Question of the Day: What is the Scariest Car You’ve Driven?
No matter how good a driver one is, there is always a time when a certain car will give you a scare; sometimes it’s the type of scare that makes you laugh it off and try all over again (good), while other times might make you want to swear off driving all together (bad). Which car has scared you the very most while you were behind the wheel? What exactly happened? Tell us about your most chilling drive, in comments.
Comments
Anonymous
2006 Vanquish S in England during a full downpour. Managed to get up to 170 mph on a mile straight. Wipers stopped functioning at 140 mph.
One of the coolest days of my life.......
OPF
A 2003 Pontiac Sunfire. The car was lended to us the time our Mazda3 got repaired. Everything shake and after two weeks, there was a check oil, check engine light. It was scary.
Mark in Maine
That's easy - A 1982 Nissan Sentra with four temporary spares fitted - one at each corner. Took the thing for a short jaunt on winding Southern Indiana roads one afternoon twenty years ago, pretty spooky. We came back to the garage convinced that those warning labels printed on the tires are there for a reason. Ahh, youth and cheap beer . . .Â
VII
Holy crap! I totally always wanted to try that out!...guess it's a good thing we didn't!
For me, it's be first and foremost, the 2006 Bentley Conti GT Diamond Series...
O_O
...it's a good thing it had those huge ass carbon brakes.
After that I guess it's be my boy's '07 FA5 (Civic Si Sedan) back when it had a 75 shot of juice in it.
Pretty hectic...
~TheDarkWind
GiMa
Chevy Citation. This thing could not stop in a straight line. Even after 3 recalls for the brakes, anything more than light touch on the brake peddle would start the back bumper on a mission to pass the front bumper. If someone did a bonehead move in front, you'd pray that you could maneuver around, but handling also was not a strong point.
oollyoumn
I had one of those old Chevy trucks that rusted in minutes. At anything over 50 mph it would shake and rattle, and it would take full attention and driving skill to keep it in one lane. It only had 42k mi when I got it. It didn't get many more
Harvey
My 993 on full slicks in the wet at Road Atlanta ... a 996 GT2 ... and most recently a Nissan GTR.
Anonymous
Lamborghini Diablo - simply a handful
DR Bush
Haven't "Driven" any car I thought was scary.  However, I have been scared during a few car rides with someone else behind the wheel. First one that pops to mind is an R34 Skyline with 920 wheel HP when I lived in Japan. It was noted as the 3rd fastest R34 in Japan at the time in 2003. He put it at his full boost setting and we went for a little ride down the straight behind the Yokohama tower on a Friday night. No exaggeration, I felt it spin all four corners slightly when he shifted to 3rd!!  Due to the fairly short distance, he just barely got it into 4th before he shut it down....I was thankful for many reasons, and it "spoiled me" in my lust for power forever.Â
"I have the fastest car in my entire garage"
SaturnBob
A 1972 Buick Electra a girlfriend let me borrow during a nice rainy day to make a beer run....er...she kinda neglected to mention that the brakes didnt work so good, or at all. 360 degree emergency stops were no fun in this dinosaur!
GlennFSmith
It is scary to go on any car in the highway and drive past a Hyundai Atos... you might generate enough drag to pull that car-oid or flip it over
Anonymous
'78 Porsche 930. Brilliantly tool but has no patience for fools, and I can be pretty foolish sometimes.
Russ Bellinis
It wasn't a car. I was riding a Suzuki 305 and decided that I was ready for a bike with more power. I was on a first name basis at the local motorcycle dealerships so I test rode some larger bikes. One of the bikes I tried was a Kawasaki 500 triple. I took it out on a back road near the dealership. I'm 6 feet tall so I didn't really fit any Japanese motorcycle at the time. I was in first gear and decided to slide back on the seat a bit, as I did I inadvertently cracked the throttle and the front wheel came up and the bike tried to launch out from under me. I could not climb back up to close the throttle until the engine hit the red line and stopped accelerating. I then took it through some "S" bends, and it felt like the engine had a set of bar bells on each end of the crankshaft. Leaning into the first corner wasn't too bad, but changing direction felt like I had to physically lift the low side in order to get it to straighten up and then go in the opposite direction, but that wasn't the worst of it. I came to a long straight and decided to open it up. At about 100 mile per hour, I hit the brakes to see how well they slowed the bike and it tried to go into a speed wobble! I went back to the dealership and tried out a Suzuki 500 twin. A much better bike than the Kawasaki. I can't imagine what the Kawasaki 750 triple must have been like.
Mark
1986 Dodge Daytona. Just days before I traded it in (for a 88 Mustang GT) the Daytona would completely shut down at highway speeds. The whole car would just shut off. Luckily it was a manual transmission so I was able to coast off to the side of the road. After a minute or two the vehicle would start up and run fine.
It was worth losing thousands on the trade just to get rid of that garbage.
david blevins
1960 Ford Falcon -- if you drove over 50 for more than 5 minutes, had to stop at the shop and get a rocker arm replaced -- plus if the temp was 40 or below you had to jump start it if it was off for an hour or so. What a piece of @$@#$.
Joel
In 1963, I was 16 and working at a corner gas station. My regular customers included a 1963 "427" Ford, a 1963 "426" Sport Fury, a 1959 Corvette with fuel injection and a 1963 Pontiac "421" Grand Prix. I was offered the chance to drive the Grand Prix and didn't hesitate to jump in and see what it would do. It was a 4 speed and as I ran through the gears I was in heaven----and then I came to the end of the road and tried to stop----------that's when I discovered the three-twos were stuck!!! As my life passed in front of me, some how I had the good sense to put it in neutral and brought it to a halt. I got the carbs unstuck and drove the car back to it's owner. I learned that I had a lot to learn and I wasn't quite ready for the "Big Blocks".
Wes
I had a similar experience to the first commenter. The wiper motor went out in my 1996 Honda Accord when it was pouring rain and I was driving on a two-lane highway between CA and NV. It was scary.
cornpone
that looks like Christine in the picture. extra scary
Adam G
My mother's 1991 Chrysler Dodge Grand Caravan, which was the first American car she'd bought since the 60's. When it left the dealer for the first time, the brakes failed. Not too long after, the steering column cracked- while we were driving. A few months after that, the exhaust system *fell off* the car. Then went the transmission, and the catalytic converter, until finally at 70,000 miles, the engine began burning oil at a rate of a quart per week.
After about 6 years we no longer even trusted the car for anything other than short in-town trips as it seemed anywhere we'd drive it, something would break on it. This completely soured my mother to buying another American car ever again, and after another bad experience with Japanese, she now swears she'll only buy German cars- they seem to be the only car that can last her over 100,000 miles (as evidenced by our '85 Mercedes with 267k miles).
Blake
2002 BMW 330i
What was so scary was that people were lining up to drop $40k on that piece of sh!t.
kahunarb
Any Corvair!
Speed3
I owned an 1960 MG Midget and was coming down a hill. Suddenly noticed the gasoline tanker at the bottom of the hill was not moving. There was a red light but his height and the angle I was coming from blocked me from seeing the light. I hit the brakes and slid to a stop just inches from going under the gas truck.
Also, one time I was going down a one way street with cars on both sides of the street. A lady opened the drivers door about two car lengths from me. There was no where to go but try to stop. I squealed to a stop about a half car length from her. She never looked my way, took her time locking the door and continued on her way. I don't know where her mind was, she never knew how close she was to being dead.
Andrew
driving my dad's 2001 chevrolet suburban 1500 LT 4WD... where to begin... first of all the huge SUV has no steering feel and the steering wheel isn't even on straight... when you're going down the road straight the wheel is turned about 5 degrees to the right... every time I drive it i have to get used to it... secondly the brakes are like marshmallows. There is way too much pedal travel... I literally have to press down 6 inches before i even begin to feel the vehicle slow... I seriously do not trust the vehicle to stop in time if I ever had to make an emergency stop... thirdly the huge V8 mated to the standard 4speed automatic has no response... It is either full throttle or nothing at all... no in-between... At highway speeds when I want to pass... flooring the pedal... it takes about 5 seconds for the engine to respond what I do with my foot... The only redeeming attribute about the SUV is its nice suspension... smoothes out any road.
All that said it is probably the scariest vehicle to drive mainly because it is so hard to control... I hate when people say "it's because it's big isn't it" and I'm like no! Not being able to keep on center with the steering wheel, not being able to brake, and the engine not listening to me has nothing to do with how big it is. I swear half of the zero to 60 time is lost in the translation from the pedal to the engine.
My mother (who is an excellent driver by the way) will not get behind the wheel of that vehicle unless she absolutely has to... she hates it that much... Both of us are trying to convince my father that the vehicle is unsafe and he needs to get a new car... he still refuses to get rid of it.
The scary thing is it never used to be that way. The steering never had a lot of feedback but it has faded to almost none and is no longer on center, the brakes have always been smushy but they've gotten a hell of a lot worse, and the engine has always been slow to shift but now it is unacceptable. New brakes pads and an oil change have done nothing to fix the problem.
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