The worst car in the world? Chrysler PT Cruiser Goes for a Drive

today i'm at the wheel of a car which is possibly the most maligned vehicle you've ever seen yes love it or hate it today i'm taking a pt cruiser for a drive [Music] hello welcome to furious driving and today for lunch we're having a marmite sandwich that is in something either love or you hate in this case it's the pt cruiser car which is possibly the most derided in history on the one hand in 2001 current driver awarded it their car of the year award back 2010 top gear announced it was the worst car in the last 20 years so who's right let's find out now back in the 1990s the idea of retro style cars pastiche cars almost became a very big thing got the beetle the mini coming out in 2000 uh the fiat 500 the ford thunderbird all these things were absolutely massive and the whole design influence was very strong in fact chrysler did do a couple of very retro inspired concept cars back in the 90s there was the ccv which was inspired by the 2cv and there was the pronto cruiser yes that was its real name which is also designed by brian nesbit the guy who designed this car now cries that have gone on record as saying this was inspired by cars of the 30s and 40s if you go to new york you'll see the chrysler building one of the most iconic art deco buildings on the planet and so they were harking back to that golden age of car design in the pre-war years in america in fact looking at the face of the car two of the vehicles i mentioned the chrysler and chevy airflow vehicles from the late 30s are very much in evidence in the shape of the grill and the way the lights wrap around but more so is the chevy advanced design truck from 1947 which is a proper full-size truck but you look at the bonnet the hood and the way it curves down into the grill wow this is lifted directly you look at these front wings and the morris miner clearly wasn't in the sphere of influence of american car designers but this angle just here is pure morris minor it's all 30s 40s 50s trying to reclaim that americana that golden age and people complain too much that cars all look the same styling is boring but then tries to go and do something like this which has got all the elements of a 40s car the problem is it didn't necessarily go down very well the trouble is the very people who are saying that cars look too boring and too much the same weren't too keen on buying it but they did sell quite a lot over a million sold in america alone and it is a very interesting shape the almost separate fenders the fact it's got the pt crew as a name only written here on the door not on the boot and going down to the bottom of the doors if these faux sills make it look a bit like a pre-war car and unusually for a car of this era it doesn't have body color bumpers these are plastic bumpers our impact bumpers are nice and safe and deformable as you would expect but they are made to look separate like on a 40s vehicle this might have been one retro step too far though a fully manual aerial just plonked in the wing really odd design now around the back it does again a pre-war vehicle the way the back of the car swoops straight down right from the very high roof line and getting in pull the tries the badge again pure classic americana design and the boot is really big and we've got a lot of practicality going on here a lot of the people who bought these cars like them because i had suv practicality without actually being an suv now in here first of all we've got a very very solid load space cover apparently this will take 100 pounds and i don't know what that is in kilograms but it sounds like a lot this has got three positions first of all you can lift up and take it out from the high position pop it down here in the low position and because it looks so strong so thick and big beefy support brackets you can put that hundred pound weight down here so if you've got a small a medium sized dog that can sit above your groceries and your luggage if you want to go shopping you can take it out completely or you can fit it vertically if you want to use it as a load barrier to stop stuff coming into the cabin and finally check this out not many cars have this option i think i've maybe driven two others like this we've got a picnic table which sits down here locate shelf leg here this opens to six feet high so if you're out and about somewhere you can have let me get a cup possibly the greatest t-shirt off of any car you've ever seen this is the ideal car for picnicking and t-shelfery then you've got the back seats these are a 65 35 split folding seat and there are 26 different seating positions including completely removing them the rear seats are actually on rollers so if you want to you can lift them out really easily and have just basically a van making the thing extremely practical also in the back here we've got a power outlet we've got um side storage for the jack we've got side stowage for odds and sods it's just really well thought out and really big it's very tall as well well it does get very narrow up at the top so you need a spaniel with a small head [Music] now under the bonnet there are three choices worldwide in the us there's a 2.4 liter petrol engine there's a 2.2 liter mercedes-derived four-cylinder diesel and the one we generally see over here in the uk is the two liter petrol it's the same engine you found in the chrysler neon before it and possibly during it depending on what market you're in it's 140 horsepower 176 newton meters and it means the car is good for north to 60 in 12 seconds and top speed of 110 there's not really a lot more to say about it till we get on the road now getting into the car we do have a slightly unusual proposition it's a nice big solid cast metal door handles but rather than a pull and go it's a push the button and pull the handle again and designed to look kind of old-fashioned now here in europe we've got three trim levels classic touring and limited this is on the top of the range limited ones in america the range was quite extensive uh going from the base model actually called base which was so so basic it really didn't have anything at all no electric windows no central locking a cassette player it was very crude indeed up to ones like this which are absolutely loaded and the one i really wish we got over here but we didn't is the woody version with fake wood down the side you know i love it or hate the rest of the car i'd probably buy it just for that alone to be honest i think in japan they also got a route 66 version as well which was also quite well equipped and looked quite cool in yellow this car needs strong colors yellow really suits it well this one is called inferno red metallic which really sets it off you need a strong color on a car like this now let's look around the interior because it's absolutely packed with stuff but like american cars of this era there's lots of toys but we don't sometimes find the quality isn't quite there it's not on european standards some things feel a bit well fisher price let's have a look around and see do have electric heated seats high and low function and electrically adjustable as well as one big handle just to tip recline the back seat starting with the seats because this is a top range car we've got these mostly leather with alcantara kind of stuff detailing in the fronts and the shoulders the driver's one also has a fold down armrest as well which is um actually not the top it looks leathery but it's actually like a rubbery plastic material then we've got the door cards um which have this big alcantara stuff i'm going to call it alcantara i'm not quite sure what it actually is feels like it though door card in the center then a textured outer area and then a plastic further out area with a big rubberized door pull in the center and a huge door bin in the main bit which gives you uh lots of storage but also these little aerated holes which again kind of feel a bit retro in style and one final odd piece is this little i don't know what it is for it's a textured plastic flat area which sits above the loudspeaker but it's like a tiny tray in the door very unusual and uh up at the top we've got this big giant coke ring pool to get in and out the doors and because it's an american car for our first of our big chunky switches now looking at the dashboard we have supreme t-shell 3 in the front so we've got great t-shirt 3 in the tailgate we've got a great t-shirt 3 up in the front as well the whole car is very very tall and very very upright these seats have a what's called a high h position which is like the pivot point of your hips so a lot of people who get into these cars find them very easy to climb into and out of like a taller suv but without being such a tall vehicle as an suv and so the dashboard is very vertical to a great big cliff face of a car in front of you we've got a nice recurring theme here of circles and we've got the body color area here around the dials and a body color area here above the glove box is very reminiscent of what pre-war cars which often had this kind of style of dashboard with body color painted metal panels obviously there's a plastic and there's airbag behind this one and this has the uh the retro style font pt cruiser written down there there's a lot to like about this i mean if you like 30s and 40s stuff then you can really see why it's a popular car you you've got to respect what they're doing to quote low now looking in the dials themselves we've got three individual pod dials which are with a slightly yellowy tinged base color making it look a bit uh nostalgic if you like but obviously it's a modern looking font modern looking needles and this car although it's a little bit grubby because it's been in storage it's only just arrived here at stone cold um this is the mileage this is how far this car has driven in its 21-ish years of life which is nearly none at all it's on the left-hand side one we've got our fuel and temperature center on the speedo right-hand one is the rev counter then we have a little round a little round air vent here on the side you can pivot the center bit for the airflow and it's looking slightly like an aftermarket air freshener we've got a little control for on and off now moving back a little bit we've got this very modern looking chunky uh controls for the lights indicators wipers and so forth and cruise control this is the limited i know the low spec ones in america didn't come with uh cruise control but i've got a feeling the only top end ones in the uk did as well then we have this steering wheel which is leather rimmed a little bit padded and four spokes and the four spokes are textured rubberized squishy material and then we have same as in the beetle i think we saw in the beetle there was a theme of little dimples and circles repeated all over the place it was a very it seems to be a very 90s retro styling trope make something look old-fashioned or retro-ish retro cool by having little circular dimples all over the place this has got an airbag in the wheel and the wheel is height adjustable and we've got a big chunky uh switch here for the hazard lights you'll notice the indicator um telltale lights are up here in the body color area and this car is a manual it has got the correct number of pedals down by your feet and they're quite well spaced lots of room around them they're moving into the center again almost vertical great big flat cliff face of a vehicle interior we've got two more of these circularly uh air vent things then we've got all four window switches and the lockout button here in the center this is where the design falls over because these are clearly part spin items and if you've ever driven an american car and then compared it to european equivalent they always have these massive chunky i'm going to say ugly switches which we don't get in european cars i don't know why americans have these massive horrible buttons in all of their vehicles they are also up down windows which is cool but the buttons are horrible and then we move into a very again off the shelf part for the heating and ventilation controls i'm not sure what they're out i'm pretty straight out of my neon and then this is being the limited it's a it's a cd flower trying to see if it's a multi-disc cd changer it looks big enough to be and it's got a cassette player in it as well and fmam and got built-in little tiny uh treble bass graphic equalizer that's probably the most retro thing on the entire car but that is a slightly odd shaped part that fits straight in the in in the dashboard so it's not quite doubled in but it is absolutely everything's loaded in there so if you wanted to change this out it would look very strange so we've got a few more controls heated rear window rear wash wipe leveling for the windows in a slightly weird position traction control off and a big power outlet first of many in fact moving down further we've got we've got a big cubby hole here under the center then we have twin cup holders which one's got a removable ash tray litter bin thing and the second of our power outlets which also has a blanking plate so if you don't want the lighter to be floating around the car you can take that out and put the outlet cover in there quite a good idea actually moving back to what i'm going to say is probably coin holders coin storage which is popular probably in the i guess in the 50s or 60s this is retro after all a little bit pointless here then we've got what is quite a cool gear knob it's like a a cue ball round gear shift on a long chrome stalks very hot roddy and they were trying to evoke hot rod feelings as well not just the 30s 40s cars they were also going for that nostalgia of 30s 40s hot rods which was obviously a very cool thing however back in the 90s there came a bit of a hot rod fashion to add bit of aluminium to stuff and billet aluminium has not aged well in terms physically it's aged well in terms of styling it really hasn't um so yeah that's sometimes transposed onto cars aftermarket then we've got another cup holder this one's very deep um we've got a big storage area for stuff here a pen holder here big manual handbrake we like a manual handbrake not a stupid electric one another cup holder for the rear seats more storage and electric window switches here in the back headroom is just madly good in here it's really really high the seats as well being very upright um i mean you're sitting almost like in a in a four-wheel drive because the roofline is just so tall there's just masses and masses of headroom absolutely everywhere let's have a look in the back oh and of course being america you have to push the button to take the key out and stop the dreadful banging okay so looking around the car it's much the same as it was in the front with the leather and alcantara here we have the brochure for the car this is from 20 odd years ago chrysler jeep where the cars bought look at these real such a cool brochure silvery printed it's actually silver ink on the paper page and this is the page i love most of all the pt cruiser captures the spirit of the elegant 1930s the art deco movement and the stunning steel clad chrysler building the clean curve of the lights the heritage of the winged badge the refined door handles that exude class and the subtle turns to sills that suggest running boards the purposeful wheels i'm going to stop at purposeful wheels because chrome wheels really don't go down well in the uk for most of europe now these seats are comfortable again masses of headroom because the seats are so upright we've got good knee room and lots of good toes obviously you feel really quite uh open and airy in the back here one little minor foible is these seat belts which come in across the door aperture because of where they're mounted on this on this seat post not the best bit of placement but you know i'm sure they're fine um the seat backs are carpeted and net backed it looks like they're gonna fold into tables but they don't um we've got a nice big perforated door bins as well this is basically the back of the car now this car as i said very very very low mileage um it's been in a collection its entire life and barely used for anything it still has these instruction tags on the back seat about how to use the folding seats never been removed this is quite astonishing bit of a time warp really so engine not too rough not too smooth sort of in between i do find that cup hold already is a little bit in the way of the handbrake now our first ever driver pt cruiser [Music] well 15 miles an hour it's not too bad i'll give it that let's get the open road and see what we think [Music] on the left-hand mirror i have got that fantastic american warning objects in the mirror are closer than they appear because of litigation and stuff american cars are littered with warnings and things that europeans just find ridiculous now this car has barely been used it's been popped up in storage for most of its life for all its life barely used for the last 20 odd years it's quite an early one and because i thought the cars came out in 2001 but in fact this car is registered as a 2000 car so i guess i was wrong so it still smells like leather and plastic in fact still has all the new car smells you could probably imagine um a car having in 2001 having rolled off the showroom floor basically but it is heavy on the plastic smells [Music] the pedals are quite light they're nicely spaced out so you can even with a big boots on you can you can get your feet around them the gear change again very light but it's kind of notchy and not that accurate it's a little bit of a not great manual if i'm honest steering also very very light [Music] and the car does roll a wee bit through the roundabout you have to remember this is built on a chrysler neon platform and the chrysler neon was not a car that was renowned for its astonishing handling capabilities if you then make it about 50 taller you're not going to certainly improve that situation this is a five-speed manual there was an auto available as well that's one of the rare occasions i might say actually also might be more appropriate but you lose that kind of hot rod lineage horror heritage the feel and attachment you get to the pre-war cars if you go for the auto box in it visibility is not too bad these a-pillars are a little bit close to your head and they are quite thick and chunky but you've got good side visibility and you're looking down the bonnet which disappears away quite rapidly you do have that command driving position that you kind of get from suvs and four wheel drives but you're not quite so bulky and big and imposing as you would be in an suv [Music] i thought it was in third gear then we're doing just over 50 miles an hour two and a half thousand rpm the engine is a little bit booming it's not the most rapidly fast thing [Music] [Music] they're pulling away from a quick gopro change it's not the most brisk thing and it doesn't feel that great through the gearbox but it's built on a car that didn't really drive that brilliant in the first place and it's made a bit more roly-poly but hasn't made it a worse car to drive [Music] in terms of reliability they were they're pretty good um durability though was maybe an issue i know in [Music] in japan they have a tokyo disneyland or disney world and they had a fleet of these as taxis in the early naughties because they were kind of cool and fun and interesting but they were all retired within five years because durability wise bits were starting to break off them [Music] they don't lean too badly to the corners but it's not a car you want to be hustling along rapidly now stone cold classics have just taken this car in and it's been in a collection for a long time so it's not even been cleaned yet it's just straight out of someone's garage basically [Music] but that person did look after it for a long time so i'm basically driving what is virtually a brand new cruiser if you'd like to buy this car it will be for sale at stone cold in a couple of days time this car was designed by a guy called brian nesbit looking at the front you might think he also did the prowler the plymouth prowler but he didn't that was someone else what he did also design though was the uh the chevy hhr which is a more of a square van kind of a people carry mpv thing which came out shortly after this when he jumped ship over to chevrolet from chrysler as i mentioned at the beginning he did have a form if you like for coming up with retro themed concepts prior to this and bob lux was well behind this particular um project the retro style thing and it was a funny kind of idea it appealed to certainly older buyers who remembered cars of the 30s and 40s being cars of their youth perhaps maybe their first car was a a very second-hand car from way back when and it appealed to people who liked the easy ingress egress climbing out the car with these high seats because that made it easy to get in and out of because it's um such vertical seating you get tons of space inside it's really practical there are lots of reasons to like it but the retro styling didn't necessarily go down with the younger buyers who they were hoping to entice in uh maybe they felt things like the mini and the fiat 500 and the beetle were were newer and cooler and even though they were copying older cars this car which was a new car in itself just for some reason didn't appeal that said they sell 1.3 million around the world all of the american market cars were built in mexico uh everything for the rest of the world was built down in grads in austria though they are identical in terms of componentry i'm interested to know if the austrian cars are better built than mexican cars that'll be something interesting to find out now in 2002 the car actually achieved a three star end cap that's out of a possible five and they said that the side impact protection was very good like partly because the seats are so high up and the car is so tall that meant side intrusion was good but bad in terms of frontal impact because there's lots of lower dashboard padding in the front of here because in america seatbelt wearing was less common still and so they had to protect occupants passively with this kind of stuff in europe obviously seat belts are mandatory in every country and the padding is negligible so that was interesting however a year later in america it was um rated as good but the other way around saying poor for side impact but good for front impact i guess they're assessing it based more on damage when you hit a solid object run damage when you hit an airbag weird i don't know [Music] so in terms of comfort and amenities we've got lots of equipment air conditioning we've got decent radio we've got electric pretty much everything uh remote central locking obviously and uh we've not got a sunroof in this particular car but you could have done you can tell it's american again it's got the temperature in fahrenheit it's 60 degrees which to me sounds like way too hot now i like retro style stuff i i'm a massive fan of art deco styling so from that point of view i don't hate it but in terms of buying a car on the on the merits of an actual car it's kind of down there with i don't know a bad astra it's um dynamically it's not brilliant fit and finish is okay but it's not inspiring to drive it's certainly not a car you get into you think wow i really want to go a long way in this and i want to explore as much as i can of its handling capabilities because it hasn't really got any the seats are very comfortable the steering is in a good position and the controls are exactly falling to hand where you'd want them to be ergonomically it's a pretty good good bet really so if you were just after basic transport that was interesting you could go you couldn't really go wrong with it if you wanted a car that drove like a peak bmw bmw then you were going to be in for a disappointment [Music] does that make sense so my conclusion is that yes it's a car of extremes it's either loved and doted on by people who will just go just all out crazy with the stick on chrome stuff for no good reason or absolutely hated and derided by pretty much everybody else so it's it's it's an all or nothing car and i'm going to say i'm somewhere in the middle [Music] i quite like the styling i respect the fact they've done something different and interesting gotta respect what they're doing but at the same time it's not a car that makes you think wow i want to go and drive it which is perhaps where a car fails because gearbox is really horrible the steering is light and not a little bit vague but if you're not fussed about that kind of thing if you just want a car to get places and you want to do it in something interesting you're not really going wrong with it are you it's probably not gonna break down so my conclusion is it's okay if you're not really into cars [Music] how does that sound everybody it may be if it had driven more like the styling exercises actually looked it would have gone down better because the styling exercises made it look so exciting so cool but the actuality of the car were that it drove a bit boringly and it's got big chunky american buttons which no one outside america looks likes 40 miles now it does feel like about 80 though when you push it through a corner it's not necessarily a good thing so what do you think was the pt cruiser actually a brave piece of design that deserved more credit or was it a ridiculous fantasy that should never have got off the concept drawing board let me know what you think in the comments below and if you've liked this video please do hit like and subscribe and bash that bell notification see what comes out next time take everybody i'll see you soon driving something completely different

Channel: furiousdriving

Views: 38,193

Rating: 4.848062 out of 5

Keywords: car, cars, blog, vlog, retro, classic, classic car, retro car, motoring, American car, PT Cruiser, Chrysler

Id: 9Qer7We51ww

Length: 27min 55sec (1675 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021