Muscle cars are a dwindling breed these days and as that chapter of automotive history begins to wind down, we asked you what the worst muscle cars of all time are.
Your answers were vast, generationally wide, and completely on the money when it comes to muscle cars that needed a bit more protein powder in their diet. Here are the top five worst muscle cars in history.
5. AMC Scrambler
Kicking things off is the AMC Scrambler. It’s not completely without performance chops but instead it’s the styling and finish that ruin it for some of you. eb110americana says “It’s a pretty conservative design, so it’s mainly the tacky paint scheme and wacky garage-built hood scoop that kill it for me.”
Read: Is The Dodge Challenger Demon 170 The Greatest Muscle Car Ever?
JohnTaurus followed up by saying that “If I saw that car, I’d honestly assume a high school kid had inherited his dad’s old commuter and “souped it up”.” That doesn’t seem very far off base if we’re honest.
4. Mercury Marauder
This one surprised me as it’s garnered a bit of a following these days but four of you agreed about it and nobody downvoted it. The Marauder certainly has its supporters but they weren’t in the comment section.
eb110americana also submitted this car and said “The Mercury Marauder always seemed to me like Mercury’s sad attempt to duplicate the coolness of the Chevy Impala – itself, a consumerized version of Chevy’s Caprice police package, and accidental cult-classic. It was a 4,200 lb., body-on-frame grandma mobile with a 302 HP V8 dropped underhood.”
3. 2006 Impala SS
PhilMcGraw scored a six-to-nothing score with his comment, submitting the 2006 Chevrolet Impala SS as the worst muscle car ever. He pointed out its incredible generic styling but we’ll go further to submit that it featured 303 hp but sent it all to the front wheels only. It was a recipe for disastrous torque steer and underwhelming handling, and featured none of the extra performance equipment that came on the Pontiac Grand Prix GXP.
2. Dodge OMNI GLH
From 1984 through 1986, Dodge sold the OMNI GLH or Goes Like Hell which is a bit ironic because it featured a whole 110 hp (82 kW) from its 2.2-liter engine. In fact, that’s one of the weakest power plants in anything that Carroll Shelby ever put his name on.
1. Dodge Charger 2.2
In case the trend isn’t wildly clear already, enthusiasts seem to really hate front-wheel drive “muscle cars.” That’s what the Dodge-Mitsubishi derived Charger 2.2 was and that in part is how it’s what you consider to be the worst muscle car ever. Notably, the Charger and OMNI were closely related. Unlike the OMNI though, the Charger had a name and a reputation to live up to and boy oh boy did it flop hard.