The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: jlgarfield on December 03, 2020, 04:02:18 PM
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I was going to make this Price is Right-centric, but this could apply to ANY game show that offered cars as a prize.
What do you think are some of the worst car model(s) offered on ANY game show? Me, the Cadillac Cimmaron and Catera; those two were just lousy. The former for it being just a glorified Cavalier, and the latter..... had too many reliability issues.
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Pretty sure the winner has to be the Yugo, which AFAIK only ever appeared as a prize on Classic Concentration.
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Chevy Vegas.
There was also a Fiat model I saw on an ep. of TPIR on YouTube; I'm forgetting which model, but it sure wasn't a 124 Spider.
/if anyone sees a 124 Spider on any of these retro TPIRs, let me know
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The new Barker TPiR YouTube page features a Five Price Tags playing for a 1982 Fiat Strada. Fix It Again Tony.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vo3S9hFVSQ&t=1m39s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vo3S9hFVSQ&t=1m39s)
There was also a Super Ball playing in one of the episodes for a really ugly electric car.
When they get to Season 12's episodes, we're going to see the Zoe Zipper! :P
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Not sure TPIR or any other game show gave away Plymouth Horizons/Dodge Omnis (they were made between 1978 and 1990), but if those were offered as prizes, they should have come with a disclaimer: "Guaranteed to slowly fall apart after 60,000 miles. Oh, and don't drive this much above 60 MPH, either. Actually, just get something else."
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Not a "car" that you could take on the Interstate per se, but those Gem cars that TPiR offered about 20 years ago were pretty fugly.
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/W7wAAOSwCrtccJvX/s-l640.jpg)
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Surely nothing can beat a 1958 Chevrolet Chevette...?
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Surely nothing can beat a 1958 Chevrolet Chevette...?
Except possibly the 1968 Chevrolet Chevette.
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Not sure TPIR or any other game show gave away Plymouth Horizons/Dodge Omnis (they were made between 1978 and 1990), but if those were offered as prizes, they should have come with a disclaimer: "Guaranteed to slowly fall apart after 60,000 miles. Oh, and don't drive this much above 60 MPH, either. Actually, just get something else."
Not to start a debate - but I had a 1989 Plymouth Horizon and it was great. Sold it when it has 153,000 miles and it only ever needed an alternator. If you’d said Chevrolet Chevette/Pontiac 1000, I could have agreed with that, though. :)
My thought was the little electric car TPiR offered on occasion as the Door #3 prize on Superball! as a terrible “car”.
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Not a "car" that you could take on the Interstate per se, but those Gem cars that TPiR offered about 20 years ago were pretty fugly.
Those were up for grabs on Whammy!, too.
I remember being less than impressed with the pair of Pontiac Fieros that were up for grabs a few times on Sale of the Century.
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https://jalopnik.com/murder-transsexuals-and-the-price-is-right-the-story-464820740
I believe I have the episode as well. Contestant was SOL if they had won.
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The new Barker TPiR YouTube page features a Five Price Tags playing for a 1982 Fiat Strada. Fix It Again Tony.
That *might* be the car........and yes, I'd suppose "Fix It Again Tony" would apply moreso to that than the 124 Spider (unless, of course, the rust bugs have taken to the latter).
Not to start a debate - but I had a 1989 Plymouth Horizon and it was great. Sold it when it has 153,000 miles and it only ever needed an alternator. If you’d said Chevrolet Chevette/Pontiac 1000, I could have agreed with that, though. :)
My brother had a Plymouth Horizon as his first car. I seem to recall it dying some horrific mechanical death one day.
Re. the Pontiac T1000: I just saw one get described on the ep. they're running right now as I read that (Card Game Pauline, if anyone's seen it yet).
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Daihatsu Charade hatchbacks on Classic Concentration
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The new Barker TPiR YouTube page features a Five Price Tags playing for a 1982 Fiat Strada. Fix It Again Tony.
That *might* be the car........and yes, I'd suppose "Fix It Again Tony" would apply moreso to that than the 124 Spider (unless, of course, the rust bugs have taken to the latter).
Not to start a debate - but I had a 1989 Plymouth Horizon and it was great. Sold it when it has 153,000 miles and it only ever needed an alternator. If you’d said Chevrolet Chevette/Pontiac 1000, I could have agreed with that, though. :)
My brother had a Plymouth Horizon as his first car. I seem to recall it dying some horrific mechanical death one day.
Re. the Pontiac T1000: I just saw one get described on the ep. they're running right now as I read that (Card Game Pauline, if anyone's seen it yet).
A good friend of mine had a Horizon that met a similar fate, so maybe I was just lucky. :)
Of course, my family replaced a Chevette with the Horizon (!) so it was a low bar to cross.
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Not to start a debate - but I had a 1989 Plymouth Horizon and it was great. Sold it when it has 153,000 miles and it only ever needed an alternator. If you’d said Chevrolet Chevette/Pontiac 1000, I could have agreed with that, though. :)
My brother had a Plymouth Horizon as his first car. I seem to recall it dying some horrific mechanical death one day.
Re. the Pontiac T1000: I just saw one get described on the ep. they're running right now as I read that (Card Game Pauline, if anyone's seen it yet).
A good friend of mine had a Horizon that met a similar fate, so maybe I was just lucky. :)
Of course, my family replaced a Chevette with the Horizon (!) so it was a low bar to cross.
Maybe they got better. All I know is by 1985, I had to put one foot on the brake and one on the accelerator when stopping to avoid it stalling out. It was around 72,000 miles at that point. My father had let me have that Horizon, and unfortunately bought a 1984 model, which started dying at a similar juncture.
Cars in that era were different than now. Consumer Reports pointed out in a recent report that it's very unusual for true lemons to make it to the market. And the expectations are different; it used to be after getting a car over 100,000 miles anything after that was a bonus, but that bar is now a lot higher.
(I drive a rustbucket 2002 Nissan Sentra with about 162,000 miles and the Check Engine light always on due to an electronics issue, so my expectations are low.)
Were there any cars on Wheel of Fortune that were considered particularly bad?
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MotorWeek reviewed a Pontiac 1000, and got one of the slowest performance numbers of any car they ever tested:
•0-60 MPH in nearly 30 seconds (!)
•40-55 MPH in ~12.8 seconds
•500 ft in 11.5 seconds @ 45 MPH
•1/4 mile in 23.3 seconds @ 59 MPH
All this for a fairly measly 25 MPG, and a price (as tested) of ~$7,000.
Malaise Era in a nutshell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMsXLYFU0pU
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https://jalopnik.com/murder-transsexuals-and-the-price-is-right-the-story-464820740
I believe I have the episode as well. Contestant was SOL if they had won.
I would think that if the contestant won the showcase and the company was unable (even through fraudulent means) to deliver the prize, Goodson-Todman and CBS (along with S&P) would have let the contestant choose an equivalent dollar amount worth of prizes.
This sort of scenario happened when a car could not be delivered as a prize. Although on a Canadian game show (Scroll to 22:50).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_npl6tN7vs&feature=emb_title
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My brother and I watched a lot of Card Sharks when GSN had the syndicated series. We agreed that when the show went from offering GMs to AMCs was when the crap hit the fan. Those Renault rust buckets just weren’t cool, convertibles or no convertibles.
Although there was also this.
(http://www.renault-alliance-club-passion.com/img/articles/AllianceLimousine/Alliance_limousine-2.jpg)
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A couple of Saturday Mornings ago, Cullen's TPIR offered up some niche car from a company I never heard of. I'm not sure if that was the Midget sports car (where Buzzr mutes the M-word), or it may have been another car that was offered.
As a contestant, I would hate to win a car that nobody has ever heard of, let alone knows how to fix/find parts for when it has issues.
/ In college, we used to say that if you save and recycle enough beer cans, you can build your own Yugo.
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Personally, I'd love to see any Price is Right ep where a Catera or a Cimarron would be offered. So I can laugh at it. XD
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Cars in that era were different than now. Consumer Reports pointed out in a recent report that it's very unusual for true lemons to make it to the market. And the expectations are different; it used to be after getting a car over 100,000 miles anything after that was a bonus, but that bar is now a lot higher.
I remember when I was a kid, Consumer Reports's car reviews would always say something like "our purchased model had nine sample defects, including a faulty thermostat and misaligned trim." Much more recently, they pointed out, "oh, hey, we don't have to do that anymore because they've gotten better at making sure cars are put together correctly."
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Personally, I'd love to see any Price is Right ep where a Catera or a Cimarron would be offered. So I can laugh at it. XD
Oh God, the Cimarron. I don’t care what GM tried to call it, it’s a damn Cavalier.
It just went to show you that bad luxury copycat designs were not just limited to Oldsmobiles.
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Not a "car" that you could take on the Interstate per se, but those Gem cars that TPiR offered about 20 years ago were pretty fugly.
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/W7wAAOSwCrtccJvX/s-l640.jpg)
Living just outside a large senior community in Florida, I've seen more than a fair share of GEM cars. They are too small and slow for the roads, and too big and wide for the golf cart paths. The community allows them on the golf courses provided that the tires are a specific size and weight. But I can also see why the GEMs are popular here -- a senior uncomfortable with driving a regular car at their advanced age but determined to keep their license would see the vehicle as an alternative to simpler golf carts.
As far as the other cars listed here -- my parents had a Dodge Omni in the early 80s. By the time it it 40,000 miles, it would randomly stall in the middle of the road or highway (nearly started a multi-car chain reaction crash when the engine stopped in the middle of the PA Turnpike). After months of short-term fixes, we got a new vehicle.
Perhaps not the worst car offered, but there was a time in the mid-90s on TPIR where games not known for being "car games" (Safe Crackers, Cliff Hangers, etc.) started offering a vehicle as its big prize. And it was the same car -- the Ford Aspire.
The Aspire was a replacement for the Festiva that, for the most part, had little to no available options with a 0-60 time of just over 16 seconds. As a result, it was dirt cheap as far as new vehicles went (I believe the prize copy referred to it as a car for the budget-conscious shopper or something similar), and TPIR tried to give the car away on essentially every game on its roster. I presume it was called the Aspire because it aspired to actually be an acceptable vehicle :)
JD
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A couple of Saturday Mornings ago, Cullen's TPIR offered up some niche car from a company I never heard of. I'm not sure if that was the Midget sports car (where Buzzr mutes the M-word), or it may have been another car that was offered.
I saw that too--it was definitely the Midget.
As a contestant, I would hate to win a car that nobody has ever heard of, let alone knows how to fix/find parts for when it has issues.
Many years ago, I caught an episode of LMaD late one night on GSN, and the first prize offered was a Bricklin SV-1. A little sports car with gull wing doors (the gasping from the audience when the doors were opened was priceless) built in Canada for the U.S. market by a guy named Malcolm Bricklin. Having never heard of it, I went to the Pedia of Wiki and read up on it and noticed someone had included in the article that the Bricklin was given away as the Big Deal of the Day. Quickly switching into pedantic mode, I edited the article to clarify that it wasn't the Big Deal but rather just a prize during the regular game. The next morning, I had a message from another user who was part of a Bricklin owners' group asking if I happened to have a copy of the episode. I burned off a copy to a DVD and sent it to him, and a couple weeks later, he very kindly sent me a nice poster with lots of beauty shots of the car. But that car strikes me as a contender for "king of impossible to find parts for".
To bring this full circle, after the failure of the SV-1, Bricklin began importing an inexpensive car from eastern Europe and marketed it in the U.S. as the Yugo.
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Fun fact: I actually wanted an Aspire for a long time.
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Not a "car" that you could take on the Interstate per se, but those Gem cars that TPiR offered about 20 years ago were pretty fugly.
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/W7wAAOSwCrtccJvX/s-l640.jpg)
We've ordered some on the Cal campus for our department's disabled students program. They do work compared to the gas guzzlers we borrow for football.
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Fun fact: I actually wanted an Aspire for a long time.
I did too, but at 16, I just wanted a car. :P
Can't remember where I saw it, but the Aspire was unofficially nicknamed the "Expire" because they didn't last long. I prolly haven't seen one on the road in about 20 years, and had honestly forgotten about it until James mentioned it in this thread.
/Also forgot Whammy offered the Gem car
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Personally, I'd love to see any Price is Right ep where a Catera or a Cimarron would be offered. So I can laugh at it. XD
Wish granted. Today's batch of TPiR episodes has a Golden Road playing for a $14K Cimarron! It looked really dinky in front of the rainbow backdrop:
(https://i.imgur.com/CVXiSGm.png)
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Many years ago, I caught an episode of LMaD late one night on GSN, and the first prize offered was a Bricklin SV-1. A little sports car with gull wing doors (the gasping from the audience when the doors were opened was priceless) built in Canada for the U.S. market by a guy named Malcolm Bricklin.
To bring this full circle, after the failure of the SV-1, Bricklin began importing an inexpensive car from eastern Europe and marketed it in the U.S. as the Yugo.
Someone on the street where I grew up had one, no idea what model. It did look odd with all of the late 70s early 80s cars in my neighborhood, which being a Detroit suburb, was pretty much all domestic.
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Personally, I'd love to see any Price is Right ep where a Catera or a Cimarron would be offered. So I can laugh at it. XD
Wish granted. Today's batch of TPiR episodes has a Golden Road playing for a $14K Cimarron! It looked really dinky in front of the rainbow backdrop:
(https://i.imgur.com/CVXiSGm.png)
Now I can't wait for the channel to show the late 1990s eps down the road and see the Catera (barring any uploads of such eps by others, of course).
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Personally, I'd love to see any Price is Right ep where a Catera or a Cimarron would be offered. So I can laugh at it. XD
Wish granted. Today's batch of TPiR episodes has a Golden Road playing for a $14K Cimarron! It looked really dinky in front of the rainbow backdrop:
(https://i.imgur.com/CVXiSGm.png)
Man, that’s just lazy on GMs part. It looks like they just pulled the bow tie logo off a Cavalier and stuck the Cadillac...crest...on it.
It’s like they realized at this point they weren’t fooling anyone and just said “okay, let’s stop lying to ourselves and just make this look as generic as possible, no more point in gussying up this turd.”
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Yep, that is a generic GM box, all right.
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Man, that’s just lazy on GMs part. It looks like they just pulled the bow tie logo off a Cavalier and stuck the Cadillac...crest...on it.
Give GM some credit...this was genius on their part...they took a piece of crap car, slapped a fancy label on it and got the label whores to spend thousands more than the car was worth just for the brand name...
JakeT
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Man, that’s just lazy on GMs part. It looks like they just pulled the bow tie logo off a Cavalier and stuck the Cadillac...crest...on it.
Give GM some credit...this was genius on their part...they took a piece of crap car, slapped a fancy label on it and got the label whores to spend thousands more than the car was worth just for the brand name...
JakeT
As a kid I had a bit of a fascination with GM's cars of the 80s/90s, and how they all had the same body and guts, with a different badge. Anyway, I remember coming across a magazine ad for the Cimarron, a $12K Cavalier/Sunbird that was supposed to give BMW, Mercedes, and Audi a run for the money, by being a few thousand cheaper.
IIRC, a friend's mom had one, and confirmed that it was indeed an overpriced Cavalier.
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/PuIAAMXQVgBRGyzb/s-l1600.jpg)
/Forgot all about the flop that was the Catera
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As a kid I had a bit of a fascination with GM's cars of the 80s/90s, and how they all had the same body and guts, with a different badge. Anyway, I remember coming across a magazine ad for the Cimarron, a $12K Cavalier/Sunbird that was supposed to give BMW, Mercedes, and Audi a run for the money, by being a few thousand cheaper.
I had a fully-loaded 1986 Buick Riviera, complete with the 5" b&w touchscreen controls...it was, I believe, identical to the Cadillac Seville of that model year...
Man, was it a money pit once it started to fall apart...
JakeE
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My grandfather was loyal to Cadillac, and a Catera was the last car he bought (either a '97 or a '98). He never drove it that much, especially after he went into a retirement home -- I think there were less than 10,000 miles on it when he died in 2010. My dad inherited the car, and used it as his daily driver up until last year, when it finally became impossible for his mechanic to get parts.
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I remember Classic Concentration offering a 1987(?) Yugo. I can’t imagine anyone being excited for that pile of crap.
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Nissan Micra on The Price is Big W (aka the 2012 reboot of Aussie TPIR), and only during the Showcase.
LMAD 1980 at one point also had the Oldsmobile Omega, and yes, Pontiac Fieros were being offered up the wazoo, especially on Love Me, Love Me Not.
/The Pontiac 6000 STE was always my '80s dream car anyway (they were the Kia Optima/K5 of its day)
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The $100,000 Pyramid seemed to have plenty of Fieros on offer as Mystery 7 prizes...I guess a nice upgrade from the Chevette you'd get on the $25,000 Pyramid.
Anything (except a Yugo) would be better than a Vega: the little car that does everything well...except stay together. Since we're taking requests, any Classic Concentration contestants ever deliberately lose the bonus round to avoid winning a certain car?
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Since we're taking requests, any Classic Concentration contestants ever deliberately lose the bonus round to avoid winning a certain car?
If they did, I doubt they'd have the balls to admit that on the air. Even "I wanna win more prizes" sounds less douchy than that.
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Not quite. Chevette went until 1987, with production ending in December '86. Chevy sold the Chevette, Sprint, and Spectrum concurrently in the mid-80s, along with the Nova.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevette#Model_years_(1976%E2%80%931987)
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Not quite. Chevette went until 1987, with production ending in December '86. Chevy sold the Chevette, Sprint, and Spectrum concurrently in the mid-80s, along with the Nova.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevette#Model_years_(1976%E2%80%931987)
And the Chevy/Geo Spectrum was basically a souped-up Isuzu I-Mark, but the Escort (with no air conditioning, being that it was Alaska!) was our family car at the time.
/Was FM radio optional on the Chevette (it still had AM according to the LMAD description)?
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And the Chevy/Geo Spectrum was basically a souped-up Isuzu I-Mark
Actually, it was basically a Toyota Corolla--they were made at the same factory.
We bought a five-year-old 1986 model--it wasn't the best car on the road, but it got the job done for a few years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevy_II_/_Nova (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevy_II_/_Nova)
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And the Chevy/Geo Spectrum was basically a souped-up Isuzu I-Mark
Actually, it was basically a Toyota Corolla--they were made at the same factory.
We bought a five-year-old 1986 model--it wasn't the best car on the road, but it got the job done for a few years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevy_II_/_Nova (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevy_II_/_Nova)
The Nova was the Corolla. The Spectrum was indeed the I-Mark.
But oh, those legendary collaborations of the 1980s. Like the NUMMI cars. And the Diamond Star partnership, which brought us a lot of the cars sold as Eagles with maybe one exception (?, that being the originally Renault-branded Premier).
Speaking of the Chrysler-Mitsubishi partnership, was there ever a Colt Vista offered on any game show? I don’t seem to remember ever seeing one and it’s one of my favorite cars. (Why I couldn’t tell you; they just fascinate me)
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Speaking of the Chrysler-Mitsubishi partnership, was there ever a Colt Vista offered on any game show? I don’t seem to remember ever seeing one and it’s one of my favorite cars. (Why I couldn’t tell you; they just fascinate me)
Family Double Dare offered them a few times.
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Speaking of the Chrysler-Mitsubishi partnership, was there ever a Colt Vista offered on any game show? I don’t seem to remember ever seeing one and it’s one of my favorite cars. (Why I couldn’t tell you; they just fascinate me)
Family Double Dare offered them a few times.
Makes a lotta sense, honestly.
My grandpa had one for awhile; I don’t remember what he did with it but I know he didn’t have it when he passed on thirty years ago.
This was around the time that my grandma had her white IROC-Z Camaro. Still to this day I don’t know what a 60+ grandma of four at the time wanted with a car like that but it was a hell of a fun ride when she brought it out. (Turns out even she didn’t know what she wanted with it; I don’t even know if she had it for more than a year when she got rid of it)
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/Was FM radio optional on the Chevette (it still had AM according to the LMAD description)?
It was in 1983 at least, because the Chevette we had that was a 1983 model had only an AM radio. It did have air conditioning, so it had that going for it, but god help you if you needed to go up a hill with the A/C on.
We did manage to coax 110,000 miles out of it though, so it wasn’t that bad.
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My family had a couple of different Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser station wagons during the '80s, and I definitely remember the owner's manuals showing both the AM-only radio option, and the no-air-conditioning climate control option (but we had the upgraded versions of both).
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The $100,000 Pyramid seemed to have plenty of Fieros on offer as Mystery 7 prizes
Hot take: Aside from one defect (an issue with low oil levels causing fires; an issue Kia/Hyundai just announced a major recall for yesterday three and a half decades later), the Fiero's a good - and for the mid 80s surprisingly sporty - car. The '88 revision is particularly good (especially in any of the non-base trims). which of course in peak 80s GM was the one year it wasn't really offered as a game show prize and is the year they killed the car. If I ever hit the lottery, a ton of my discretionary spending would absolutely be on vintage cars and there'd probably be an '88 Fiero GT in there somewhere.
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Personally, I'd love to see any Price is Right ep where a Catera or a Cimarron would be offered. So I can laugh at it. XD
Wish granted. Today's batch of TPiR episodes has a Golden Road playing for a $14K Cimarron! It looked really dinky in front of the rainbow backdrop:
(https://i.imgur.com/CVXiSGm.png)
The Cadillac Cimarron! For those who don't know, this was An attempt to make an "entry level" Caddy for younger people. All it was was a Chevrolet Cavalier with a few odds and ends added with an extra $5,000 on the price tag. There's this great story that for years afterwards, the head of Cadillac used to keep a picture of the Cimarron behind his desk with the caption "Lest we forget..."
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I am surprised nobody has mentioned the Suzuki Samurai (given away on Classic Concentration). A car so dangerous, that it couldn't take a 43 mph turn without tipping over.
But...Alex Trebek seemed to enjoy saying it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szeggpVjQA0
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Speaking of the Chrysler-Mitsubishi partnership, was there ever a Colt Vista offered on any game show? I don’t seem to remember ever seeing one and it’s one of my favorite cars. (Why I couldn’t tell you; they just fascinate me)
"The Price is Right" offered one during a playing of "Hole in One", circa 1984. I remember it being fairly sexed up; it had full power equipment (locks/windows), a/c, and auto trans. It was won.
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Personally, I'd love to see any Price is Right ep where a Catera or a Cimarron would be offered. So I can laugh at it. XD
Wish granted. Today's batch of TPiR episodes has a Golden Road playing for a $14K Cimarron! It looked really dinky in front of the rainbow backdrop:
(https://i.imgur.com/CVXiSGm.png)
The Cadillac Cimarron! For those who don't know, this was An attempt to make an "entry level" Caddy for younger people. All it was was a Chevrolet Cavalier with a few odds and ends added with an extra $5,000 on the price tag. There's this great story that for years afterwards, the head of Cadillac used to keep a picture of the Cimarron behind his desk with the caption "Lest we forget..."
The Catera was also made with the same strategy in mind, only this time, Caddy took the Opel Omega B and sold it under their label as a captive import.
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It was in 1983 at least, because the Chevette we had that was a 1983 model had only an AM radio. It did have air conditioning, so it had that going for it, but god help you if you needed to go up a hill with the A/C on.
We did manage to coax 110,000 miles out of it though, so it wasn’t that bad.
At least Chevettes had back seats by then. Early on they had a "Scooter" trim level where it was optional. Not sure it made much of a difference from a passenger standpoint, but it least it took a few pounds off the curb weight.