1984 Pontiac Sunbird GT
It looked badass (six headlights!) and with its turbo 1.8-liter four was damn fast in a straight line. But the turbo wasn’t intercooled and IIRC was mounted on the intake instead of the exhaust, and engine components were constantly getting fried. Combine that with all the other defects of the GM X-bodies and I’d had enough after three years.
I hd a '67 Chevy Impala 4-door as my first car. It was a hand-me-down from my grandfather to my brother to me, and my brother ran the crap out of it. Almost every trip was an adventure. Once the U-joint broke and the driveshaft almost came through the floor. Another time a tie-rod fell off and the passenger front wheel went sideways and almost caused a crash. The car would sometimes just die while driving due to electrical problems. I drove it for about 2 years.
But that’s not the worst one. I leased a loaded 2000 Ford Windstar once that was absolute garbage. In the first 5,000 km the transmission detonated itself, the power door stopped working, the headliner fell down, various instruments stopped working, and various other problems had me taking the POS back to the dealer repeatedly. I think I drove almost as many km in loaner cars than I did in that piece of junk.
Strangely, we had a 1998 Windstar before that one, and it worked flawlessly. Maybe the new one was one of those mythical ‘made on a Friday afternoon’ vehicles.
I had a 240-Z that rusted out underneath so bad that one day I was sitting at a light and tried to adjust myself in the seat, and the entire seat broke off its mount and dumped me backwards. Turned out it was all rusted out underneath the carpet, and the entire car had to be scrapped.
Another 240-Z my wife bought wouldn’t hold a wheel alignment, and when we got it up on the shop hoist a technician scraped away the ‘undercoating’ that was supposed to have protected it from rust and found that the car was rusted out and someone had stuffed the holes with foil and wire to fool a magnet test then ‘undercoated’ over it.
That car also had to be sold for parts. If I had found the guy who sold a dangerous car to my wife, he would have to have been sold for parts too. But it wasn’t really the car’s fault. I loved 240-Zs, but they might be contraindicated in a cold city that salts the roads in winter.
Are you sure you’re not conflating two different cars? Because while I’ve heard plenty of negative things about the Citation, as far as I know it was never offered with a three-on-the-tree, which was pretty much obsolete when that car came out. At least based on a car blog I read, the last car offered in the US with a three-on-the-tree was the '79 Nova.
I had three Jeeps, a '92, '98 and an '03, all Wranglers and I liked them all, especially the newer two.
As for least favorite:
A Fiat Panda: basically a ball of tinfoil shaped like a car. Totally bare bones and could barely get out of its own way.
A 1972 Mercedes 240D. Granted, I bought this thing as temporary transportation in 1986 and it wasn’t in very good condition. It couldn’t top 60 on the autobahn.
84 CJ7 ragtop. Now it was kinda fun to drive. When it wasn’t trying to kill you. The right rear wheel, hub and axle kept trying to leave the vehicle. It wouldn’t stay fixed.
My dog hated that vehicle. Smart dog.
And a ragtop in very high elevation Rocky Mountain winters was a bit of a drag. I was younger then though.
Not to pile on (but why not?), a '74 Chevy Vega was my first and worst car. In addition to rusting and mechanical issues, it also developed a starter problem. To get the engine running, you had to open the hood and connect two contact points with a screwdriver. Vegas should always be photographed with the hood open.
Years later I found out that columnist Dave Barry’s Vega had the exact same problem.
On the other hand, our '91 Miata was an all-time favorite. Had it for nine years.
I had my Jeep Liberty for 14 years, it has been my favorite of maybe 20 vehicles I’ve owned.
It still ran like a top when I traded it in last year. Driving to the dealership I felt like I was taking my dog in to be put down.
Worst car was my 1980 Reliant. Among other quirks, you could not turn the heat off because of a broken switch. That was fun when it was 90 degrees out.
mmm
The car I owned, prior to the LeBaron I mentioned earlier, was an '81 Plymouth Reliant (and, we joked, the name was an oxymoron). Though it was definitely an economy car, with zero bells or whistles (no AC, no power windows, and the radio was a cheap aftermarket one I bought), the thing did run like a champ, and it got the best mileage of any car I’ve ever owned (about 40mpg on the highway).
At least one could turn the heat off on mine. 
Okay, we’re not seeing the number of Jeep responses I would have figured. But with good reason! Jeeps drivers have had to cancel internet service due to lack of funds, or are dead on the side of a trail somewhere. 
My mom had a Vega - a '72, I think it was. It was a crapshoot whether it would start or not. She got rear-ended by someone a couple years after she got it - not even badly, just a little crunch on the right - and the insurance company totaled it. It was sort of a relief.
My late ex-father-in-law gifted us with a couple of doozies.
The first was a 1970-something Ford LTD. A/k/a the “LSD” or “The Love Boat”. Got about a whopping 6 miles to the gallon and had a suspension so soft you felt absolutely no contact with the road, which I found disconcerting. My least favorite moment with it was trying to jack it up in a muddy driveway. It just kept sinking deeper and deeper into the ooze.
He followed up that “gift” with a Ford Maverick, kin to the Pinto mentioned upthread. The floorboards were mostly rusted out, you could see the road below as you drove along. Miraculously, it never exploded, though the smell of gasoline was constant.
Since 1997 I have bought nothing but Toyotas and have been very pleased.
I inherited a '72 Pontiac LeMans from my grandfather. How cool, the car in the French Connection car chase, right*?
Well, not so much. Even though it looked great, he had used it to tow a trailer and unfortunately didn’t do much in the way of maintenance. After less than 6 months it needed a new transmission. Shortly thereafter the radiator sprung a leak and I had to replace it and all the hoses. After that got into a minor fender bender that broke my hood latch. As a temporary fix I held it down with bungee cords and got my battery stolen…twice. In got the latch fixed but that was it for me–I used it for a trade-in for a Mazda GLC. I think they gave me $300 for it.
*the car in the movie was actually a '71
1976 Fiat 128, hands down. The body and interior were probably the best of any 1970s car I had, but the engine and electrical systems were horrible. Also, the exhaust system kept falling apart so I resorted to wiring it together. The second worst was a 1969 Beetle, which according to some people were assembled by the Almighty himself. Mine needed constant tune-ups, and the body tended to rust even though I washed it and waxed it. It never got the great (for the time) gas mileage it was supposed to get.
I can add another, though it was my parents’ car, not my own, although I drove it a lot when I was in high school.
From about 1980 to 1983, we had a 1969 Jeep Wagoneer, much like the picture below, though in pale yellow.
- Having been a Wisconsin car for its entire life, it had a bad case of rust, particularly in the rear quarter-panels.
- The heater core was shot, and thus, the heater barely worked – much fun in Wisconsin winters!
- It had 4WD, which one implemented by manually “locking” the front hubs, then throwing a big lever on the floor, next to the driver’s seat. It got 10mpg in 2WD, and maybe 5mpg in 4WD mode.
/stories/2010/10/1969JeepWagoneer_01_700.jpg)
This looks just like the one I mentioned in my post. Faded Green. The color of sadness.
I really did kinda like it however.
It would be a strange Chevy II Nova with a slant six! Slant sixes were Chrysler-Dodge-Plymouth engines. I had one in a '67 Dart.
I have had several lousy cars. Objectively, the '71 Vega wagon would seem to be the worst on paper. It had a huge dent on the rear quarter panel, a mismatched front fender, and all the factory-original rust anyone could want. It took ten quarts of oil for an 800 mile trip. However, it was quite reliable and never failed to get me where I needed to be. Its driving position was quite good and the seat was comfy (I did swap the driver and passenger seats in the front- the passenger seat was in nearly new condition!).
Another POS was a '67 Malibu I pieced together. By the time I got rid of it, it had the engine from an El Camino, a Vega GT steering wheel, a transmission from an Impala (the third one while it was mine), and a front bench seat from an undetermined vehicle. I wasted too much time on that car.
My least favorite car was a '78 Chevette I bought at a GM dealership. I did so because I was nearly thirty with no credit history. I figured the GMAC payments and the payments I made on a new set of tires would help build my credit. It did. The car wasn’t mechanically terrible; it was reliable and everything worked fine. It just was pathetically slow and had a horrible driving position that really got uncomfortable after a couple of hours.
'88 Plymouth Sundance. Not a bad car per se, but bland, underpowered (I could mitigate against that some, since it was a stick), not comfortable for extended trips.
that piece of crap Chevy Vega my second late husband bought me.
I had a 1986! All my left-on-the-side-of-the-road horror stories involve that car.