There are definitely two kinds of unreliable cars. Ones that you buy for basic reliable transportation that turn out to be utter lemon, and the other that you buy because the car has some other redeeming feature that you just can't resist (exotic design, performance, luxury, whatever).

@beercheck: I believe a vintage Fiat or perhaps an MG would balance things out for him, yes.

@Foozy Ploosh Room: What is Vermont if not an upside-down New Hampshire???? Besides their fine hippie-produced products (anyone for hemp-cheddar?), Vermont also provides New England with a vast reservoir of Volvo 240 and Saab 900 parts!

@Cognitive Friction: Oh great, now you've done it..you've given ABC two new ideas for next year's reality show lineup.

"Green" would be hollowing out a birch tree, putting wheels on it, and powering it with home-brewed alcohol that you fermented using the organic biomass that you grew on your 1000 acre solar-powered Vermont hippie commune.

@DoctorNine: After all, all of the great human cultures were solidly rooted in the tradition of exploiting the huddled masses and/or the environment, so why break with tradition????

@TR3-A: @SirNotAppearing: Buy a Bentley, starve a village!

Put it in "H"!

Wow, what an awesome thread! Now I don't feel so bad about my own long line of automotive disasters.

@gb944: Yeah, that's Saab for you.

@Foozy Ploosh Room: I certainly do, although the trade off is the huge concentrations of car-eating road salt and suspension-eating frost heaves (it's that time of year again!).

@donkeyassman - somebody smashed my ride: I had one of those. Mine had the clunk-O-matic 5-speed and the automatic engine cutoff option (it died every time I let off the gas). It shifted like a truck and sucked gas like one too.

Worst car ever? That would have to be the 1997 GMC Sonoma pickup truck that's sitting in my driveway right now.

@Slant,sick with the DOTS DTs: Amen and hallelujah! Best American sedan, ever.

@Slant,sick with the DOTS DTs: Likewise....I'd like to be the '69 GTS with the 383, but I'm more like a puke-green '74 four-door with the 225 slant-six, bald tires, and a bunch of dents.

@mechimike: Oh yeah, I'm definitely the rusty '63 Dart convertible with the ratty cigarette-burned seats, AM radio, coat-hanger antenna, jerry-rigged wiring and cracked windshield. No doubt about it.

@Tomsk is all about Murlopnik weekends!: And deep down, I would bet that Hubert has an engine-block of gold.....

@Novaload Misses Murilee: The world would truly be a sterile an uninteresting place without the Huberts of the world.

@pauljones-Jo Schmo's saintly and opposite twin.: Oh, I totally understand. If I were a car, I wouldn't be the latest shiny Lexus, I would be more like Hubert with his odd jumble of spare parts and eccentricities, but I like to think I make up for having character and soul.

Cars are like people. There are many that are clean, shiny and well-kept, and yet you wouldn't want to spend more than 30 seconds in their presence.