The Most Dangerous Car You've Ever Owned

[cazxr2]

Well I used to own a 1991 Renault 5 gt turbo. It's the 1.4 turbo front wheel drive. Not too be confused with the rear wheel drive monster. Anyway I went to view the car with my mate. And took it for a spin instantly fell in love. U know what I mean, ur right foot is buried on the throttle. I drove the car home (nearly 350 miles) was the best road trip ever. All my mates were so jealous. It didn't last long. They are French small (pocket rocket was there nicknames) hatchbacks. So they were really flimsy like tin. Well I found out after just 5 days of owning her. Some teat in a big 4x4 drove right into me. Car was wrecked completely. I was do sad nearly cried. This is it. Before crash I will try find after pics.

I bought a White one 1 month later with the insurance money. That I crashed after just 3 hours. totally my fault lol. That was about 9 years ago still miss that grey one now. Ps only 2 cars I've smashed.

[Harold]

While driving home from work one day in '99, my '88 T- Bird started making weird noises from the front. Well, I had an errand or two to run before I got home, and beleive me, I barely made it home. ang ball joint snapped. At first, when I saw the metal ribbon exiting from one of the hales in the front wheel, I thought some of the guys at work were jeking me around by putting aluminum shavings in my wheel. But nope- that wasn't aluminum- that was hard steel from a ball joint. Other than that, it was a solid car...

[diymirage]

most dangerous car i ever had was a 1990 opel E kadett (pontiac lemans) 503 57

apart from my terrible driving at the time (it had a 1.4 8 valve in it which topped out at 120 MPH) the car had some unusual styling

(home made of course)

i guess a picture is worth a thousand words so here goes

lets just say im lucky no pedastrians ever tried to jaywalk in front of me or that sheetmetal would have sliced through them like a knife trough warm butter

[Terry Sumner]

My most dangerous car was my first State Police cruiser...a 73 Plymouth Fury. These big boats were not bought as Police packages...they were just taxis with 440 magnum engines in them. So when you got into a chase, as soon as you hit your brakes at 80 mph....you then had NO brakes. I recall the first time I was chasing a bad guy. It was my 3rd day on the job and I was still with my "coach".(this was before FTO's for you current LEO's) Right after I lost the brakes and was stepping on them as hard as I could with both feet, my coach looks at me and says, "Oh and btw, I forgot to tell ya that when you hit the brakes hard at anything over 75, you don't have any brakes for a while..." I remember yelling at him, "Thanks for letting me know that BEFORE it happened!!!" He just laughed...as we barely missed a 100 year old oak tree...I kid you not!

[jas1957]

Owned a 69 Malibu around 81-82. 350,4 barrel, auto, 3500 pounds, 9" drum brakes. That thing just did not want to stop. COMPLETELY rebuilt the brakes a couple times using first line parts, nothing. Just to much car for the stopping power available. Looking back I can't imagine that Chevy put that thing on the road, truly scary. Of course I was only 24-25 at the time, too dumb to really know the danger.

John Strick

[Joe Handley]

My most dangerous car was my first State Police cruiser...a 73 Plymouth Fury. These big boats were not bought as Police packages...they were just taxis with 440 magnum engines in them. So when you got into a chase, as soon as you hit your brakes at 80 mph....you then had NO brakes. I recall the first time I was chasing a bad guy. It was my 3rd day on the job and I was still with my "coach".(this was before FTO's for you current LEO's) Right after I lost the brakes and was stepping on them as hard as I could with both feet, my coach looks at me and says, "Oh and btw, I forgot to tell ya that when you hit the brakes hard at anything over 75, you don't have any brakes for a while..." I remember yelling at him, "Thanks for letting me know that BEFORE it happened!!!" He just laughed...as we barely missed a 100 year old oak tree...I kid you not!

I used to work with a retired cop and when he first started the Addison, Illinois PD had some Mopars that were the same way. I had always heard that the Police Package cars had the best brakes and Dad used them quite a bit on it the B-Bodys he and Mom had owned. Dad figured and I later found out that those police cars hadn't actually been Police Package cars, but regular cars with all of the lights and such installed.

Speaking of scary brakes, has anybody else had the displeasure of driving a Jeep Cherokee with the early Chrysler/Bendix 4 wheel ABS system? The '90 Laredo Dad just scrapped this summer had that and they rarely worked right and would in some cases prevent the truck from stopping all together! Luckily that system only lasted from '89-'91, my Sister's now also scrapped '92 Briarwood had the system that replaced it and that worked a whole lot better than the prior. When I bought mine I decided to forgo that route all together and found a Cherokee with just the standard power assisted disk/drum brakes.

[EH225M]

I've owned a 1963 'EH' Holden since '03. I paid $900 for the car, and it had a little bit of rust in the body, but the floor and chassis were perfect!

The car was mostly original from the factory when I bought it. After a little welding / bog / painting ( 4 years ) it went back on the road in '07. It's still registered and running perfectly. I live in Sydney, and I've driven it north to Brisbane, nearly 2000 round trip, and to Adelaide nearly 3200 kilometres. After all that, it needs a new water pump. Not bad for an old car!! It still behaves like it was designed to. Happy days with the Holden!.

The most dangerous car I've ever owned was a '97 Ford Transit 1 ton van. I purchased the van in '02 to be a courier running around the suburbs of Sydney delivering freight from dawn till dusk. It was regularly serviced and cared for as much as my finances could allow. Pretty much, all my money went back into the van to keep it going.

In about '04, I was walking accross the road toward the van, running accross 4 lanes of traffic, I looked at the van and thought the only thing I haven't had to fix on this thing is the brakes... I unlocked the van, and jumped in to do the next job. Out of habit, my right foot would rest on the brake pedal while I would write up the paperwork from the previous job. My foot went to the floor! Typical bloody van!! Suck all the money I make outa me!! And I was a long way from home, or my mechanic.

The best I could do was pump the pedal which did very little for the confidence. Sydney has very steep hills around it, it aint all wonderfull harbour and opera houses!

So I had an inch before the pedal hit the floor, so, off I go. Intensely watching the traffic in front of me I was able to survive the rest of the day and got home. The next day I jump in the van. Full pedal! Everything's good again for the next two weeks untill they decide to go again when I'm furtherest from home again. How did the van know it was as far from home as it would get for the day? On top of this, the 5 speed box wouldn't hold 2nd gear when slowing down. If I put it into second to accelerate, yeah it'd hold the gear, but on trailiang throttle, it'd just put itself in neutral, so you couldn't use the gears to slow it down. Lots of confidence inspiring driving when you've got a loooong pedal!!

So anyway $1500 later, my months profit went into the brakes. Cool, I've got brakes again.

I started the van the next day and when the engine fired, rattle rattle rattle.... timing chain was going on me! Grrrr

In short, I put the van on the market and sold it for $1400 with 2 months rego still on in. It paid off my loan!

2 weeks later I saw it on the side of the road with the bonnet up and smoke pouring up from the engine bay. I did warn him to drive it gently.....

[David G.]

On 12/4/2010 at 4:07 AM, EH225M said:

I've owned a 1963 'EH' Holden since '03. I paid $900 for the car, and it had a little bit of rust in the body, but the floor and chassis were perfect!

The car was mostly original from the factory when I bought it. After a little welding / bog / painting ( 4 years ) it went back on the road in '07. It's still registered and running perfectly. I live in Sydney, and I've driven it north to Brisbane, nearly 2000 round trip, and to Adelaide nearly 3200 kilometres. After all that, it needs a new water pump. Not bad for an old car!! It still behaves like it was designed to. Happy days with the Holden!.

 

The most dangerous car I've ever owned was a '97 Ford Transit 1 ton van. I purchased the van in '02 to be a courier running around the suburbs of Sydney delivering freight from dawn till dusk. It was regularly serviced and cared for as much as my finances could allow. Pretty much, all my money went back into the van to keep it going.

In about '04, I was walking accross the road toward the van, running accross 4 lanes of traffic, I looked at the van and thought the only thing I haven't had to fix on this thing is the brakes... I unlocked the van, and jumped in to do the next job. Out of habit, my right foot would rest on the brake pedal while I would write up the paperwork from the previous job. My foot went to the floor! Typical bloody van!! Suck all the money I make outa me!! And I was a long way from home, or my mechanic.

The best I could do was pump the pedal which did very little for the confidence. Sydney has very steep hills around it, it aint all wonderfull harbour and opera houses!

So I had an inch before the pedal hit the floor, so, off I go. Intensely watching the traffic in front of me I was able to survive the rest of the day and got home. The next day I jump in the van. Full pedal! Everything's good again for the next two weeks untill they decide to go again when I'm furtherest from home again. How did the van know it was as far from home as it would get for the day? On top of this, the 5 speed box wouldn't hold 2nd gear when slowing down. If I put it into second to accelerate, yeah it'd hold the gear, but on trailiang throttle, it'd just put itself in neutral, so you couldn't use the gears to slow it down. Lots of confidence inspiring driving when you've got a loooong pedal!!

 

So anyway $1500 later, my months profit went into the brakes. Cool, I've got brakes again.

I started the van the next day and when the engine fired, rattle rattle rattle.... timing chain was going on me! Grrrr

In short, I put the van on the market and sold it for $1400 with 2 months rego still on in. It paid off my loan!

2 weeks later I saw it on the side of the road with the bonnet up and smoke pouring up from the engine bay. I did warn him to drive it gently.....

Looks like you bailed just in time James!

David G.

[stitchdup]

An early bmw e30 325i 3 series. I jacked it up and had set it on axle stands, turned around to get some tools only to hear a tearing sound and crash. When I looked back the entire sill and jacking points were now through the seats on the drivers side. The body was perfect, engine was good but the car turned out to be a cut and shut with some very nice filler work and bird dropping welding. Went back with vws after that

Edited October 12, 2019 by stitchdup

[webestang]

Hmmmm, I've never owned a car that I would consider dangerous although my 71 VW Bug's windshield sure was close to my face...LOL. I did one time forget to tighten the lug nuts on my 68 Mustang after I changed the rear pass flat tire. It came loose, after I stopped the car the wheel/tire just kept going down the road......! I did find 2 of the 4 lugs (6 cyl) and made it to the parts store to buy 2 more and a new brake drum...amazingly no other damage.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Though I certainly didn't think of them as "dangerous" at the time, the years I spent driving a Lotus Super 7 and later a Beck 550 Spyder turned out to be pretty lucky when one remembers the average level of driver competence. Considering the top of my head was about the same height as an old Caddy headlight, and the fact that there's not much more impact-protection than you get on a motorcycle, it wouldn't have taken much of a hit to have been popped like a zit.

Probably the most unthinkingly "dangerous" thing I ever did in a car was driving my hot-rod '62 Bug out on a frozen old quarry lake in NJ, and practicing slides. I really had absolutely no idea how thick or solid the ice was. That was the same Bug that snapped it's JC Whitney "quick-steering" Pittman-arm extension as I pulled into a Burger King parking lot at Ga. Tech, just after having been doing around 80 on I-85 moments before. That was my first exposure to the concept that aftermarket parts could be poorly-engineered, poorly-manufactured trash that could easily kill you.

[espo]

I bought a late '30's Chrysler a very long time ago. I paid $50.00 for it and it was intact and ran well. I bought it for some planed activities with some friend for Halloween. Being in our late teens you figure out what we were up to, and yes Coors was involved also as I recall. The problem with the old Chrysler was that with age the threads in the brake drums where the lug bolts attached the wheels were worn and the right front had to be retightened periodically. I even tried using lock washers. No this is a very bad idea, but I got bolts that I welded to the inside of the right front brake drum and then regular wheel lug nuts to attach the wheel. This lasted well enough during the festivities and was still in use when I sold the car for much more than I paid for it only a couple of months later. Ever since then I have been very carful to be sure any vehicle I have driven was in good working order. You might call it Self Preservation on my part.    

[iamsuperdan]

Holy zombie thread!

 

Anyway, depends on your definition of dangerous. 

I've had two. First was a 1990 Jeep YJ Islander. i didn't own it long, as it was a bad experience. The front seats don't recline. But the driver's seat decided to at one point. While driving, right in the middle of the seat back. So I essentially had no seat back for the rest of that day. It was carburated, and would stall out at random. City driving, highway driving, in traffic, anywhere and everywhere. Also discovered that the rear turn signals and the brake lights stopped working at some point after the safety was done. Traded that thing in on a 2005 TJ Sport.

My good dangerous car was my 1993 VW Passat wagon. Had the VR6 and a 5-speed. And then I removed the AC and added a big turbo. Did some engine tuning and some other parts, did the exhaust, installed coilovers, larger brakes, etc. Awesome car. Ridiculously quick. And the top of the roof racks was lower than the bedside on a half ton pickup. An accident in this car would have meant ending up under something else. And I miss it still.

 

[Deuces]

The car I have now... I gotta quit putting my foot into it... ?

[vamach1]

I had a 69 Dart GTS with a 440 magnum that was pretty scary.  It was quite the sleeper but I never got a ticket although I only had it about a year before I spun a main bearing and sold it as is.  I was about 20 and it was a daily driver.  The 2ns would be my 2004 Mach1.  It was pretty fast stock for a daly driver but compared to a new 5.0 not so much.  The scariest was my kit Cobra.  It would try to go sideways if you floored it even in third gear.  I never got a ticket or accident and had it five years but it was a heck of a lot of fun.

Edited October 15, 2019 by vamach1

[webestang]

18 minutes ago, Deuces said:

The car I have now... I gotta quit putting my foot into it... ?

 

At least you have airbags......unlike my 88 5.0 vert. Super sweet Pony you have my friend!!! 

[DPNM]

Back in the mid 80s I had a Plymouth Scamp, somewhere around a '71 model. I bought it off a friend for $75. The front end was bad, the front wheels were way off camber. I spent a summer working, and I bought a '77 Harley Sportster, in Maine. I live south of Pittsburgh Pa.

I bought the car to go fetch said Sportster. Another friend lent me a pair of the dirt bike wheel racks that attach to a bumper to haul a motorcycle with a car. I mounted a piece of angle iron in the center of the trunk lid to attach the tie down straps to. When I got to the bike I found that the racks wouldn't work because the car wasn't wide enough to mount them far enough apart to set the front and rear tires into. So I had a couple guys help me stuff the bike into the back seat. I loosened and lowered the handlebars and we went in the passenger door putting the front tire against the drivers side and the rear of the bike came around some in the passenger seat area. I didn't need to unbolt the passenger seat. I just slid it as far to the front as it would go and tilted the back support forward.

I did have a front tire on the car blow out on the interstate about 50 miles from home. I was changing it on the side of the highway and a PA state Trooper stopped. He looked in the back seat and then he said, "if you go up the road about 100 feet there is more room on the side to pull over". He got back in his car and left. I put the spare on and got it home. I am fairly certain that I did seat belt the bike in but in a somewhat higher speed crash I doubt it would have mattered much. I'm pretty sure it would have pushed me into, and maybe through, the steering column and windshield area. Talk about not thinking things through, but hey, I made it.

I tried to sell the car for a week after I got back at $50 with no interest. I upped the price to $75 and it sold the next day.

In all it was about a 1700 mile journey. The car did do what I had bought it for.

 

The best most dangerous car I owned was a 1977 Datsun 280 Z. It was set up for autocross so the car would just plain handle. I had no problem keeping big block American cars at bay in the twistys, as long as there were no long straights for them to use their power on. One great car!

Edited October 16, 2019 by DPNM

[OldTrucker]

Cool old thread!

Even had one from me in another lifetime!LOL

I guess this one was more dangerous for other drivers!

Oil burning 53 Studebaker that looked like a mosquito fogger going down the road.

Ran it on used or bulk oil.

State police made me park it after one followed me seveal miles to my house and I had no idea he was behind me with his lights flashing.

The exhaust was so loud didn't hear him either! LOL

[89AKurt]

My 1948 Chevy 5 window 1/2 ton pickup.  To be kind, it was unrestored, otherwise called it The Rolling Wreck.  It still had the 6 volt, but had a later 235 Stovebolt, drum brakes, original lever action shocks.  The body mounts were shot, when I took right turns and the road was rough, the cab would shift and creak/grind on the steering column, so I would take a left turn with a quick jerk to shift the cab back.  It came with the original vacuum windshield wipers, they really sucked, so found an electric unit that came in later trucks, but still needed to use Rain-X (which I still use on the back window of my 2016 Honda Civic).  I was always the slowest vehicle on the road, so didn't worry about the drum brakes.  Sure got a lot of attention! ?  The anti-theft device was the starter pedal on the floor, and of course manual gearbox with no pattern on the knob.

The '57 Chevy station wagon was a close second.

[Deuces]

9 hours ago, webestang said:

At least you have airbags......unlike my 88 5.0 vert. Super sweet Pony you have my friend!!! 

Why, thank you sir!!!!!....?

 

[oldnslow]

Had a Manx with a 67 stock chassis and a built 1935 with dual 44mm Delortos . It was fast and not very good at stopping , next best thing to a motorcycle as far as being out in the open with just a single hoop roll bar bolted to the chassis behind the vw seats , but man it was fun .

[youpey]

Mine was an 85 Thunderbird. would accelerate on it's on if you put on the ac.

 

 

[espo]

We got a new '98 GMC Jimmy for my wife. This model had the memory seat option, so when ever she drove the car it would recognize her key and the seat would adjust to her setting. The problem was that she would be driving down the freeway and hit a bump or a big expansion crack in the roadway and the seat would start to pin her to the steering wheel. She's 5'10" so this becomes a real problem at 70 + MPR. After several trips to the dealer we got a Tech. who seemed to know what he was doing. When they car was built and they installed the seat wiring it was improperly routed under the seat frame and this would cause the seat to go to the full forward position under certain road conditions. He rerouted the wiring correctly and no more problems.  

[Tom Geiger]

From the day I bought my Geo Tracker in 1991 I had people telling me it was dangerous and I was surely gonna die!  That was from all of the hype about the Suzuki Samurai and I got tired of explaining that this was a bigger model with less chance of rolling over.  I still have it, and never even had a close call with it.

The most dangerous car I owned was probably the 1963 Studebaker Lark 4 door sedan.  My dad had one when I was a kid, so I bought it for old times sake.  At the time I realized that Newman and Altman sold nearly everything I'd need to restore the car so I planned on redoing it as a police car.  I bought it in the 1990s, and upon stripping it down we realized that not only was the bad paint job done maybe in the 1980s but the entire car was rusty and someone merely smoothed over some body putty on it.  

The roof was barely secured at the front. Both A pillars were rusted through at the tops, plus the entire drip rail (yea it had a drip rail over the windshield which wasn't a bad idea) was formed of putty.   Both B pillars were already gone at the bottoms and had been riveted in place and puttied over.  Upon removing the rusty front fenders we could see that the entire cowl was rusted through and the fenders weren't even attached at the upper rear edges.  

The floors had appeared solid,  again the entire floor was cheap metal riveted in place, puttied over and painted. On the underside, the car had a thick spray can undercoat to conceal this as well.   It was evident that this car would fold like a pretzel if hit.  And likely to explode into parts on the highway.  Thus we abandoned the restoration.

It sat in my garage for many years still completely broken down, no nose, no glass, no interior and we had chemically stripped it down to bare metal so it had a patina of rust over the entire body.  Push came to shove and I tried to sell it as a project car.  I had paid $500 for it and had bought $2000 worth of parts including NOS doors, bumpers, front nose piece and fiberglass fenders.  

After a few times advertising it as a project, I went and listed the parts. That got action.  Turns out the local Studebaker chapter sent it to all their members and  I wound up making over $4000 just for the parts. Someone even came and cut the rear quarters off of it.  My only rule was it still needed to be on 4 wheels and rolling so I could get rid of the carcass.   Right before I was going to have it towed to the junkyard, I gave eBay one last shot... 6 cylinder engine and auto trans for $600, not expecting anything.  It immediately went on the Buy It Now!  I gave the guy the entire rolling monstrosity and he paid a friend of mine to tow it to his house.  He was doing a restomod on an old Studebaker pickup and my 75,000 mile drive train was going into this.  I never saw the end result.

The parts went to a bunch of nice projects. My favorite was the fiberglass fenders went on a drag car in upstate New York.  The guy who bought them had a brother who lived local to my house in Pennsylvania  (I advertised it all out of my old house in NJ) and picked them up at my office.  I do have a photo of the final product. I still have the nose piece, and all of the trim for it.  I intend to do wall art with it someday.

At least I was wise enough to realize this car was toast and not put it on the road, except for the ride home!

The day I drove it home. 

Cowl completely rusted through

Entire front header and A pillars were rusted through and filled with putty

You could get an amazing array of parts for this car through the Studebaker Drivers Club dealers, especially Newman and Altman that bought out the entire Studebaker factory (they were the original Avanti II producers) and their parts inventory.  Studebaker never did inventory or threw anything away. This is the entire nose piece. I still have this and will make wall art out of it someday, using the old trim pieces.  I sold all the NOS ones.

 "Vanity" dashboard (that thing sticking up is a mirror) below the drink holders was makeup compartments.

 

New repro tail lights

NOS Original headlight trim 

Parts like this entire grille in original Studebaker boxes!  I had 4 new doors, each in a burlap bag with Studebaker stenciled on it.

Trunk lid emblem  NOS

4 brandy new door handles

and here she was on the way out! 

 

[drodg]

1970 AAR Cuda.  Very fast but horrible brakes especially the rears.  They would lock up when you thought about braking!