Fear, I’m told, is the mind-killer, but sometimes it’s also a handy way of letting us know that, for example, the hunk of crap car you’re driving is dangerous deathtrap. And often, that’s good information to have! As an example from my personal life, when I drove David’s old Postal Jeep a few years back, the visceral fear I felt upon realizing that the motions I was making with the steering wheel had a very inconsistent and perhaps even cavalier relationship with the direction the car would progress on the road was in fact a potent alert that, hey, this thing is a rusty, jagged, boxy coffin. And that, as I said, is good information to have.
I should note that this was before David did any mechanical work on the thing, and at that point the Postal Jeep had most of its suspension and steering components connected to the rusty frame with nothing stronger than a conceptual connection and maybe some decorative stickers. The brakes didn’t do a whole hell of a lot either, and I’m frankly amazed I was able to drive it the few miles I did without some sort of disaster happening.
For this car to scare me, even at low speeds, I think is quite a triumph, because, remember, I’m a veteran of the infamous Hoffman:
…and the amazing Helicron, which very much wants to mulch you into paté:
And yet, even compared with the perverse peculiarity of the Hoffmann and the swirling blades of the Helicron, David’s old Postal Jeep (shown below) somehow felt scarier. Maybe because I had it out on public roads, with plenty of traffic. Maybe it was the cold weather, which threatened to make any impact into the windshield feel even worse. Or maybe it was that the body really wasn’t all that connected to the frame. Maybe all of it.
And that was low-speed driving! I bet there’s many tales you have of cars that are scary at speed, or a car that just scared you, not for physics-related reasons, but for more metaphysical reasons, deeper, stranger things.
Point is, I know you’ve all experienced some car that scared you in some way, and I want you to tell us all about it now, so that we may grow, and, ideally, heal. Because that car is no longer here to terrify you anymore.
I hope.
1964 Ford Galaxie 500…the car itself was in great shape, but I was relatively clueless about drum brakes, and had been called in at the last minute to drive it in a parade. Some numpty on a souped-up lawnmower was hooning around my section of the parade, leading to a lot more brake-slamming on my part than should have been done in that situation. :/ I pretty much didn’t have brakes by the end of the parade route.
Easily. A first-generation rental Chevy Aveo. The thing shook all over whenever something passed it on the road.
My best friend in high school had this god-awful 1984-ish Chevy S10 Blazer that I drove exactly once when I had to be the designated driver at a party and stupidly left my Crown Vic at home. Thank whoever that pile had absolutely no acceleration because the braeks were shot (no pedal response, just air, so you had to pump them for any stopping), the steering was best described as “loose”. It shook, rattled, somehow rolled down the road.
Second place goes to my other good friend’s dad’s XJ Cherokee. I admired that car for years…until I had to drive it home from the shop trying to keep up with my buddy’s heavily modified Mustang (he had just picked it up following an extensive engine rebuild). That old Jeep had almost no steering. It was like driving through a movie with an occasional sudden jerk to the left or right. Engine: brilliant. Transmission: decent (it was an automatic).
Still nothing on that damned Blazer.
65 Mustang 500 hp stroker motor, manual brakes, manual steering
Several times, back in the day, clutch failure combined with my inability to give up on my destination led to big frights. The worst was probably my Dodge 3500, towing an RV trailer for pay. Clutch failure westbound in the Mojave between Barstow and Boron. I pulled into the Bakersfield Dodge dealer sweaty and shaking, having not stopped rolling once since the failure.
My wife, then girlfriend, had a Jeep Liberty. The most unsafe vehicle I’ve ever driven.
To be clear, I have driven far more technically-unsafe vehicles (I had a CJ7, worked on series Land Rovers, etc). But this was the worst possible mix of high ground clearance, lots of power, short wheelbase and crappy brakes. It had more than enough power to drive 90mph on the highway, but not enough stability or braking to deal with the consequences of driving that fast. Felt like you were going to roll it at any time.
I haven’t had that many scary cars, but the brake issue my 1961 Oldsmobile had was found while I was driving it. And I had no brakes all of the sudden. No bad result, but it was a scary incident. I was in a slow residential area, and was approaching a speed bump when I noticed the problem. Got it stopped. It’s been a long time, but something had caused air in the line and we just had to get the fluid done right.
A 1972 Ford Maverick, 302 engine with swapped manual transmission. The direction had way too much play, shockers were not longer useful and the thing had the smoothest tires I have ever driven. I almost crashed while getting up a little hill on wet pavement. I realized with that car that classics look cool but drive like shit.
My old man used to own a bakery, and he “knew people”. These people would sometimes get into financial trouble, and my old man was always there to lend a hand…sort of. He’d offer to buy whatever they had for sale (and were willing to part with for a discount). In a way, he was a little like a self sustaining pawn shop, but he wound up getting some interesting stuff along the way (like the moped he gave me when I was 14).
I mentioned he was a baker, meaning he always needed some kind of vehicle for deliveries. Most of the times, this vehicle was some kind of crapbox that he purchased off of one of these down-on-his-luck guys. The one that sticks in my mind the most was an early 70’s chevy van. It was multi-shade primer black on the outside, had those funny shaped windows in the rear quarters, and the interior was covered in shag carpeting. It also had a raised wooden structure built in the back, the purpose of which was likely not fully realized without a mattress, but I digress.
He asked me to go out and put gas in it once…OK, shouldn’t be a big deal. I was wrong. The accelerator pump was absolutely shot, so it bogged down constantly, it had a vicious exhaust leak at the headers, which were right under the doghouse next to me, it technically could stop…but just BARELY, and worst of all, the front suspension was absolutely toast – I guess it was upper ball joints. I was backing it out and loosened my grip on the wheel just a bit, anticipating that it would simply return to center like most everything else. Nope, it snapped back fast and jammed the living hell out of three fingers on my left hand. They weren’t broken, but were severely sprained and swelled up/bruised like hell. The fact that my old man drove that thing for about six months and thought “yeah, we’re good” amazes me to this day.
1970 Pontiac Bonneville had similar 1/4 turn, right to left, with no change in direction, but at least it tracked relatively straight so you were not really seesawing as much as you would guess. Scariest Vehicle I drove, and actually still drive was a 1971 Scout. there was literally no floor under the passenger, the exhaust leaked straight up through the gaping hole and the fuel tank leaked out the sending unit if you filled it all the way up. I drove it home like that with severely dry rotted tires and it was definitely sketchy as hell. Hung my head out the window to avoid death by Carbon Monoxide, and forgot about Granny Gear low first gear twice. the second time, I think the front wheels actually left the ground and then it was a 5 mph crawl across the intersection until I managed to shift again.
Grew up on a farm.
We were not rich, so all of our equipment was very old, and in various states of disrepair.
During harvest (All hands on deck time for the uninitiated) I was 15 and had to take a wheat truck (loaded with grain) to the Coop.
Truck had brakes that needed extensive pumping to get stopped. Fortunately, we lived out in the sticks far from other people, but there was a highway we had to cross.
My first trip I came into the intersection a little hot… I got my leg workout that day with both feet pumping that brake as fast/hard as I could, coming to a stop just before my nose would have been in traffic.
Had Drum Brakes all around on an old farm truck, they tended to get hot and then it as a crap shoot if you could manage to get them to stop you. Had to use the manual trans and downshifting quite often to act as an engine brake way to many times to count.
The farm truck…what a great way to learn to drive and drive stick. I think I learned three on the tree before I learned four on the floor.
Very long time ago an ex had a Hyundai Excel, first gen. Even kinda new. I thought I was going to die driving it.
Had a 2003 Mitsubishi Pajero with the brakes jamming stiff. My friend helped me release the brakes but that meant driving 30 miles without any brakes whatsoever to his place where we could get the car up on the lift. Fortunately, this was on the Island of Gotland outside the Swedish mainland, the flattest area in entire Scandinavia.
Mom spent years talking about the Nash Metropolitan crash that killed one of her cousins, so driving that one (and the fact that it was one of the first column shifters I’ve used) was a bit scary until I got over it.
Then there are cars I just don’t fit in. If your seat sliders are broken, if the seat is too low, if the seat just doesn’t slide up far enough—those are some of the most nerve-wracking things ever. I’m really not a fan of Countaches on like, a personal level. I do not fit in Countaches. I can’t see out of Countaches. My legs are just too short for the Countach. I have to add a pillow to reach the pedals even with the seat all the way up, and usually want a spotter to back those up since the trick of sitting on the seat ledge to back up is kinda impossible with short legs.
Those weren’t really sketchy, though. All well-maintained cars. All bad brain or short person problems. Mostly, I don’t want to break someone else’s nice car.
Sketchiest overall might be the Nash Airflyte (it’s always a freakin’ Nash, I guess) that broke down on track, hit by two cars, and got turtled. It clearly had a solid rollcage, was built by a group of Lemons veterans, and it handled surprisingly well—the Nash body was on a C3 Corvette chassis—but I wasn’t sure what to do when it started sputtering out. I didn’t know the car well and it wasn’t like anything I’d driven before. And…welp. I thought it could make it in, then it really started to struggle and it stalled on track as I was trying to pull off and park it. You know what’s terrifying? Being a sitting duck around a blind turn. That ended really, really poorly.
Also terrifying? Not knowing that the series paid for the ambulance that pulled me off track. I didn’t go to the hospital after that because the only thing scarier than getting hit by two cars is the American medical system and its absurd frickin’ bills.
That one might win out—barely—over the time my VW 411 fouled most of its plugs and had to climb up a huge hill on I-10 just to get to a truck stop where I could park it and wait for help. Thaaaaaaat sucked. It doesn’t have great taillights on a good day and folks on a freeway usually don’t look for an Amish buggy-style slow triangle like I strapped to the back.
The 411 also died in the desert in and around Big Bend twice, but both of those were with people. The I-10 suckage was me trying to solo-run the Lemons Rally and catch up with the rest of the group. I think the big difference is that I know the 411—or was getting to know it after driving across most of Central Texas, in the I-10 incident’s case—and I know how it fails. It fouls plugs, sputters around and whatever, that’s just what it does. Having to clean off plugs with sandstone mid-trail on Old Ore Road (a lengthy, rocky trail that runs most of the length of Big Bend) and then speed run through it because it dumps less fuel onto said plugs at full throttle was, uh, kind of fun, actually. It was hot as balls, though, and while it was wheeling alongside an air conditioned Jeep and other Gamblers were on the trail, we were starting to worry about heat exhaustion after a while of sitting and trying to unfoul enough plugs to get back in.
It also really sucks when you pull out the helicoil around one of the fouled plugs in the middle of the night in a random Wal-Mart parking lot in Georgia, but again, that’s my sketchiness. I know that sketchiness. It’s less scary when it’s MY problem and way scarier when it’s someone else’s car.
A 1972 Ford Ranchero……
My dad had this thing forever, and the last time I drove it in the early 90s, the steering wheel had about 6″ of play both directions, so trying to keep it on the road was an upper body workout.
The trans. slipped so badly in all the gears, that you pretty much had to idle away from stop signs/lights or it almost wouldnt shift gears…..
Not to mention the floor was rusted thru in spots. Hell, you could actually see the road as you drove along (If you were brave enough to take your eyes off the road, lest those 6″ of steering wheel play would cause you to change lanes inadvertently).
But years later I heard the story why the floors were shot. I guess my dad took it to the Iowa state fair, it rained, and when they left, it was parked in a little depression, and water was almost covering the wheels. Well, in their very inebriated state, they climb in, fired it up, and drove off….. If it had backfired once dad said, it would have swallowed 30 gallons of water…..lol
My dad and I put a 350 into a 1990 wrangler 25 years ago. That was scary and stupid fun. Our family’s fun car now is a vanagon that I swapped an ej22 into, it’s upgraded appropriately for 70-75mph highway driving in the mountains.
They were both built as bulletproof as possible, but the DIY aspect adds a scary level of accountability. Tossing our kid in the back of a 40 year old vehicle for ‘fun’ Is a completely different kind of scary than a sketchy jeep ever was. The driving and camping experience makes it worthwhile.
Scariest car I ever drove?
That Tesla Model S Plaid in a CarMax parking lot…
That ended poorly.
‘82 Cadillac that leaked gas. Could have gone up in flames any minute.
‘02 Cherokee that someone messed with the wiring on. While running, you could turn the ignition off, pull the key and walk away from the vehicle… while it still ran. To turn off, you turned on the AC.
‘02 CRV Bought at a BHPH lot, paid cash with the best intentions for my family. 70mph, panic stop on bad tires, flat spot all 4 (no abs??) and rear end a car in front of me. Mechanic replaces broken exhaust and “pulls out the punched nose”- keep on keepin on. Two weeks later, Ball joint broke at 50mph pulling me across two lanes of traffic into a ditch on the other side. Miraculously didn’t hit anyone else. Towed it to my mechanic and went with my wife to a dealer, where we leased a new car and they agreed to a 2K trade in value if I drove the CRV there. Mechanic got it fixed enough that it drove and I drove it at 20mph to the dealer, who had the 2K check ready (we closed the deal with a handshake on driving the CRV later in the week). Took the check and never looked back.
I once did someone a favor and drove a motorhome that had been parked for years about 30 miles to its new resting place. It was very slow, noisy and had lousy brakes. On the way, one of the seats, which was more like a chair, fell forward and through a hole in the floor. I was a bit worried about getting pulled over for driving a crappy vehicle with very, very expired plates, but did arrive safely. Never again.
(Life advice from this anecdote: never volunteer to do stuff that’s even a bit doubtful.)
I imagine going back to my first car, an ’86 Chevette, would be terrifying in a way that it wasn’t at the time. It was within an acceptable range of crappy for the era.
The vehicle that most scared me in the moment wasn’t a car but a U-Haul, bigger than the usual 10-footer I get. The steering was eerily similar to what Jason describes in the postal Jeep. It was like someone invented a DUI simulator. You wrote a memo and sent it down the steering column, and the steering elves deciphered it and implemented your request, more or less and when they felt like it.
Scariest car I ever drove was a late 80’s early 90’s Ford Taurus, fleet car at work. I was used to the Resume button on my Jeep, press it and it would gradually speed back up – not the Taurus, came out of a construction zone, got up to about 40 and pressed resume to get back up to 60, the Taurus floorboarded the accelerator, red lined the engine, down-shifted, spun the front wheels and caused the car to jump sideways. Only made that mistake once.
I drove a ‘78 Chevette for several hours in deep winter on I-89 in 1991– that still stands out as the scariest and least comfortable motoring experience I’ve had, and I’ve made dozens of terrible automotive choices.
Easy. Dodge Viper on a handling loop at the old Skip Barber school (RIP) at Laguna. I hit a wet patch and almost slid right onto the neighboring autocross course. Absolutely terrifying.
My current car, hucking it around a track. Nothing like an unexpected 4 wheel drift. Thankfully I didn’t over-react and there was plenty of track left. The electro-nannies also did their thing at 75 mph and reeled me back in. The next time in that corner was a lot better.
It’s a tossup between the A body cutlass Ciera that required a neutral drop in order to not stall out at any point after spending more than 20 minutes at highway speeds and the 87 Nissan Hardbody where the only advice from a mechanic was “don’t smoke when you’re driving” due to the fully rusted out fuel lines.
My current E39 / MGB (see username) is not without abundant risk, but has proven a meaningful step down in risk from my options earlier in life