehicle.
The 1991 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
I'm serious.
It was the first luxury SUV because they decided to slap leather in it, put a nice sound system
in it, make it relatively comfortable.
And really, it was the first one.
All the others were pretty utilitarian up to that point.
But the Grand Cherokee changed the segment.
Number seven, Tesla Model S. You know, the first time I drove one, it was a guy that
has a business up the road for me.
And he's very successful and he was an innovator, is an innovator.
And he had a Tesla Model S and they pulled up in front of Gateway Ford and I said, I don't
believe what I'm seeing.
Can I drive it?
And he let me.
And it was incredible from a power standpoint.
But I mean, it sounded like it was going to fall apart.
I've never heard more rattles and squeaks in a vehicle.
And the fit and finish was terrible.
But you know, Elon Musk figured it out.
And that was a segment change.
You know, if he hadn't done the things that he did politically, his company would still be
doing incredibly well.
Now they're getting outsold in certain areas.
And I think this last month was the first month that Tesla was outsold in EVs by General
Motors.
I mean, what a turnaround in a bad way for Tesla.
But they changed the game as far as EVs are concerned.
Now the Trump administration has dialed it back and they're eliminating the $7,500 tax credit.
So if you want an EV, you better jump in because it ends on September 30th.
Not in 2032, like they had originally planned, like Biden had planned now.
It ends this September 30th, 2025.
So if you really want an EV, you better come down to Gateway Ford and get Wendy
Sonning, get you one.
Okay.
That's a little bit biased.
See?
Let's go again.
Another confession.
Okay.
Another great American car was kind of helped along by Mercedes-Benz.
You remember when Mercedes bought the Chrysler Corporation or Daimler-Benz bought the Chrysler
Corporation?
You probably don't.
It was probably not even a blip on your radar screen.
But in the auto industry it was a big deal because we thought, well, you know, maybe
Mercedes will straighten out that company that builds, you know, substandard quality
vehicles.
And they did.
They had a good impact.
Matter of fact, they came out with something called the Dodge Charger and the Dodge Challenger.
And they were built on a Mercedes, or a shared Mercedes platform.
I think Mercedes used it on their E-Class.
I rented one of these cars.
I was in Hawaii.
My wife and I were on the big island.
And we were wanting to go see Kilauea, the big volcano.
And so we rented, you know, I went to rent a car and they said, you know, what do you
want?
Do you want this or that?
And that was a Dodge Charger.
And I said, yeah, give me one of those.
I've never driven one.
I want to see what it's like.
I was impressed.
I can understand why the police like them so much.
They make tremendous police cars.
And I think they hold up pretty well.
But anyway, they were going to eliminate the vehicle recently.
And there was a big uproar from the dealer body.
And they were going to convert the charger and the Challenger to electric.
Didn't work.
Didn't fly with the dealers.
So they fired the CEO and they got a new CEO and they're coming back out with this car.
So the Dodge Charger of 1969, when it first came out, was, it was a trend setter.
And it set them on a path where they could be competitive with the Camaros and the
Mustangs of the world.
Okay, another Ford came along in 2005 and 2006.
And that was pretty much it.
It was called the Ford GT.
And it had gold wing doors.
It was the same Ford.
Well, it was a copy of the Ford GT that won Le Mans back in 1966.
They got first, second and third.
It's what that movie Ford versus Ferrari was based on.
Did you see that movie about Carol Shelby and Henry Ford or the deuce as his nickname
was, Henry Ford the second, who was actually Henry Ford's grandson.
Henry Ford's only child was Edsel Ford.
Edsel Ford had several children and one of which was the deuce, Henry Ford junior or
the second.
Okay, but the Ford GT was unbelievable that came out in 2005.
I had one for a while.
And I think that the retail price on it was somewhere around 130, 135,000.
If I had that car today, I could put it on an auction website and in seven days I would
have approximately $460,000 to $550,000.
That's how much that car has gone up in value.
What made it really innovative was the fact that it was put together by a team of engineers
at Ford, but it was built by a company in Canada called Multimatic and they built
race cars and they're experts in carbon fiber and racing technologies.
And so they wanted this car to be a race car that you could drive on the streets and that's
what they did.
And it was very successful and now Ford has repeated that performance with the new Ford
Mustang GTD.
And you can buy those now.
They're pretty cheap, 350 to 450,000 and they're ridiculous.
But they're what they call halo cars and you have to apply to get the car.
You have to be a regular racetrack user.
You have to take your car to racetracks and use it on the racetrack.
And you can't sell it for two years because there was a lot of speculation going on.
People were getting Ford GTs and then immediately flipping them the last version of the GT that
is.
I mean, this is a car that would sell for $700,000 to $800,000 and they would flip
it for a million and a half to $2 million.
You know, you've got to have money to play that game and that's just not a
game I'm qualified for.
But yeah, it was a very innovative car.
But number 10 on the list and probably one of the best cars ever made.
This is no exaggeration because it fit the mission precisely.
It did exactly what the company designed it to do and it filled a gap that nobody knew
was there.
And that was the 1990 Mazda Miata.
I will always be a Miata lover.
I was a Mazda dealer where all my dad was since 1977.
And then I came in in 1978 and we sold Mazda until 2010.
Why'd you give it up, Liddy?
Well, because we had gotten down to the point where we were selling between five and ten
Mazdas a month and the Nissan franchise became available in our hometown and we felt
like we could sell 30 to 40 Nissan's a month.
So we gave up Mazda so we could get Nissan.
Ford made us do that because we were going to put them on the same lot.
Now you know the inside story and I'll be back in just one minute.
Okay now it's time to talk about some of the worst cars since 1960.
I got a problem with a few of these.
Not many.
Let's start at this list.
This list I did not create.
I'm sorry.
I got this from ChatGPT.
What's that?
Well if you've not heard of it you probably don't need to know it's AI.
I just asked it what are the ten worst American cars since 1960?
So what do you think was first?
Well it came out in 1971.
They sold them until 1980.
There's no problem though.
Exploding gas tanks.
What was it?
Pinto.
Ford Pinto.
I never could understand why somebody wanted to buy that thing because it was all glass.
It seemed like it just wasn't pretty.
Like another car that's on this list, the Chevrolet Vega.
I know there are many people who say that Vegas weren't any good either.
Well they weren't any good but they look better.
They just weren't quite as good.
They look like a car instead of a spaceship especially from behind.
And I kind of resent that a little bit because I love the Vegas.
That was my first real car that my dad let me drive that was new.
It was a Vega GT and now it didn't have much power.
I think 98 horsepower is what it had but it had really cool looking gauges and it got good
gas mileage.
And it was fun to drive.
It really was.
It handled really well.
And another car that was kind of a spinoff was on this list.
I'm kind of surprised that ChatGPT even knew about this thing but it was a spinoff
of the Chevrolet Vega and it was called the Chevrolet Monza.
Now what they did is they took the Chevrolet Vega, redesigned it a little bit, put different
sheet metal on it and slapped a V8 motor in it.
And yeah, it didn't have a lot of power and it was very front heavy.
It didn't handle that well.
But a lot of people bought them and so General Motors thought it was a pretty good concept.
So what did they do?
They said, well Cadillac needs a small car.
Let's turn a Chevy Monza into a Cadillac.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
They called that one the Cadillac Cimarron and it didn't sell very well.
It just turns out that people that have money don't want to drive a Vega just
because it says Cimarron on it and it has leather interior.
Here's the funny thing.
They thought it would compete with BMW.
Can you believe that?
It literally single-handedly destroyed Cadillac's luxury image for more than a decade.
It drug the whole corporation down.
Good job.
Okay, let's pick on GM a little bit more.
How about the 2001 Pontiac Aztec?
It was universally mocked for its styling.
It was built on a minivan chassis and Buick even had a version of the Pontiac Aztec.
At least the Buick version looked semi-normal.
The Aztec was just horrible.
It had lines going every which way.
It was almost like they had four different committees take a whack at this car.
When they all came and met in one room, such a big argument, they just decided to incorporate
all the ideas into the same vehicle.
And the end of it was, what are we going to name this thing?
Well, let's name it after some extinct civilization.
So they came up with the name Aztec, which is appropriate.
Okay, let's see what else.
Chat GPT.
Oh yeah, the 97 through 2005 Chevrolet Malibu.
I'm going to disagree with Chat GPT on this one.
I like that car.
I thought it looked...
Well, it was a close attempt at competing with Toyota and with a Honda Accord or a
Toyota Camry.
I mean, they say it failed because it was bland, cheap and uninspiring.
Well, what is a Camry?
Is it not bland?
I mean, the new ones aren't as bland as the old ones were, but back then they were
bland.
I'm sorry.
Okay, what else is on this thing?
Oh yeah, AMC Pacer.
I like those.
I didn't like them then.
I thought they were ridiculous.
The advertising theme was, well, let's just make it wider.
You know, the small car that's wide.
Not a great attribute.
Not a great advertising theme either.
A lot of people call it a fishbowl, but why do I like it?
Because it made a great cars car.
You remember the movie Cars?
The Pixar movie?
And my grandson's favorite car was the Pacer.
And I was actually taking him home one time when they lived in Rogersville and there
was a Pacer that was underneath the garage or underneath the carport.
It was all rusted out and everything on the way.
And every time we went past that, he got all excited.
Pacer, pop, pop, Pacer.
Looks back when he couldn't say it's ours.
Okay, and ChatGBT, this is somewhat hurtful also to Ford dealers, although there aren't
many Fords on here.
The Pinto and the, yeah, and this one, 2002 through 2006, Ford Thunderbird.
Now Ford owned Jaguar at the time and they were trying to consolidate powertrains and
have common chassis and platforms so that they could get the cost down for Ford and
for the other companies that they had purchased.
And so the Jaguar X, I can't remember what the model was, but the version that Ford
used was for the Ford Thunderbird.
Now there's a lot of people think they look pretty cool, but the only people they
ever bought them were over 70.
And that's not necessarily the target audience for the Ford Motor Company.
I've owned four or five of these just because I trade for them every now and
then.
But I'm pretty well with them because there's plenty of us geezers left that remember
the Ford Thunderbird and it has a top that has the port hole in it.
And it does look somewhat like the one from the 50s.
So just because ChatGBT says something, folks, just keep this in mind, AI is not
foolproof.
It may be someday, but it's not yet.
Well thanks for listening to this edition of My Car Guru.
I hope you don't mind the confessional and also ChatGBT's opinions and my opinions
on the best and worst cars since 1960.
So give me a call if you need me, 423-552-2020 or send me an email to
LennyLawson2020 at gmail.com and I'll see you on the next edition of My Car Guru.
About this episode
A deep dive into the best and worst vehicles sold in the USA since 1960, this episode features a personal confessional from the host about driving habits and biases toward certain car brands. The discussion highlights iconic models like the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Corvette as the best, while critiquing infamous failures such as the Ford Pinto and Pontiac Aztek. The host shares anecdotes and insights on each vehicle's impact on the automotive landscape, making for an engaging exploration of American car history.
