Time Magazine’s Worst cars of 1911-1934

Time Magazine tackled a monumental task by narrowing down the worst of the worst vehicles ever made. They compiled a list of 50 Worst cars of all time broken down by the years they were produced.

Here is the second installation of articles targeting the bottom feeders of the automotive world.

Scripps-Booth Bi-Autogo 1913

Image from Time

Imagine a motorcycle painted red like a fire engine, powered by a V8, driven on 37 inch wood wheels, weighing in at 3,200 pounds.

Now imagine that as you slow and the Autogo becomes harder to balance, training wheels could be lowered for enhanced stability.

An heir to the Scripps fortune, James Scripps-Booth was also a lover of auto engineering. Money and passion combined to develop a loony vehicle with one real honor, it was the first V8 vehicle to be built in Detroit.

Briggs and Stratton Flyer 1920

Image from Time

This vehicle was sheer folly and clearly built with extreme minimalizm in mind.

Basically a board with a motor and bicycle wheels. Using the same principles as an outboard motor on a boat this bike-vehicle had a fifth traction wheel on the back.

Primitive as they come, there was no suspension, no windshield and no protective body at all.

A two horsepower engine propelled probably as fast as you’d want to go no a glorified go-kart.

Fuller Dymaxion 1933

Image from Time

This odd looking three wheeled vehicle was the work of R. Buckminster Fuller, who walked a fine line between genious and the looney bin.

His original design was to have jet engines and inflatable wings so it could fly.

The actual vehicle had a rear-mounted engine and three wheels. Various updates and changes were made, but it turned out to be a fatally flawed design indeed.

It took a fatal accident to stop the forward march of Buckminster’s design although it is remembered as one of the boldest futuristic rear-engined cars of the 1930’s.