Early in my career, one of my editors bluntly declared: “Mate, all cars are shitboxes until proven otherwise.” Around the same time, a veteran colleague offered an alternative take: “I want every car to be great,” he said. “And I’m disappointed if they’re not.”
Glass half full, not glass half empty—passion, with pragmatism. That struck a chord, and along with considering how well a vehicle performs the function its creators intended, it remains a core tenet of my approach to testing and evaluating new cars, trucks, and SUVs.
Here are the ones that disappointed me the most over the past 35 years.
Pontiac Trans-Am GTA
Any last doubts evaporated when the brakes actually caught fire on the way down Angeles Crest Highway that sunny afternoon in mid-1989: The Pontiac Firebird Trans-AM GTA was all hat, no cattle. I was used
