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The line between muscle cars and sports cars is often blurred, any more than with American automakers.
Any car is expensive to develop, but getting one sports car the law still costs much more, especially in terms of research and development. As a rule, sports cars also prioritize performance, which makes this development time all the more important. This is something that has never been welcomed by large companies, because downtime means loss.
Although the Corvette name is big, there are few other genuine sports cars that have established themselves on the world stage. Generally unreliable and always heavy on maintenance, these are some of the worst sports cars money can buy.
10/10 DeLorean DMC-12
The DeLorean story is one that just can’t be said in one entry. It’s a long and winding story that ended quite tragically. One look at the brushed stainless steel body and you’ll quickly realize how beautiful the DeLorean is in person. The photographs don’t do it justice.
It’s incredibly low to the ground and those butterfly doors only add to the theatricality. Unfortunately, all that design work was undone by the woeful PVR-sourced V6 engine, which thankfully wiped out performance, mechanical reliability and drivability in one fell swoop.
9/10 Bricklin SV-1
If you want to split hairs, these are technically Canadian cars. In their infinite wisdom, they chose an AMC V8, the already heavy polycarbonate (plastic) body had to be dragged along by an underpowered, low-emission engine that liked to eat its own oil pump.
It turned out that the build quality was lower than most regular cars. It was also more dangerous than them, and even slower than them too.
8/10 Chevy Camaro
The first thing that might come to mind when you think of this generation Camaro is the Iron Duke, which was another kind of awful, but not really high maintenance.
Unfortunately, the high-performance V8 didn’t have much power either, and getting them back into shape isn’t worth the effort these days, thanks to their low value. The vast majority of these cars are barely worth scrap value today.
7/10 Avanti
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We are all now well aware that betting on a sports car ended up being a pretty bad move for Studebaker. The Avanti looks nice and runs well, but it just didn’t sell well, mostly due to its fiberglass construction, which made it look more like a kit car.
It will then be sold in this kit car form until 2006 (above). The original Avanti made by Studebaker is now an expensive classic, but these kit cars are unfortunately a bit hit and miss, varying wildly in quality. Nothing is more expensive than someone else’s project.
6/10 Ford GT
The GT was actually developed under a cloud of hype and speculation. The cost was and still is exorbitant, and the end product, well, mediocre.
Supercars and hypercars are advancing quite quickly. So while these cars are all collectibles, they aren’t that fast by modern standards and will most likely be blown away by a regular Tesla Model 3. However, they still cost as much as any supercar to maintain.
5/10 Excalibur
What makes the Excalibur so strange is the fact that it is now a classic car, based on a vintage car. Thousands of them were made in Milwaukee, and the prices are oddly on the rise.
This is arguably one of the ugliest cars you can get today, but taste is subjective. What isn’t is the fact that the build quality was never great to begin with and replacing all the non-mechanical parts will cost a fortune today as you will have to have them reconditioned .
4/10 Saturn Sky
The Saturn badge has only served to confuse everyone, including GM themselves, and it’s nothing but an Opel by any other name.
This particular Opel had a lot of potential, but was let down by the same shoddy build quality and plastic interiors that plague all 2000s GM products.
3/10 Dodge the Viper
Dodge broke the mold when they released this monster V10 in the 90s. It’s the right kind of different and arguably one of the finest American sports cars ever made.
It’s also a really fun way to die, because there are no safety nets and rolling up the back is even easier than you might think (yes, even easier). Rolling up the rear will also cost thousands of dollars each time, thanks to the sheer size of those rear tires.
2/10 Ford Mustang SVO
Of all the crazy things to do, the SVO wasn’t a bad idea, it was just poorly executed. Taking a heavy-duty engine and adding a turbo is a great way to gain power.
Sadly, that’s literally all Ford did, they added a turbo, no upgraded cooling, no intercooler, nothing. Small wonder these are maintenance nightmares.
1/10 Chevrolet Corvette C3
The biggest issue with the C3 is the fact that it’s made mostly of fiberglass. Working with fiberglass is a somewhat lost art, especially in the automotive world.
For any bodywork, you just might end up in a shipyard, and they won’t hesitate to charge extra to work on something unfamiliar (although it’s as long as most boats).
Source: Hemmings, YouTube
