This is, sadly, the first of a four-part series, because there have been so many inept car designs over the years. After reviewing a raft of candidates, I realized that it could have easily have been an eight-part series, but winnowed down the candidates by applying some rules. I decided that merely making an under-engineered or underachieving car wasn't going to get you into the Worst Design Pantheon. There have always been plenty of those, from the first Chevy V8 (no, not the immortal '55 small block, but the Series D from 1917-18) to the Ford Pintos with their exploding fuel tanks, with a nod to the "rebuild the engine at 20,000 miles if it lasts" NSU Ro-80 along the way. Also, failed engineering efforts like the early rotary-engine NSU and the aluminum block / iron head Chevy Vega have been well documented elsewhere. The real achievement, I decided, is to let your engineers do a competent job of designing your chassis and drivetrain, and then make sure you cover up all their efforts with a body design so breathtakingly directionless and inspiration-free that nobody in their right mind will wander into your showrooms to give it a test drive. Our first Honor Award goes to the very British Daimler Dart from 1959. It was only called the Dart for a brief while, because across the Big Pond at Chrysler Corp., Dodge was planning its own Dart for the 1960 model year. Perhaps when they actually saw the Daimler Dart, they were horrified that it might in some way be confused with their own product. They complained that they'd copyrighted the name, and Daimler renamed the car the SP250...
A real tragedy, as Edward Turner's engineering talent was reflected in the 2.5 liter hemispherical combustion chamber V8 which powers the Dart, er…SP250. This lightweight gem was a miniaturized version of the 4.5 liter V8 that went into big Daimler sedans around this time, and was such a good piece that Jaguar used it to power a Daimler-badged version of its Mark II saloon after the inevitable takeover. But we're getting ahead of ourselves…That new engine took most of the budget, so chassis design was a lot like a disc-braked version of the already old-hat Triumph TR-3, as Triumph was vaguely connected to Daimler through the latter firm's control of Triumph and BSA motorcycles. Over this chassis went a slab-sided fiberglass body with some half-hearted embossed character lines, apparently to make us think of vintage Daimlers. The whole effect was subverted by unconvincing tail fins. One of the first signs of a failed industrial design is that stylists, often prompted by screams of pain from sales-starved dealerships, attempt some kind of quick fix. In the case of the SP250, this consisted of little chrome whiskers flanking the grille. Perhaps intended to make the narrow car look wider, they only succeeded in enhancing the homesick catfish look...
Above is the rear view, which some people actually thought was the car's best. This was a case of a modern engine in search of a modern chassis and decent bodywork, all of which were available not all that far away in Thames Ditton, where the AC people were about to run out of engines for the high performance option on their Ace roadster with its fairly modern 4-wheel independent suspension and alloy body, because the Bristol six was ending production. These cars would have been a natural for the Daimler V8s, big or small. AC first tried a Ford Zephyr six*, and then Carroll Shelby got the combination right with the new lightweight Ford V8. You probably know what that car looked like, but after what I've said about the SP250, fans of the Warm Beer Empire may accuse me of implying the Brits never designed any handsome cars. So to dispel that impression, here's the AC Ace just before Shelby made it into the Cobra…
Meanwhile, over at Chrysler Corporation, Dodge had just had a very successful sales year with its new Unibody Dart, which featured conservative fins (at least for Virgil Exner's Late Period), the indestructible Slant Six and the usual V8s, and big, round tail lights like an earlier Ford. Easy to see, right? Dodge sold better than Plymouth (which had huge Exner fins and goofy scalloped front fenders), and dealers were thrilled.
That is, they were thrilled until they saw the 1961 Dart. Chief designer Exner inexplicably decided to mess with success and grafted on new front fenders with the headlights in the grille, while at the rear he created reverse, forward-slanting fins which looped around by way of a chrome spear which pointed to, but didn't relate to, the front. To paraphrase Road & Track, most American cars were so big you couldn't really look at both ends at once anyway...
But when you did look at the back of a '61 Dart, you saw the odd elbow shapes of the backward fins, with little tail lights placed like wraparound afterthoughts just above the bumper, where they were hard to see.
Sales crashed, Dodge dealers complained, and customers blamed rear-end collisions on the invisible tail lights. So a desperate Chrysler Corp. tried a mid-year fix...
This involved grafting contrived chrome pods with round tail lights above and inboard of the original ones, a solution which looked even more like an afterthought, because it was.
The bigger Dodge Polara, aimed at Olds and Pontiac rather than Ford and Chevy, got a different backward fin program with the chrome loop wrapping around large round lights. These lights were pretty visible from the rear, and unmistakable from the side. Still, customers mostly stayed away, and Dodge dealers were relieved when the 1961 model year was over. That is, they were relieved until they got previews of the 1962 Dodge…
*Footnote to history: Apparently, AC directors approached Daimler about their V8s, but were turned down. Shelby's access to the Ford V8 was welcome when it came.
Photo credits:
Daimler SP250 & AC Ace: wikimedia
1960 Dodge Dart & front view 1961 Dodge Dart: Chrysler Corporation
1961 Dodge Dart 2nd photo: wikimedia
1961 Dodge Dart 3rd photo: boldride.com
1961 Dodge Polara: momentcar.com
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