Car Disgust--An Introduction

This week I'll be featuring "Car Disgust" instead of "Car Lust"--and frankly, I think it deserves an explanation.

Up to this point, I've only been sharing with you those cars that I truly lust after--cars about which I've spent my waking moments dreaming, and, despite their many flaws, that I would put in my garage in a heartbeat.

This is not to say they've all been great cars--beautiful, exotic, and desirable. Quite the opposite. In fact, as I say in my In Defense of Ugly Cars post:

"Cars are like people--beautiful, perfect people are interesting from time to time, but if that's your entire world, they get very dull. That's one failure of some car magazines, I think--they overdo the exotics to the point where they become mundane and commonplace. There is beauty and wonder in all levels of the automotive world."

That makes me sound like a rabble-rousing automotive populist, which is fair, but probably doesn't go far enough. My tastes are a tad, well, quirky. I'm fully aware that with, for example, the Ford Maverick Grabber and AMC Pacer, I've plumbed some of the depths of the automotive world.

So, one might ask, if I truly like all of the crap I've been foisting upon you, is there anything I don't like? And if so, just how awful most those cars be?

The answer is yes--even I draw a line somewhere. And while I like a lot of cars that aren't necessarily the brightest stars in the automotive firmament, I have high standards for character, uniqueness, and entertainment value. As Samuel L. Jackson's character points out in Pulp Fiction, "A dog might be a filthy animal, but a dog has personality--and personality goes a long way."

This week I'm showing you those cars unable to jump over even my bar for automotive interest. For the most part these cars are awful and boring--the latter of which is for me by far the bigger sin. But in some cases these are really nice cars and trucks, bought and enjoyed by millions, and vastly superior in every objective way than my objects of lust.

So, really, I don't truly hold many of these cars in disgust--just some level of derision. But "Car Disgust" rhymes nicely with "Car Lust," so there you go.

I'll be starting off easily--with two cars that I actually do kinda like despite myself, but rest assured that will not always be the case.

--Chris H.