The Worst Car(s) Ever Offered As Prizes on Game Shows

[Casey Buck]

MotorWeek reviewed a Pontiac 1000, and got one of the slowest performance numbers of any car they ever tested:

•0-60 MPH in nearly 30 seconds (!)
•40-55 MPH in ~12.8 seconds
•500 ft in 11.5 seconds @ 45 MPH
•1/4 mile in 23.3 seconds @ 59 MPH

All this for a fairly measly 25 MPG, and a price (as tested) of ~$7,000.

Malaise Era in a nutshell.

[rebelwrest]

https://jalopnik.com/murder-transsexuals-and-the-price-is-right-the-story-464820740

I believe I have the episode as well.  Contestant was SOL if they had won.

I would think that if the contestant won the showcase and the company was unable (even through fraudulent means) to deliver the prize, Goodson-Todman and CBS (along with S&P) would have let the contestant choose an equivalent dollar amount worth of prizes.

This sort of scenario happened when a car could not be delivered as a prize.  Although on a Canadian game show (Scroll to 22:50).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_npl6tN7vs&feature=emb_title

[PYLdude]

My brother and I watched a lot of Card Sharks when GSN had the syndicated series. We agreed that when the show went from offering GMs to AMCs was when the crap hit the fan. Those Renault rust buckets just weren’t cool, convertibles or no convertibles.

Although there was also this.

[TimK2003]

A couple of Saturday Mornings ago, Cullen's TPIR offered up some niche car from a company I never heard of.  I'm not sure if that was the Midget sports car (where Buzzr mutes the M-word), or it may have been another car that was offered.

As a contestant, I would hate to win a car that nobody has ever heard of, let alone knows how to fix/find parts for when it has issues.

/ In college, we used to say that if you save and recycle enough beer cans, you can build your own Yugo. 

[jlgarfield]

Personally, I'd love to see any Price is Right ep where a Catera or a Cimarron would be offered. So I can laugh at it. XD

[trainman]

Cars in that era were different than now. Consumer Reports pointed out in a recent report that it's very unusual for true lemons to make it to the market. And the expectations are different; it used to be after getting a car over 100,000 miles anything after that was a bonus, but that bar is now a lot higher.

I remember when I was a kid, Consumer Reports's car reviews would always say something like "our purchased model had nine sample defects, including a faulty thermostat and misaligned trim." Much more recently, they pointed out, "oh, hey, we don't have to do that anymore because they've gotten better at making sure cars are put together correctly."

[PYLdude]

Personally, I'd love to see any Price is Right ep where a Catera or a Cimarron would be offered. So I can laugh at it. XD

Oh God, the Cimarron. I don’t care what GM tried to call it, it’s a damn Cavalier.

It just went to show you that bad luxury copycat designs were not just limited to Oldsmobiles.

[colonial]

Not a "car" that you could take on the Interstate per se, but those Gem cars that TPiR offered about 20 years ago were pretty fugly.

Living just outside a large senior community in Florida, I've seen more than a fair share of GEM cars. They are too small and slow for the roads, and too big and wide for the golf cart paths. The community allows them on the golf courses provided that the tires are a specific size and weight. But I can also see why the GEMs are popular here -- a senior uncomfortable with driving a regular car at their advanced age but determined to keep their license would see the vehicle as an alternative to simpler golf carts.

As far as the other cars listed here -- my parents had a Dodge Omni in the early 80s. By the time it it 40,000 miles, it would randomly stall in the middle of the road or highway (nearly started a multi-car chain reaction crash when the engine stopped in the middle of the PA Turnpike). After months of short-term fixes, we got a new vehicle.


Perhaps not the worst car offered, but there was a time in the mid-90s on TPIR where games not known for being "car games" (Safe Crackers, Cliff Hangers, etc.) started offering a vehicle as its big prize. And it was the same car -- the Ford Aspire.

The Aspire was a replacement for the Festiva that, for the most part, had little to no available options with a 0-60 time of just over 16 seconds. As a result, it was dirt cheap as far as new vehicles went (I believe the prize copy referred to it as a car for the budget-conscious shopper or something similar), and TPIR tried to give the car away on essentially every game on its roster. I presume it was called the Aspire because it aspired to actually be an acceptable vehicle



JD

[bscripps]

A couple of Saturday Mornings ago, Cullen's TPIR offered up some niche car from a company I never heard of.  I'm not sure if that was the Midget sports car (where Buzzr mutes the M-word), or it may have been another car that was offered.

I saw that too--it was definitely the Midget.

As a contestant, I would hate to win a car that nobody has ever heard of, let alone knows how to fix/find parts for when it has issues.

Many years ago, I caught an episode of LMaD late one night on GSN, and the first prize offered was a Bricklin SV-1.  A little sports car with gull wing doors (the gasping from the audience when the doors were opened was priceless) built in Canada for the U.S. market by a guy named Malcolm Bricklin.  Having never heard of it, I went to the Pedia of Wiki and read up on it and noticed someone had included in the article that the Bricklin was given away as the Big Deal of the Day.  Quickly switching into pedantic mode, I edited the article to clarify that it wasn't the Big Deal but rather just a prize during the regular game.  The next morning, I had a message from another user who was part of a Bricklin owners' group asking if I happened to have a copy of the episode.  I burned off a copy to a DVD and sent it to him, and a couple weeks later, he very kindly sent me a nice poster with lots of beauty shots of the car.  But that car strikes me as a contender for "king of impossible to find parts for".

To bring this full circle, after the failure of the SV-1, Bricklin began importing an inexpensive car from eastern Europe and marketed it in the U.S. as the Yugo.

[PYLdude]

Fun fact: I actually wanted an Aspire for a long time.

[Strikerz04]

Not a "car" that you could take on the Interstate per se, but those Gem cars that TPiR offered about 20 years ago were pretty fugly.

We've ordered some on the Cal campus for our department's disabled students program. They do work compared to the gas guzzlers we borrow for football.

[BrandonFG]

Fun fact: I actually wanted an Aspire for a long time.

I did too, but at 16, I just wanted a car.

Can't remember where I saw it, but the Aspire was unofficially nicknamed the "Expire" because they didn't last long. I prolly haven't seen one on the road in about 20 years, and had honestly forgotten about it until James mentioned it in this thread.

/Also forgot Whammy offered the Gem car

[Casey Buck]

Personally, I'd love to see any Price is Right ep where a Catera or a Cimarron would be offered. So I can laugh at it. XD

Wish granted. Today's batch of TPiR episodes has a Golden Road playing for a $14K Cimarron! It looked really dinky in front of the rainbow backdrop:

[mmb5]

Many years ago, I caught an episode of LMaD late one night on GSN, and the first prize offered was a Bricklin SV-1.  A little sports car with gull wing doors (the gasping from the audience when the doors were opened was priceless) built in Canada for the U.S. market by a guy named Malcolm Bricklin. 
To bring this full circle, after the failure of the SV-1, Bricklin began importing an inexpensive car from eastern Europe and marketed it in the U.S. as the Yugo.

Someone on the street where I grew up had one, no idea what model.  It did look odd with all of the late 70s early 80s cars in my neighborhood, which being a Detroit suburb, was pretty much all domestic.

[jlgarfield]

Personally, I'd love to see any Price is Right ep where a Catera or a Cimarron would be offered. So I can laugh at it. XD

Wish granted. Today's batch of TPiR episodes has a Golden Road playing for a $14K Cimarron! It looked really dinky in front of the rainbow backdrop:

Now I can't wait for the channel to show the late 1990s eps down the road and see the Catera (barring any uploads of such eps by others, of course).