The infamous Yugo is synonymous with a lemon car to most people, but the maligned economy car was far from the first to be rated as the “worst car” ever. Photo from wikipedia.org.

The 1980s weren’t the only decade with a Yugo. That disposable little car that was sold from 1985-1992 to people that cared little for fashion and design, and even less for performance or quality. Well, consider the 1970s Ford Pinto and AMC Gremlin or the 1960s Corvair. Like the Yugo, many of these ill-conceived economy cars were slammed for their lack of performance and poor quality, along with their terrible safety flaws. Their reputations were so bad that comedians often used them as the punch lines and the butts to many of their jokes.

Even prior to Nader’s character assignation of the Corvair, the world was treated to a couple of the 1950s version of the Yugo. Much like the Yugo, the two cars we are featuring in this article were also made in Europe. Surprisingly, they are both German cars, one from Communist East Germany and one from the free West German side.

The Trabant P50 East German car. Photo from wikipedia.org.

1957 Travant P50

First unleashed on the captive motorists of East Germany in 1957, this doomsday machine has become a symbol of communist car manufacturing. The early design featured a host of newer car manufacturing ideas that were cutting-edge at the time. Plastic body, front-wheel drive with a transverse-mounted, two-stroke engine. What happened was less than cutting-edge revolutionary. The two-stroke engine required a gas/oil mixture as fuel, so the car bellowed bluish-gray clouds of exhaust smoke wherever it went.

The P50’s 500cc engine was rated at 18 horsepower which later became 20 horsepower with a few tweaks. If the over-revving, smoke-belching, little car wasn’t disturbing enough, the small and cramped interior held the occupants close together as the teeth-rattling suspension tortured the driver and passengers with the car’s ultra-stiff suspension. Believe it or not, the car suffered from production shortages as well.

The humble P50 found some success in motorsports much later. Photo from wikipedia.org.

Older models of the car later became popular among collectors in the U.S. due to their low cost and fewer restrictions on importing antique cars. The Trabant also gained a following among car tuning enthusiasts and for use in rally racing and other motorsports.

The low power output from the inefficient two-stroke engine that puffed out thick smoke, provided horrible ride comfort, also suffered from poor fuel economy. The car was named one of the 50 worst cars of all time by Time Magazine. Popular East German jibes about the car:

• How do you catch a Travant P50? — Just stick chewing gum on the highway. (Alluding to the Trabant’s underpowered motor.)
• What is the longest car on the market? — The Trabant, at 12 meters length. 2 meters of car, plus ten meters of smoke.

The Zundapp Janus. Photo from wikipedia.org.

1958 Zundapp Janus

Even if you don’t think you know what the Zundapp Janus is, you probably do. By now, almost everyone has watched the movie Cars 2, when the group of lemon cars plan to take over oil profits by using an “electromagnetic pulse” emitter. That devious device was created by the lemon car’s weapon designer, Professor Zundapp. The movie’s writers did their homework and named the antagonist after one of the worst made cars of all time.

Professor Zündapp from the animated feature Cars 2. Photo from wikipedia.org.

In a strange way, the Zundapp Janus has a cuteness factor that is directly related to the small size of the vehicle. Beyond that, everything else about this car is just wrong. If you are wondering how things went so wrong with the Janus, the answer is easy. Zundapp, a very well-respected, and major German motorcycle manufacturer, decided to build a four-wheel car. Their plan was to expand into the microcar, moped, and scooter markets. Instead the company labored and finally collapsed in 1984.

No one could tell if it was coming or going. Photo from wikipedia.org.

The design crew of the janus tried to incorporate innovate designs in their new microcar. No conventional side doors but fore and aft doors. This alone was pretty unconventional and strange looking, but when the seats were added with the front seat facing forward and the rear seat facing aft, bystanders couldn’t tell which direction the car was heading. Not that it mattered, with a mousy little single cylinder, two-stroke, 245cc engine that was capable of 14 horsepower, this mid-engine machine was no speedster. The top speed was documented at barely 50 mph, which meant no matter how you looked at it, the car was a catastrophe.

The car was more expensive that its competitors, lacked many of the creature comforts the other microcars offered, and simply failed to have success in sales. In the middle of their second year of manufacturing, the company abandoned the project and sold the factory to Bosch.