Example from web
A few weeks back we discussed car interiors from the 60s/70s/80s. I thought it might be an interesting follow-up to ask what was the worst interior you’ve sat in – worst materials, worst fit-and-finish, worst ambiance, etc.
It’s a tough question given differences in car class, when manufactured, and country of origin – but I have to tell you it wasn’t that hard of a choice for me. In the early 80’s I drove by a neighborhood Dodge dealer and saw a spiffy looking new L-Body Charger in Red and Black out on the front line. It looked attractive enough that I made a U-turn and stopped in to give it a look. I had no intention of buying but was just curious. The salesman must have accurately sensed I wasn’t a committed buyer and threw me the keys and said to come back inside if I had any questions.
The overall exterior styling was sharp – it had a low, lean look to it – but from there it was all downhill.
Example from web
Exterior build quality was very poor – lots of panel gaps, poor trim line-up, and the black decals were contorted. But the biggest letdown was sliding behind the wheel. It was nothing but cheap, black/grayish plastic everywhere, most of it misaligned. I remember looking down and seeing the trim piece around the floor shifter wasn’t seated properly and had sharp edges exposed. The steering wheel and shifter were both the same cheap plastic – and felt horrible to the touch. The steering wheel was also off-center and the manual shifter didn’t seem connected to anything underneath it.
It was a miserable episode that swore me off Chrysler lots until 1999. I gave the keys back to the salesman and said “Nice car” and walked quickly out.
What was your worst interior experience?
I probably needed a new company car so had a look at two out of the ordinary new cas back in 2001 (I think): a Mini and a Chrysler PT Cruiser.
The Mini had a horrible, “fun” all plastic interior with kid toy like switches and such. Not for me.
The PT was not much better, acres of grey silver plastic.
Both cars dismissed because of their stupid interiors.
Got to agree about the original new Mini’s interior. I tested one, with interested intent too, but the no-brand Lego-standard interior felt like the makers were surely taking the piss, especially for the prices being asked in this country (Australia), where they were sold out of BMW establishments.
I have always driven upscale vehicles with plush comfortable interiors. BUT in my younger days, I unfortunately took a road trip with a friend in his 1972 🤔 Mustang. No AC (windows open blowing noisily so conversation was virtually impossible), everything was cheap and basic. The seats were so low that my legs were almost straight out in front of me and so poorly padded that every bump (and the suspension provided many) felt like my butt was hitting the floor. Within the first ten miles I knew I had made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
Since I missed the previous post, the BEST interiors were my 83 and 85 RWD Fifth Avenues and 89 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham deElegance. Plush tufted velour seats, quality materials, so comfortable. OTT luxury and class. Try to find that today!
So many to choose from!
European economy cars from the 60s and 70s were terrible – approximately assembled from various miss matching parts, but there was usually some redeeming feature, such as nice seats and steering wheel in a Citroen 2CV.
The Ford Cortina mk3 that were used as taxis in my home town were nasty, but the interiors were usually bitsa this and that from other Cortinas as they wore out. The back seat was always collapsed and like sitting on the floor.
The ones that were most disappointing were two Toyotas I leased through work in the 2010s. First was a French made Yaris, Toyota fitted lots of interior storage but each cubby was hard plastic that squeaked, some had edges sharp enough to cut and I had to use an emery board on them. The back seat folded and slid in various ways, all of them were stiff and difficult to use, to the extent that it stayed in the one position. The back parcel shelf was a piece of grey felt and the gearchange vague and difficult to use.
The reason I had another Toyota next was purely that it was the lowest monthly payment I could get. It was an Aygo made in Slovakia. No excess of storage, not even a lid on the glovebox. The front windows were electric but the passenger door could only be worked from a switch on that door impossible to reach from the drivers side. Tombstone front seats that were difficult to move to get into the back and would then need adjusting as they didn’t return to position. Boot access was through the rear window, the trim surrounding the open had holes in it where expanded foam was visible.
The Aygo also had instruments that seem to be the norm now. As well as the speedo there was a rev counter (as an afterthought in a pod on the side of the speedo) and then a digital display with bars for fuel. No temperature or other gauges. Quite why a rev counter is fitted when no other gauges are mystifies me. You can’t over rev engines with electronic ignition and fuel injection.
My brother bought the Plymouth version of that Dodge shown above. In a couple of years the doors panels were cracked like a dried up mud puddle. Worst interior I’ve ever seen so I concur Jim.
Back when I worked for the phone company, NYT, they gave me a company car. It was a Chevette Scooter, I think it was called. Probably 1978ish. Absolutely the cheapest, worst car ever. Actually had cardboard door panels! But, I didn’t have to pay for it.
Among more recent automobiles, I found the interior of the Saturn Ion especially unappealing. Due to the cheap-looking monochromatic materiel and plastics, as well as the centrally-located instrument cluster. It hollered ‘bottom-line mass-production’.
Among vintage autos, I found the interiors of the base Ford Pinto and Ford Maverick, felt especially cheap. From their unattractive plastic and metal dashboards, to cheap looking vinyl, and plastics elsewhere. Rear seat area, particularly uninviting. Plagued, the Ford Fairmont as well.
You wrote it so I didnt have to. The 70-71 Maverick looked like the result of bet amongst Ford designers: How bad can we make it and actually get away with it?Ohhh I got one – no glovebox, just a shelf beneath the dash. We’ll call it “euro inspired”
I have to agree regarding the Fairmont. As to worst interior? Maybe not, but it was the worst interior that I’ve ever owned.
My second car, but first new car after the family hand-me-down (mentioned below), was a Midnight Blue 1979 Futura with a basic light blue cloth bench seat interior, and was quite cheap. The bucket seat models weren’t much better, although the bucket seat model that I checked out did seem to have better cloth, albeit in a very weird “That 70’s Plaid”. It was so bizarre that I decided to go with the bench and its mouse-fur type interior that was all the rage then.
The plastic fake wood panels on the dash, as well as door cards that seemed to be made of cardboard, it was rather uninspiring. In the back, the armrests were molded (with hard plastic) into the basket handle, which, while it looked neat, were not very functional.
And it was a big letdown not being able to open the back windows, after having a ‘73 LTD Hardtop in which I could roll all the windows down and God intended!
First series BMW X5. Being accustomed to pre-1980 interiors, I felt claustrophobic thanks mainly to the thick a-pillars.
Mentioning ambiance really opens Pandora’s box about bad interiors. While I am currently biased, given we have been car shopping, I will narrow the bad I’ve recently been seeing into one category.
Black interiors.
Yes, black has been available at different periods for a long time. I am referring to the current prevalence of black. Some companies have taken the Henry Ford approach with interiors on various models – any color you want, as long as it’s black.
Black may work well in colder climates. I do not live in a cold climate. When talking with salesmen about a black interior being a non-starter, the responses are interesting…
One salesman said everybody wants black then later contradicted himself saying they don’t sell as quickly as lighter colored interiors.
Another stated they stay clean. Upon my asking how that is as people have long fussed about keeping a black exterior clean, he seamlessly pivoted to saying black interiors do show crumbs and dog hair really badly.
I could also offer up the use and size of touchscreens that have replaced tried-and-true knobs, but I won’t. I do not want to sound like a complete curmudgeon.
Feel free to curmudgeon it up! I’ll say that the current “let’s just screw an IPad onto the top of the dash” school of interior design is my biggest pet peeve.
As for black, yes way too prevalent. What really bugs me is that even where most makers offer some different colors, the interior is still predominantly black. The color is just on the seats, or maybe just the upper seat surface, and a trim insert on the doors. This is clearly a budget saver for them to only have to make most interior parts in one color.
It has to be a budget saver, but as my wife says, where is the customer service? The only one being served by the prevalence of black is the manufacturer.
Last fall I test drove a new Tiguan. 30 of them on the lot that day. When asked about color, I stated anything without a black interior. The salesman had a blank look on his face. They had exactly one Tiguan without a black interior. That is ridiculous.
If the question was about most uncomfortable, I would have offered up the 2022 or 2023 Chevrolet Silverado (in very upscale trim – and black interior, naturally) I rode in the other day. After ten miles into a 170 mile round trip I was ready to burn that thing to the ground.
I am typing up my curmudgeonly-ness on the back end of the site right now, based upon recent dealership experiences throughout the state. 1400 words in and I’ve barely scratched the surface. It all ties into our current round of vehicle shopping.
I love my Model 3’s minimalist interior, it’s just sums my aesthetics up. But I understand if others couldn’t stand it!
I thought that way, but when I got my 2022 Miata it was very much a case of if it wasn’t the iPad stuck on the top of the dash, I’d be looking WAY down to do anything with the other spots for a screen. It’s high, it’s visible, and there’s not a lot of structure around blocking my view. That said, though – it’s not the answer for every vehicle by a long shot. And I purposely got the black interior as my prior 2007 Miata had that “Audi TT on a Mazda budget” orangey-look leather, and I wear way too much black for that to keep looking right without constant detailing. There’s a nice strip of red matching the exterior at the tops of the door panels and just enough silver accenting to liven it up a bit.
Yes, somehow in the last 3 months my fleet has turned over 10 one of 100% black interiors. When we were shopping for the Charger, we learned (sadly) that interiors would be black or nothing. We decided to suck it up because there was so much else about the car we liked.
I totally get it. For us right now, it is down to what checks the most boxes for our current need. Thankfully, while some enjoy black interiors, what we are looking at allows for some degree of choice.
Agree on the black interiors.
1) Last fall I purchased a 2024 Mazda CX-5 Signature, but could not avoid a nearly all black interior. The leather seats and door trim are a very dark brown that is almost indistinguishable from the rest of the black interior. I grudgingly accepted this compromise since it otherwise met my other aesthetic requirements:
– no black wheels. I don’t find them attractive at all, and are impossible to keep clean.
– minimum black ‘lipstick’ on the outside: i.e. no black rocker panels, black wheel well surrounds, black bumpers, giant black grilles and bumper openings, black mirrors shells, etc. To me these are all visually distracting, and if unpainted plastic, always seem to look dirty.
(I also avoided any vehicle with a CVT – affectionately call Ski-doo transmissions in these parts…)
2) The last couple of years, I’ve been toying with the idea of replacing my Midnight Blue over tan 2002 Miata with a new MX-5. I’m sure I could get many more years out of it, but at 71, I’d rather not be driving a 30-year old car when I turn 80. So it’s now or never.
Unfortunately, for two years running, Mazda Canada has decided that the vast majority of Miatas are only available with black interiors.
In 2023, only the top model was available with a dark brown leather interior (and possibly white) combined with a black, white or grey exteriors. (I didn’t double check all the available permutations, but none of the combinations worked for me.)
In 2024, they do offer a tan leather interior, but only on the TOTL retractable hardtop model. I test-drove the MX5-RF, but found that it could not match the soft-top open air ambiance, and it felt claustrophobic. And it only comes with black wheels.
>>> So my question is: Why would anyone want to ride in a convertible with an all-black interior? Especially black leather seats? Just leave that car out in the sun for a couple of hours on a hot day, then climb in dressed in shorts and a T-shirt…
I can smell sizzling bacon just thinking about it!
“minimum black ‘lipstick’ on the outside: i.e. no black rocker panels, black wheel well surrounds, black bumpers, giant black grilles and bumper openings, black mirrors shells, etc. To me these are all visually distracting, and if unpainted plastic, always seem to look dirty.”
Tell me about it! That and some cars stick tacky black accents pieces low in the back bumper for god knows why. Same age as you but I am permanently out of the new car market for good. Don’t like the looks, Don’t like the interiors. Don’t like all the electronics, computers, modules, solenoids, and whatever else they throw in. My 91 and two 04 cars are the end of the line for me over the next 20 years. Even the vintage cars can be thrown in for duty if need be.
I’ve been thinking of replacing my now-hooptie ’08 DTS with a used CT6 or XT5. The only way to get an interior not dominated by black is the Platinum model, which would be fine, but they come with larger wheels, which my old bones don’t want. If you’re going to the trouble of making non-black parts, why not make them more available?
The other problem is the head restraint is too far forward. That seems to be a problem with all recent cars, but the CT6’s has a shape that pokes me in the back even when raised, a problem I had with nearly every Japanese car I’ve tried. Who designed that carp?
One thing that makes my 2014 Mercedes GLK so pleasant and welcoming – there’s almost no black surfaces in the interior. Not even on the dash top, which is shaded brown, to go with the wide slab of walnut (veneer) across the center. The only black plastic surrounds the gauges and frames the dash buttons. Nice job, Mercedes!
Worst interior must have been that of a 2003 Dacia 1310 (based on the Renault 12, introduced in 1969) that I occasionally drove when working as an expat in Romania. The dashboard was made of ill-fitting, sharp edged pieces of brittle black plastic and the creaks and squeaks it produced on bad roads were frightening. That same hard, brittle plastic was used throughout the interior and literally everything you touched in that car felt like it could break any moment. Its successor (Dacia Logan, introduced in 2004) was a huge improvement over this car.
Wow, two votes for Dacia 1310, who would’ve guessed?
Worst? Probably my ’67 VW Beetle. Car was a total piece of used-up, neglected crap when I bought it; but I was young (high-school) and dumb. I couldn’t put people in the back seat, ’cause when I hit bumps, the battery would arc on the seat frame and make stinky smells. Not *entirely* VWs fault…as I said, the car was BEAT when I bought it.
Most memorable in a bad way? Buddy of mine and I went to the Ford dealership because we were both sick to death of seeing commercials for the newly-introduced Taurus, and how “wonderful” it was supposed to be. I sat in the driver’s seat of the SHOWROOM CAR, and thought “Yeah, it’s a car. Big deal”. Same for the passenger seat. Same for the left rear seat. When I got to the right rear seat, I tried to pull the door shut, and the door handle came off in my hand. Built Ford Tough…Quality is job One (thousand.)
To this day, I avoid VWs and Fords. But Fords are harder to avoid–I have friends that subject me to them.
I’ll vote for the Romanian built Dacia 1310 I briefly drove during my security guard / car jockey summer job in 1986. I don’t remember the specifics, but I remember it looked, felt, and smelled terrible.
Please find a picture of a Crosley and this discussion ends. They used fiberboard panels! YUK!
The car with the worst interior I ever had was a 2001 VW Beetle. Got fired from my long time job in 2007 and was black-balled in the local area. The only job I could find was a 150 mile round trip from home. Driving my Ford F250 Super Duty back and forth was way too expensive so went looking for a VW TDI. I am big, 6’4″ and 350 lbs, so I liked how the high doors of the Beetle allowed easier access. Liked the 50 MPG too! Drove that round trip 5 or 6 days a week for over 5 years. The driver’s seat slowly collapsed from my weight until it felt like I was sitting on the floor. The door panels peeled off, as did the headliner. Of course, the sunroof leaked water so out came the silicone and duct tape. The cheap plastic dash cracked in numerous places, as did the plastic seat upholstery. More duct tape. Finally found a closer job in 2013. The Beetle still ran great with 260,000 miles but the interior was trashed.
See below for my New Beetle experience. I forgot to note there that the headliner is also pretty well shot, but our daughter plans to extract it (through the rear hatch, backing panel attached) and re-cover it. As for sunroof leaks, the seals on her’s are good but regular drain cleaning is important, otherwise they overflow and leak into the headliner and A pillars. As I recall it had a recall for improved drains a few years after we bought it new in late 2000.
Yup, many folks don’t know sunroofs aren’t meant to have water-tight seals, and they really can’t be so with the rear-edge tip-up function.
Rather, the “seal” around the moving panel is really just a bumper to protect the edges and divert the bulk of water away, but water inevitably gets past that, which is meant to drip into gutters around the edge and drain from there into tubes running down the pillars. If those tubes get plugged up with debris, water backs up and overflows the gutters, causing a “leak” into the interior.
Fixing (or better yet, preventing) such a “leak” involves simply blowing out the drain tubes with compressed air, or if that’s not available, you can use a flexible wire to rod them out (generic replacement speedo cable is good for this). This should be done every year or so for best results.
Someone on the Cadillac owners forum tried compressed air and broke the drain tube in the A pillar. Mine clogged at the very bottom behind the front wheel, and weedeater line would get hung up halfway, so it was useless.
Worst was probably an 83 Renault Alliance, so poorly designed the guage needles melted in Arizona heat. That was a roommate’s car, briefly, before it died its last death. So maybe it’s not fair to list a car so near the end of its life.
I test drove a 2003 Ford Escort ZX2 (the sporty coupe version). That interior was so uninspiring compared to the swoopy body, it was a real letdown. The exterior/interior mismatch was similar to Jim’s Charger experience (but nobody did horrible interiors like Chrysler in the 80’s).
My mother’s 1980 Chevy Chevette with vinyl seats as you’ve had to put towels on them on those hot summer days, it was also a slug with the automatic transmission.
In about ’87-’88, Lada tried to sell their new Samara down here. I have never again encountered any interior so dire. Without the slightest exaggeration – ok, this time, I’m serious – it felt like every single bit was the mock-up plastic from the styling studio, instead of the production reality.
It’s hard to capture. There were sharp, cutting molding edges, frangible everythings, squeaks from everything AT REST, stiff cracking sounds from anything (like stalks) that had to move, and most memorably, a “uniform” caramel color that varied from undercooked to utterly burnt.
And worst of all, it bloody well STUNK! A vile and overpoweringly sharp nostril-jabbing gluey pong from hell made it impossible even to contemplate a test drive.
They didn’t sell many despite the basement price, because sometimes walking actually IS preferable.
A simple question that prompts me to over-complicate my answer. Of cars that I’ve owned, my Vega, was probably the worst in terms of design, quality of materials, and fit/finish. However the front seats were very comfortable and the instrumentation was good. Ventilation was also good (no A/C). Much better in those ways than the Volvo 122S it replaced; yes, that includes seat comfort.
From a more modern era, I’d have to mention our 2001 New Beetle. Comfortable and well adjustable leather seats, good driving position, but poor materials and finishes (whose idea was it to put painted plastics on so many touch surfaces?). Minimal instrumentation, no temperature gauge, just blue or red warning lights for hot or cold. And randomly placed controls and displays for ambient temperature and HVAC. All while enveloping you in that distinctive waxy crayon smell of VW leather. Just last week I got a ride in that car, now almost 25 years old and still owned by our daughter. In that context, it seems to have held up pretty well, with most of the interior paint worn or peeled off, the underlying plastic looked OK. And the seats, whose leather surfaces have held up amazingly well, still exude a bit of that crayon smell. I felt some pangs of nostalgia.
EDIT: when I drafted this I hadn’t seen Jeff’s reply above about the 2001 Beetle. Is it now tied with the Dacia?
Any Nissan gets my vote. When I’ve had various models for rentals, NONE of them had comfortable seats.
Riding in a rented Malibu with my brother & mom, 2001.
She glances around and says this is the cheesiest interior she’s has ever seen.
I did not know that word was in her vocabulary well into her seventies.
That HAS to be the El Cheapo red vinyl interior of an `81 Chevette coupe with the only options being a two speed automatic and an AM radio.It even had a rubber ‘floor”.This penalty box on wheels was just something my family bought until we were ready to get a better car. I was almost ashamed to be seen in it, but at least it was reliable and almost fun to drive.
Yes, the “Chevette” gets my vote. Particularly the “Scooter”. Made the “63 Beetle” I rode in almost “up market.”
I had a 1978 Camaro that used that same red vinyl. By time I took ownership in 1985 it’d faded to maybe 5 or 6 different shades.
In my experience it was a tie between a 1972 Javelin and a 1974 stripper Charger coupe. Both suffered from my main gripe, big pieces of molded plastic on door panels and other appearance panels. The Javelin had nicer seats because it was in top AMX trim, so it was a touch better than the Charger. Nobody did cheap interiors better than AMC and oChrysler in the first half of the 70s.
I was pretty impressed by the Omni/Horizon interiors that put you off because I found them such an improvement over their offerings a decade earlier.
The worst modern interiors were in the vehicles put out by DaimlerChrysler right before Fiat took Chrysler off DB’s (mismanaging) hands. Just awful.
for me, was a 1996 subaru wagon. we were looking for a car my wife would use for her long work commute in real 4 season weather – Upstate NY. That Scooby was fresh to dealer lot as a Program Car from short term in rental service at Hertz. Everything was in fine shape. But as to the “worst car sat in” factor – within 3 minutes of the test drive, the low flat driver seat cushion with absolutely no thigh support for 6’1″ me, it was a Pain In The A… Tuchus. We discussed. she liked the car. we bought. Within 2 weeks she was complaining about it’s driver seat. I had a fallback plan. had saved the wonderful million way all mechanical adustment driver seat from a scrapped 84 Mazda 626. (that seat was going to allow me to resurrect 1 car from the original & a duplicate 626 i collected) . I machined the necessary anchor holes into a pair of 1/2″ aluminum adapter plates and nearly _ PRESTO_ the mazda seat allowed that Scooby to be comfortably driveable by both of us. but left in its original config, we would have had …issues. At trade in time, we were questioned about the mismatch. but I had saved the original. i dropped it back in to allow the future owner to suffer numb butt in matching fabric.
Biggest disappointment was a Jaguar X-Type. As soon as I sat in one at the dealer, it was too obviously a cheap Ford product. Steering wheel was standard Ford molded plastic and the shifter was also black plastic with the pattern printed in black paint on thin aluminum glued on.
Worst rental car interior, also mentioned by others, was the Chevette. I reserved a Fiesta from Hertz because I wanted to do an extended “test drive”, but the “or similar” Chevy is what they had on Maui at the time. I later ended up buying a Fiesta, nice interior for the price.
It wasn’t that this interior was poorly constructed, in fact, its fit and finish were pretty good.
But my roommate’s brand new ‘84 Nissan Pulsar had an interior that was…. Hmmm… Spartan would be a kind word.
While it was easier to load the skis into his hatchback than the trunk of my ‘83 T-Bird, I hated it when it was his turn to drive to the mountain. You’re already going to be sore after skiing. Riding any kind of distance home afterwards in that car was particularly brutal.
My ‘83 Aerobird’s base cloth interior was much more comfortable.
In the same vein as the early 80’s Charger, what comes to mind is the 1981 Ford EXP. I was shopping in that sector of the market, and remember looking at the Honda Prelude, a Subaru coupe, the Triumph TR-7, and of course the VW Scirocco.
How many times have many of us have that fleeting but doomed thought with domestic manufacturers ‘Maybe This Time?’ (cue Liza Minelli from ‘Cabaret’…). But just one 60 second sit in the car in the showroom was enough to send me running out the door before a salesman could accost me. It was a depressing view of hard, rough-edged, but still flabby plastic that should never have made it past the concept stage. Surprisingly, the TR-7 gave off a similar vibe, but it’s the EXP that sticks in my mind.
Of course I fell in love with, and bought, the Scirocco. To my mind VW has seldom hit that design peak again, although the last Golf model came close – the interior in particular was impressive. That Cabaret song now sometimes plays faintly in the background whenever VW introduces a new model. Love is blind. 🙂
When I was a Mopar service advisor in 2004, the sales department was screaming for a decent entry level car to compete with Toyonda. The dealer principal promised us the new Caliber would be that car. When they saw it during the dealer showing, they immediately put the dealership up for sale. The Caliber was that bad.
When I saw one in person I was shocked to see the interior was by Rubbermaid. It was cheap, angular plastic the whole way. The rest of the car looked like it was designed by a committee.
Agree!! “Caliber” was “all around, bad”!
As her last car, mother had the Plymouth TC3 with the 4 speed and the 2.2 engine. I don’t remember the interior as being bad, just nondescript. I did feel the seats could have used some bolsters. Just make sure your seat belt is tight. It did cry out for a 5 speed, but that was not an option. Overall it was a good deal for the money and the interior stood up well, but at that point she did not drive that much.
Without a doubt, my 1983 Chevy Chevette Scooter had one of the worst interiors of any car I’ve ever sat in. So cheaply made that the door inserts were made of cardboard.
Overall a horrible car to drive (slooooow, awful ride) but a great car to own (great MPG, reliable, easy to work on).
Interesting to see the Chevette brought up so many times. The Chevette was craptastic from top to bottom, inside and outside. It is the worst car I have ever driven and that is saying something. Even the “dea uxe” interior was total garbage.
GM sold loads of them, which I can’t fathom. My 1974 Corolla was superior to any Chevette in every way and my string of VW Rabbits better than both.
The worst part of the Chevette is that it just wouldn’t die. I hated driving it but mechanically it was solid and nothing on it ever broke that I couldn’t fix with a Chilton’s manual.
After the Chevette I had another craptastic car, a 1989 Pontiac LeMans which was better in every way than the Chevette but was a lemon. The engine blew on it twice before I got rid of it. After the LeMons, I rented a 1992 Corolla to go on a road trip and it was a revelation. Like, “Oh. THIS is what a compact car should be.”
This. I was going to jump in and vote for the Chevette Scooter as well. I was working for Dueck’s so got to experience the Vega interiors, but the Scooter was on a whole new level for GM, with the cardboard door panels. Flimsy and cheap comes to mind, and I mean the whole car. My new wife had a 71 Corolla which was superior in every way.
Agree on Chevette, drove two for my job in the mid 80s, one was a 5 speed with atrocious clutch that after a day made my leg sore and a shifter that felt like a mop handle in a bucket, that one was a higher end model in blue and at least looked ok. Then they replaced it with the automatic which had zero power and was I think the scooter model in red – absolutely awful, nothing but a speedo and fuel gauge, I hated every second I spent in that turd.
Maverick interiors were also miserable as someone wrote earlier – they felt claustrophobic with that negative angle slab in front of your face and nothing inside to even look at.
Without a doubt, my ’95 Grand Am. It started falling apart almost immediately, from brittle, rigid interior panels to cheap synthetic rubber “hammocks” under the front seat cushions instead of real springs, these gave out and had you sitting in a “pot” (because I weighed a whopping 140lbs then, less now). The ’90 Eurosport Lumina at work was just as bad because it seemed to use the same garbage as my Grand Am. I agree with dman, the ’72 Vega I had experience with was pretty awful, but the Grand Am takes the prize.
And to think I could have at least bought a Saturn instead if I had to have a GM car. Or better yet, another Nissan. I’m over my GM enthusiasm.
Yugo has to take the cake for cheap interiors. The thin French-terry cloth upholstery was bad enough, but the dash itself was basically the same hard yet flimsy blow-molded plastic as those fake computers you used to see placed on desk furniture for demonstration purposes at office supply stores.
My brother ad one of those “Chargers”. Metallic , burgundy color. Wasn’t striped; “a/c” was aftermarket and “under the hood” wasn’t equipped to deal with it.
He’s the last person I’d of ever expected to pull a boner like he did.
Car was otherwise nice.
They have a garage, drive few ((relatively speaking)) miles.
All their cars stay quite nice.
The two worst interiors I can recall are a mid 80s Hyundai Pony and a 2002ish Chrysler Sebring both were depressing pits of cheap grey plastic that made a Case 480 backhoe cab look inviting
Girlfriend in the mid 90’s had a turbo Daytona purchased new as college graduation gift some years before. Total piece of crap interior, even in Mark Cross form. Black buckets covered in thick leather looked nice but were as comfortable as airplane jump seats even with the blood pressure cuff pump adjustments. Every single piece of plastic creaked, was misaligned or had fallen off after 4 years. My 92 Achieva was like a Caddy by comparison. My 2000 Saturn SL2 was better! Purchased a 2006 Chevy Equinox for my wife in 2008 off lease from my company, so much gray plastic it felt like riding in a Death Star, the seat fabric absorbed every bit of dirt and would not come clean, plus the door card surfaces wore out. Yuck. The 2009 Edge I replaced it with had an instrument / dash panel so dark and featureless, I thought it might be a black hole. Seat stuffing disintegrated and deposited itself all over the carpet
My nomination for the Worst Interior Award goes to the early (1979-1980) Westmoreland-produced Volkswagen Rabbit. Americanization run amok! It was bad enough that the vinyl & plastic were apparently sourced from GM, they also used the same colors. What was once a very Germanic interior morphed into a Malibu on steroids.
The Double Secret Extra Probation award goes to the powder blue interior color of this era. As a former auto detailer (mid to late 1980s), I was forced with the task to make interiors of this color look good once again. It was a futile task. I think they must’ve mixed in some Fade-O-Maric 3000 additive in the vinyl, plastic, and carpeting, resulting in massively uneven rates of discolorization. .Bleargh!
That Rabbit interior, and the price, steered me to the Fiesta, which was very European in character. A coworker had a Rabbit with blue interior and you are dead on about it.
The few Malaise era interiors that I have rode in – GM’s Chevy Chevette, Ford’s Fairmont and Ranger (pre 1989), and Chrysler’s Plymouth Reliant and Dodge Ram Van – all were awful. The only two that were okay from that era were the Buick Century (A body) and Pontiac Bonnevllle (G body).
I have managed to avoid Chrysler interiors from the later Daimler era, but those were by far the worst on the market in the post-Malaise era.
Actually, the YJ Wrangler – THAT was the worst of the worst. Forgot about that one.
The Yugo has to be the worst, as might be expected by it’s price point. But I’ve been in or driven Trabants, Wartburgs, 2CV, 4CV, and nothing feels as shitty as the Yugo interior. The plastic is hard and flimsy, and the entire interior is covered in it
This is the seventh vote for the Chevrtte. Out friends had one and regretted it pretty much from the day they bought it. As soon as their finances improved they gave it away. Actually they donated it to a Cuban refugee family we were helping and it served them okay for several years.
Clearly none of you have driven a Trekka brown vinyl seats yellow painted metal everywhere zero padding on anything awkwardly placed gearshift, of the hundreds of various cars and light commercials Ive driven that was the worst they make a basic 60s Landrover seem luxurious
Considering it’s a niche product in a niche part of the world and based on a 60s Skoda and made to be super cheap it’s not surprising it was horrid. Even the Australians didn’t want to buy them.
The worst car interior I actually rode in was a friend’s Chevette, not sure about the year. It was a mousy brown/tan mess that had a rattling glove box door. By the time the first ride ended, I had him follow me home, where I loosened up and straightened the glove box door, and stuck some foam tape on the door so it wouldn’t rattle.
The worst interior I ever drove in was a 1980 Mercury Zephyr. The whole car was tan, inside and out, the glove box door went, “tick tick tick” over any and all bumps, the steering wheel was slippery as hell, I’m guessing partly due to Armor All or some similar stuff being rubbed all over everything. I just hated it and I had it as a rental for 6 days.
As far as interiors in general go, make mine black, I hated the colored interiors of some of my past cars. The first car I bought myself, my ’74 Roadrunner, had black interior, so did my ’77 Power Wagon. My ’79 Trans Am had an awful burgandy interior, and my ’86 Iroc had an interior that almost made me not buy it, “camel”. I truly hated it, and when I would see a maroon Camaro with the grey interior, I would think, “Why the F*** did I buy this thing?”. I bought it for one reason, it was a great deal. But as long as I had it, I was looking for a wrecked car to grab the grey interior out of. Never happened.
Way, way back in my college days, I had a ’62 Plymouth Valiant station wagon in the better-trimmed model. By 1971, this car had disintegrating upholstery and, especially noted, a disintegrating speaker grille. The southern Arizona sun had done quite a number on the materials. Exposed screws everywhere in the interior. The thing got me through my first three years of college, then someone who failed to yield the right of way totaled the front end. Next car was a ’61 Dodge Lancer wagon, in base trim. At least as bad as the ’62, plus rusting floor pans.
Fast forward many years to the 1990s. We flew to San Diego for a short vacation and rented a Pontiac something-or-other (midsized, I think; it could accommodate three good-sized men). Fit was OK, but the interior was a dismal dark gray or black, with GM’s infamous molded door panels. The thing exuded cheap, cheap fleet-car trim quality.
Fast forward again to 2004 or so. We flew into Seattle and rented a Chevy Impala to drive to Vancouver, B.C. The Canadian experience was wonderful. The car? Utterly boring. It had lots of room and behaved competently, with passable comfort. But the interior was GM’s best mouse fur upholstery. What a BLAH experience.
Not the first time, but I disagree with many on interior colors. Dashes for one just look right to me unless they’re black. Too many years in BMWs I guess. Black interiors I don’t mind, certainly better than anything even approaching white or ivory. Red interiors make me cringe. I do things, I work, white or ivory or whatever just doesn’t work for me.
But onto worst. Got to be early ’00s Chevrolet Cavalier. Had one as a work car at the county government I worked for. Uncomfortable seats to start with, but the extreme tubular shaped body meant I hit my head whenever I turned around to check traffic. And I’m not a big guy, 5-9, 145. But the styling was so strange the seat belt hanger was right next to my head. Everybody gave the fleet manager a hard time for buying those things, and he acknowledged it after a while, but by then what to do as a gov agency, you put up with it.
I also bumped my head many times when I went from many years driving a boxy car and then switched to a very swoopy one.
Some that stand out in my memory are early 80s fox-bodies and the crumbling dashboards and speaker grilles.
Also early Cavalier base models were pretty bad.
The 2000s Focus was all hard plastic everywhere.
My ’92 Mustang was plastic-fantastic.
Our 2011 Escape has been a great car but man oh man is it all hard plastic inside.
I once had an old Jeep Wagoneer and it had cardboard down by the doors, as did a (’64?) Falcon I briefly owned.
My ’05 Taurus had crappy seats comparable to my ’00 Concorde.
80s GM headliners falling down was very common as they aged.
My ’79 Bronco had black vinyl seats that would try to cook you if it was a sunny summer day.
That’s just some that come to mind.
Never sat in a Chevette Scooter. Beyond the door panels, the body-colour painted metal upper interior doors cheapened the interior of any Chevette I’ve seen. Especially, if there was a distinct difference in interior and exterior colour schemes.
Of the cars I’ve owned, the Yugo was the absolute worst. The door cards were the flimsiest vacuum molded plastic you can imagine. I’m trying to avoid hyperbole here, but Styrofoam egg cartons had more solidity. Also, if you owned one, you also knew this: The window winder handles would break at completely random times. Occasionally the latch handle would too, but the window winders were far more likely.
I had a Ford Maverick (1974) which had a miserable interior. The bench seat was awful (and that was with my 18-year-old back!) and the dash pad had plenty of cracks. In cold weather all that cheap plastic creaked and groaned like nothing else. The glove box cover had its own series of squeaks and rattles, distinct from the rest of the interior.
A (dis-)honorable mention for my Pontiac G6; it probably has the most squeaks and rattles of any car I’ve bought in recent times. I didn’t help things by running V-rated tires on the car (on Michigan roads). Most of the noise comes from the front door panels and the headliner, but the dash is solid and quiet. My other disappointment is the black leather interior. The cheap GM leather of the late 2000’s has my front seat coverings cracking and looking shabby.
I currently daily a 2010 Chrysler Town and Country, with the famous DaimlerChrysler interior styling. While the plastic grade in this van is acceptable, the aesthetics are less than great. The interior is gray, not silver or smoke or argent, but gray. A little more contrast or a different texture would help. And who thought a silver carpet in a minivan was a good idea? But, at 180000 miles, the interior is well damped and very quiet. I really can’t complain about that aspect of it.
We had a couple of Yugos come through Dad’s repo lot back in the day. I can testify: they were abysmal. Only slightly better were Chryslers of the same era; the title image gave me terrified flashbacks. Those cars felt like they were assembled with Tinkertoys.
Side note: my Scout came to me with a set of seats pulled from a Shelby GLH and welded to the seat mounts. They were the first thing I replaced. They were made of cardboard and the “foam” might have been 1/2” thick.
The worst interior I’ve been in extensively was the original J-car (Cavalier) interior. I particularly didn’t like that the Z-24 interior was much nicer. I would save particular loathing for an early 80s AMC Concord a friend had as well but all of those late 70s designs were rough.
I will defend the interior of the Chevette, however, as at least being honest. It’s the interior the car should have (and I actually kind of liked it).
My 2002 Nissan Altima had, in my opinion, a very cheap interior full of hard plastic easily scratched and very thin carpet. This was my first Nissan, I bought it for its new and different exterior styling, and thought I would be happy with it. I kept it five months and then went back to Buicks.
Any mid-late ’70s Monza, Skyhawk, or Starfire… absolute garbage in every respect.
I really liked my 2010 Toyota Venza. Except for the dash layout