1985 Pontiac Sunbird with the 1.8L OHC all aluminum 4-cyl.

I hated driving it on the highways, because the 55mph speed limit signs just seemed to mock me and the gutless wonder. Especially going up hills.

 

Older Cavavlier sedan while in driving school. That old 2.2 SOHC sounded like it was going to explode while I was merging onto the highway.

 

I would hands down have to go with my 1975 Mercedes 300D. If you put more than 2 people in it, it could hardly get up a hill less up to 60. I'll give it this though, due to is severe lack of power and extreme weight it was like a tank in the snow with studded tires.

 

Some great stories here. Thanks for sharing, everybody.

 

i forgot what year it was, but my friend had an older gen civic. we took it up to big bear mountain, i thought it was going to explode when going uphill. it was literally screaming for like 50 mins...... i think that was the slowest car of all cars that i've driven till now.

no offense to TSX automatic owners, i know it can be made very fast, but i thought my friend's bone stock TSX with an auto transmission was pretty damn gutless.. it probably isn't that slow, but it just felt pretty soul-less..

 

I've got you all beat: 1983 Plymouth Reliant. This engine backfired more times than it would ever go faster than 70 MPH. Sister used to call it the 'Brown Bomber.'

 

1971 VW westfalia campmobile aka the hippy house car. I drove it from Jones Beach Long Island back to the north shore of MA. Not only was it gutless but when you were getting passed by 18 wheelers on the highway, you literally had to steer into them as they came by to keep from being blown out of you lane. There was also about 5 inches of play in the steering wheel before the thing would actually start to turn.

Top speed down hill, I almost got it to 70 mph.

 

My ex-wife's 1990 Pontiac Grand Am with the 2.5L Iron Duke and 3sp auto. Rated at 110hp I think, but felt like about 60. All of the cars listed above this post are guaranteed faster than this car (not actual car below, but just like it)


Close runner up is my old 96 Pathfinder SE 4x4...it was only slightly faster than the "Grand mA" with a top speed of only 85mph...downhill..

 

my friends Neon shit was slower than a turtle I think it was the first year they were produced.. I just always offered to drive because it seemed like we would never get where we wanted to go.

 

Do you realize the 71 VW I speak of was rated at a whopping 50hp and was almost as aerodynamic as a refrigerator? The only way the Pontiac could be more gutless and slow than a 71 VW van would be if the Pontiac was out of gas.

 

89 Toyota Corolla
00 Honda CRV

The CRV wasn't bad but with it full of people it was gutless.

 

I may have that topped, my dad had a 71 VW Squareback Automatic with only 3 working cylinders. That was scary slow

 

A friend had a 71 Pinto 4MT and a 76 Chevette 4MT, both pretty slow.

We mounted a Porsche tach out of a 914 in the Pinto, wish I had a photo of that VDO gauge, it looked huge in the Pinto

 

I still think a carbureted, automatic 4-cyl Jeep CJ or Toyota 4Runner with upsized tires would take the cake. Not too sure about those Jeeps but I think the speedo on the car ureted 4Runners only went up to 75, and when flooring it the damn things shift almost 1000 rpm before redline. Not to mention they weigh close to 2 tons. In a fuel injected one that I mentioned, while going up a steep hill you could have the gas pedal smashed through the floorboard and it would still refuse to go past 40.

Those old VWs sound snail-like though. What are you guys, masochists?

 

My dad's VW Squareback we timed from a stop to 60, don't remember the exact time but it was over 1/2 minute.

 

Before I turned 16, my older sister had the equivalent of the Reliant...the K-car. It was such a pig. As a 14 or 15 year-old I used to get in it and gun it up our driveway where I grew up (we had a driveway that was about 200 yards long). I could barely get it up past 30 mph before I needed to lay on the brakes. It was soooooo slowwwwwww.

And to ad insult to injury, it was banana yellow. I have no idea why my father bought that car. I hated being seen in it. Those k-cars and reliant's were unbelieveably slow.

Also, when I was in high school, my brother and I shared an '87 S-10 blazer. It had the old 2.8 liter engine in it and it could barely make it up a hill at the speed limit. That thing was a pig too....we replaced the engine once and the tranny twice. What a mistake that thing was...

 

My car in high school was a 1988 Nissan Sentra SE Sport Coupe with a whopping 70hp. It looked faster than it went.

 

Steep hills in the camper would either require a good running start and potentially 3rd gear but real steep hills could require 1st or 2nd exclusively.

They were slow but they were a great camping machine in a little package.

 

My old 94 dodge spirit v6, really wasn't that gutless at 141hp, 2800lbs, but was the slowest car I've had. It actually might've been able to take my TL until about 20-25mph though due to a better first gear ratio and lighter weight.

 

My first new car: 1989 Ford Escort LX coupe......1.9L I4 w/ 90hp!!! With an AT, I think it had a 0-60mph time of 13 seconds. The next car I owned felt MUCH more powerful by comparison: 1989 Eagle Summit LX DOHC (1.6L DOHC 16V w/113hp).

 

1996 Mazda Protoge. I used to have to turn the A/C off when getting on the highway. 92HP with a 4 speed transmission.

 

I test drove some Audi something or other and it was the weirdest car. The gas pedal seemed to be like a footswitch. When you wanted to go, you just pushed the whole thing down. I'm not exactly sure how I maintained any cruising speed, because it just felt like go-no go. It only seemed to have one acceleration speed.

Obviously I didn't buy it because it was an ugly color. But I've never driven anything like it since.

 

When I was a teenager, my parents gave me their 1989 Ford Taurus L, with a 90 hp 2.5L I4 and a 3 sp auto pushing 3,300 lb of FWD, front bench seat land barge. That thing was GUTLESS.

More recently, a friend of mine rented a 2011 Ford Fusion SEL V6 while he was in town. We drove it up Trail Ridge Road in RMNP and I was seriously disappointed.

I'm not a fan of FWD Fords...

 

Slowest cars for me would be the smartcar. My aunt had one, and with me in it, it would really struggle. That thing wasn't safe for the streets in my opinion. I couldn't believe it when I saw one on the highway...just stupid. The second slowest would be an 04 PT cruiser, no power...at all.

 

Most gutless, when it really shouldn't be? My moms 89 Jaguar XJS. 0-60? Yes it can go 60. That thing has a huge V12 but makes about the same HP as the V6 in my car...and is slower than shit. Its incredible how much efficiency has improved in the past 20 years.

 

I went from a 1969 C-10 chevy pickup w/ a 396ci v8, demon 6 barrel carb and flow masters to a stock 1997 chevy cavalier base model. Talk about no guts, I thought I had to trade in my prostate as well, worst car ever. problem free still to this day, my dad still owns it, however most boring car i've ever been in.

 

First car i genuinely thought sucked...hmmm..Back in '01 when I first got into the car business, we had a used 2000 Corolla CE 5 speed. Everytime I drove it I only thought about what a piece of crap it was. No soul, no life. The engine sucked, the transmission sucked. It overall sucked.

 

My dad had a 1987 Cadillac Seville back in the early 90s. It had the 4.1 with I think only 130HP. It was a dog; dangerously slow. Surprising, because usually GM shines in that respect. They did fix it though, bc he got a '90 Seville a few years later with the 4.5 and the difference was absolutely ridiculous (in a good way). The '90 was actually pretty fast.

 

I also owned one of these:



110 HP inline 5 cylinder on a 45/55 weight distribution wagon (over 4000 lbs). 5 speed MT, and driving it was a chore. Winter was down right scary. Load anything into the hatch, and you could get the front wheels off the ground (maybe 200 lbs or so). Very bad.

But it lasted me until I could buy a 1 year old Volvo. So I zipped around Southern Bavaria with an Ingolstadt steel sled. Lovely.

 

2006 Mercedes Benz 280SLK.... Good lord what a piece. Power? What power? Lol and the interior had more plastic than an old Saturn lol. Just to move you have to floor it and even then it sounds like the engine is going to explode

 

2006 Nissan Versa 2450 pounds @ 122HP.

The slowest car and probably the crappiest interior i've been in (not even picky about interiors but Nissan, especially a versa has shitty interiors.), can't believe people still buy this thing.

Second slowest probably my friends 2004 Mitsubishi lancer. Pushing 120 something HP, 130 torque @ like 2930 pounds. Stats aren't THAT bad, but we counted....12 seconds to get 0-60 lol. Has no pull power whatsoever when merging onto a freeway. Like someone said, borderline unsafe.

 

No offense taken. When I was deciding for my new car...I test drove the 08 TSX tech AT....Needless to say it was pretty souless and sloww, even compared to my old 04 V6 Accord. The 11' TSX AT felt a little quicker but not the power I was looking for.

Test drove the V6 TSX (which I ultimately decided to get) and loved it. Had just the right kick for my semi heavy foot .

 

Yeah I like the TSX, but I don't care how well it handles, how beautifully balanced it is, it's slow. The best handling car in the world can't make up for the frown I get when I step on the gas and nothing I need/expect happens. The TSX V6 is VASSTTTLY improved. I thought it was funny how in the 4CYL ones they programmed it to downshift with a feather's touch to the gas, but even after, it's still a slow 4 banger. Idles rough too. Long live the V6!

 

Must be an auto...the stick version is kind of fun to drive. My wifes friend just got one. It looks cool too for a pocket car.

 

1988 eagle vista with a whopping 69hp. Well probably had half of that in 2001 haha That thing burned more oil than gas haha

 

I borrowed a friends '81 Mustang (3.3L 6-cyl 94 hp, when I got it it probably had 60hp) for about a year and that thing was the slowest POS ever. I literally had to rev up the motor while in park and then throw it in drive to get it going, if I didn't, it would stall. Another one is my sisters '01 Nissan Sentra (126hp), anytime I used it and had to merge on the freeway I was scared for my life.

 

Jetta 2.Slow.. almost as spineless as the poster above me..

 

save it for ramblings

 

yea, exactly. No knock on the i-4 TSX but the car itself isn't light, coupled with the output of the 2.4 which isnt that impressive. 20 more HP, and 25 more troque would have been perfect imo, or just drop the TL engine (perhaps the RDX turbo engine) for the 09's from the get go.

some people don't mind the power and thats perfectly ok, but coming from a decently powered v6, the i-4 ivtecs were just too slow in comparison.

 

My fiance used to have a '94 Toyota 4-Runner with a 3.slow V6. Off the line and around town was fine, but anything over 60 took an eternity. I probably passed people a total of twice and used the whole straight away to do it. It's no surprise she never passed anyone in any car having started in that one.