Practice English Speaking&Listening with: These Are The Worst Fords In History. Sorry Henry -- AFTER/DRIVE

[CAR ENGINE]

MIKE SPINELLI: Happy birthday, Henry Ford.

You're 150!

LEO PARENTE: Would have been.

MIKE SPINELLI: Would have been.

Love, Ian Whelan.

See?

He signed it.

Ian's behind the camera, of course.

So, today on "AFTER/DRIVE," it was Henry Ford's birthday, and

everybody's been showing him a lot of love.

LEO PARENTE: And talk about accomplishments

and success of Ford?

MIKE SPINELLI: Exactly.

LEO PARENTE: That would be too easy for us.

MIKE SPINELLI: Ford is doing great now.

But that would be too easy for us because everybody needs a

little bit of an antagonist, and that's going to be us

today on "AFTER/DRIVE." Leo's got a history with Ford.

He was there when some product that wasn't exactly the best

stuff came out.

LEO PARENTE: Yeah, hopefully I'll not bore you with the

stories, but the cars I was around when we were working

for Ford Motor Company, they're going to come around

in this list.

MIKE SPINELLI: And we're going to talk about our

bottom five from Ford.

So that's today on "AFTER/DRIVE."

[MUSIC PLAYING]

LEO PARENTE: So Mikey, I like this "AFTER/DRIVE" idea.

Anyone can do a top 10 list.

MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah.

LEO PARENTE: We're doing what?

MIKE SPINELLI: We're doing a bottom list, the bottom five.

LEO PARENTE: The five worst Fords we think--

MIKE SPINELLI: Well, our five worst Fords.

I mean, we're going to probably have some issues with

each other's picks.

LEO PARENTE: That could be good.

MIKE SPINELLI: That could be fun.

LEO PARENTE: And in fairness to Ford, some of these on our

list were big sales successes.

MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, yeah, they were huge, right?

So it's not necessarily they were--

I mean, and they came at a time when there were a lot of

crappy cars out there.

LEO PARENTE: So these were the Ford's best crappy cars.

MIKE SPINELLI: Ford's best crappy cars.

LEO PARENTE: See?

It's a best list.

MIKE SPINELLI: Also, wait 'til Louis Chevrolet's birthday.

We're going to get at him, too.

All right, so you were there.

So give us the back story, because you were at Ford.

LEO PARENTE: OK, so the short version is, from '77 to '85, I

had joined Ford Motor Company coming out of school with my

little MBA and was in the field helping wholesale cars

to dealers, ended up at Renaissance Center when they

owned the Renaissance Center, coming up with the marketing

plans to launch some of these "cars." And they made the

list, you'll see.

MIKE SPINELLI: All right, so let's just get right to it,

because the obvious choice--

and I'm not even going to say it because

it's not on my list--

is the Pinto.

LEO PARENTE: Yeah, you've got to start with Pinto.

So what have you got?

MIKE SPINELLI: I've got to start with Pinto.

First of all, for me, Pinto was a great success.

LEO PARENTE: OK, wow.

Really?

MIKE SPINELLI: 24 months from drawing board to production,

first of all.

Second of all--

LEO PARENTE: And how many months to the lawsuit?

MIKE SPINELLI: [LAUGHING]

80?

LEO PARENTE: Oh, OK good.

The lawsuits per gallon were more than the mileage.

MIKE SPINELLI: Well, all right.

Well, let's just say it was the Ford Pinto.

Styling was--

I give it a seven on styling.

But I will also give it a eight in terms of interior

room compared to Volkswagen Beetle, which is what they

were going after.

And also, they were competing with the Chevy Vega, which

they were both happening at the same time.

And they were both kind of getting from zero to market as

quickly as possible with these new cheap cars.

LEO PARENTE: So my version of Pinto is real easy.

The image of the thing was so damning to the Ford Motor

Company at the time.

I got two stories.

One, the only way I could wholesale Pintos to Ford

dealers was when the truck would show up, you put the

truck that they want behind the two Pintos that they

didn't want.

The truck guy unloads both cars, or you tell the dealer

the only way you're going get the truck you want is to take

the two Pintos.

That's how bad that was.

Number two--

MIKE SPINELLI: Because trucks were flying off the shelves.

LEO PARENTE: Trucks were great.

No one wanted Pintos because no one was buying Pintos.

Number two--

MIKE SPINELLI: But by the way, what year?

So this was later on in Pinto life.

LEO PARENTE: '77, '78.

MIKE SPINELLI: Well, because they sold two million Pintos

before that.

LEO PARENTE: Yeah, but they had a bad image, and they

stopped selling--

MIKE SPINELLI: Well, eventually, eventually.

LEO PARENTE: So anyway, number two story?

MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah.

LEO PARENTE: I swear to God this is true.

There was a Pinto brochure.

And the basic Pinto they had in the brochure was kind of

brownish amber whatever, and it was the base car, so it

didn't have the bright grill.

And literally, the color was burnt orange, and the grill

was called charcoal, and this was in the brochure in the

middle of this.

So it was fun.

You're voting up for Pinto.

MIKE SPINELLI: All right, so now let's just face it.

The build quality of a lot of these cars back then was crap.

I mean, the Chevy Vega and the Pinto were some of the--

LEO PARENTE: It's all relative, but yes.

MIKE SPINELLI: I mean, I know somebody who bought a Pinto,

and the engine literally fell out on the way home.

LEO PARENTE: Keep going for your list because when I get

to mine, I've got a build quality story for you.

MIKE SPINELLI: So I'm going to go with Pinto first.

LEO PARENTE: Yay.

MIKE SPINELLI: All right, I've got another one--

Fairmont.

LEO PARENTE: 417,000, beat Mustang as a sales leader.

MIKE SPINELLI: OK, so it was technically the first car on

the Fox body platform.

LEO PARENTE: Yes, it was.

MIKE SPINELLI: But it was just junk.

But second of all, it had the horn, so for some reason-- you

may have a story about this-- but Ford decided to take the

horn off the steering wheel and put it on the side stalk.

LEO PARENTE: Because it was quite European.

MIKE SPINELLI: Is that what that was?

LEO PARENTE: Yeah.

MIKE SPINELLI: What European cars have the horn over here?

LEO PARENTE: How the hell do I know?

I was living in New York wholesaling Fords.

But anyway, yeah, that was the whole premise.

MIKE SPINELLI: But what the hell?

I mean, honestly, I rented one.

I mean, I rented one.

So this is actually before I could even drive.

My parents rented one.

And my dad kept jamming his thumb, because he was a horn

guy, right?

So he would always be on the horn.

But if anything happened, a truck pulled out six streets

away, he'd, you know, come on!

But so he jammed his thumb because every time he hit the

center of the wheel, nothing happened.

LEO PARENTE: Yeah, but think how much quieter the

neighborhood was.

MIKE SPINELLI: That's true.

No, really what the hell was the deal with that?

LEO PARENTE: I don't know.

As bad as Fairmont was, I've got a worse Fairmont for you.

Remember the first downsized Thunderbird

built off the Fox chassis?

MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, it looked like the Fairmont with closed

headlights.

LEO PARENTE: Squared off?

Yeah, so to me, that's my first worst Ford on the list.

It was just a horrible car.

But here come my two stories.

One, I swear to God these are true, OK.

I was asked to pitch the car to the dealers when we

launched it here in New York.

So I got up on stage and said, hey, ladies and gentleman

dealers, here's the new Thunderbird.

I'm here to make the car look bigger.

MIKE SPINELLI: That was your joke?

LEO PARENTE: That was my downsizing joke.

I got in trouble for that one.

Second of all, my first company car--

MIKE SPINELLI: Did you really get in trouble for that?

Because you're right.

That was the year that the energy crisis had

hit in the mid '70s.

So by the late '70s, everything downsized.

Everything got really small.

So the Thunderbird used to be a big car, and then

it became like what?

It was several feet shorter.

LEO PARENTE: New York with the dealers, it was

like open mike night.

I mean, our meetings were hilarious.

And dealers would complain about the head room in the

Thunderbird, and I would literally sit there across

their desk with straight face and say, I

don't have a problem.

I don't understand.

The second one was my company car Thunderbird was black, had

red stripes.

the Michelin wheels and tires.

All cool, right?

MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah.

LEO PARENTE: Beautiful car.

Get in it, Thunderbird in front of me.

I look to my right.

The dash said Cougar, the sister car

built at the same place.

I get out of the car.

The passenger side was a Cougar.

My driver's side was a Thunderbird.

MIKE SPINELLI: So they had attached the wrong--

LEO PARENTE: Yeah, a little bit of that quality build

thing you were talking about earlier.

MIKE SPINELLI: Wow.

Job two at that point.

LEO PARENTE: Job I don't give a--

MIKE SPINELLI: Wow.

All right, so--

LEO PARENTE: Thunderbird's mine.

MIKE SPINELLI: Thunderbird's yours.

So all right, so I got one, Leo.

Ford EXP.

LEO PARENTE: [COUGHING]

Go ahead.

MIKE SPINELLI: Really?

LEO PARENTE: Yeah.

MIKE SPINELLI: Two seater.

LEO PARENTE: Yeah.

MIKE SPINELLI: Actually, I feel like I'm defending these

now, because the Ford EXP sort of looked OK.

It had those weird pop-up headlights.

LEO PARENTE: See, here's where I get confused with

Spinellisms.

This is the worst list.

Do you like the EXP or not?

MIKE SPINELLI: [CHUCKLING]

I think it's probably one of the worst

cars that they built.

However, I think their heart was in the right place.

And I think the EXP came at a time right before I think Ford

had a sort of Renaissance.

It was that late '80s.

Ford really kind of felt like a forward-thinking car company

in the late '80s, partly because of Taurus and also

because they had made their cars sort of--

they used a little bit of cladding, but they--

LEO PARENTE: Come on.

How did cladding become a--

MIKE SPINELLI: No, but it wasn't,

because it wasn't overdone.

Do you remember the Ford Escort GT?

Kind of looked very sporty

LEO PARENTE: Into the '80s.

MIKE SPINELLI: --and very European.

This is sort of '86, '87, '88, '89.

LEO PARENTE: So cladding equals--

MIKE SPINELLI: Well, the way they did it, I think, still

looked pretty good.

The bumpers were incorporated into the rest of it

color-wise.

They were one of the first American car companies do

that, because GM still had the crappy looking bumpers.

Anyway, The Ford EXP was just basically an

Escort with two seats.

LEO PARENTE: Yes, there was some type of mind-melding

moment in Dearborn where they thought we

needed a sports car.

And the rumors were talking about a sports car so everyone

got excited.

Then they showed up with this frog-faced front drive piece

of crap that couldn't get out of its own way.

MIKE SPINELLI: That was the problem.

It couldn't get out of its own way.

It was really--

LEO PARENTE: And you know how these cars suck?

The minute they tell you you have to order one as a company

car, we know we're not selling them, OK?

So I had my white and black with red interior--

MIKE SPINELLI: Nice.

LEO PARENTE: Vinyl, I think.

Vinyl.

MIKE SPINELLI: I would imagine.

LEO PARENTE: EXP, piece of crap.

MIKE SPINELLI: OK.

LEO PARENTE: So we agree.

MIKE SPINELLI: So we're actually agreeing on this one.

So EXP is on the list.

Pinto?

I don't know.

We'll leave that Fairmont?

So you're going to say yes to the Fairmont?

LEO PARENTE: Fairmont?

Well, it's a piece of crap, and the Thunderbird was a

bigger one.

MIKE SPINELLI: OK, all right.

Well, so I've got one for you.

LEO PARENTE: OK.

MIKE SPINELLI: The Granada.

LEO PARENTE: [LAUGHING]

Had that, too.

Go ahead.

MIKE SPINELLI: All right, so the Granada was a midsized

luxury car, basically.

And not if it was American luxury.

LEO PARENTE: To your point, heavier build.

It felt more quality.

The interior was pretty nice, pretty quiet.

It came in really wickedly strange

colors, green and blues.

MIKE SPINELLI: Very '70s, yeah.

LEO PARENTE: But for the time, everyone liked the car.

MIKE SPINELLI: So not crappy?

I mean,they sold a lot of these.

All of these cars they sold a ton of them.

LEO PARENTE: No, to me, Granada is not crappy.

What is crappy is the Granada Lincoln Versailles.

MIKE SPINELLI: Oh.

LEO PARENTE: Remember?

Cadillac did a Seville, little boutiquey-shaped luxury car.

Ford didn't have anything--

Lincoln.

So guess what?

Let's take the frickin' Granada and stick a bigger

padded roof on it.

MIKE SPINELLI: The Versailles.

That was a terrible, terrible car.

LEO PARENTE: It was the Panamera of the time.

Because you'd be in the car, and it was nice

to be in the interior.

You'd get out of the car, and it would be like what the eff

have I done.

MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, but at least the

Panamera is great to drive.

The Versailles was exactly like the Granada.

It may have been--

LEO PARENTE: That was a sarcastic comparison.

MIKE SPINELLI: OK, thank you.

LEO PARENTE: OK, I'm not comparing.

MIKE SPINELLI: Just making sure.

LEO PARENTE: So Versailles goes on my [BLEEP]

[BLEEP]

list.

MIKE SPINELLI: So Versaille is on your shit list.

But I must say something about the Seville.

The Cadillac Seville that they were competing against was the

second most expensive Cadillac that they made.

It's not like Cadillac made a small Cadillac and made it the

entry-level car.

They made it smaller, and they went after Mercedes, and they

were selling that thing for like--

it was like $17,500 in the showrooms.

The only thing more expensive than a Seville was like a

Fleetwood 60, whatever that--

LEO PARENTE: Well, again, thinking I remember what the

hell was going on, Seville was a good thing for Cadillac.

MIKE SPINELLI: Right.

LEO PARENTE: Ford was lacking, so they took their first step

to do something as quickly as possible.

Eventually, they built an actually dedicated Lincoln

Continental to put against it.

MIKE SPINELLI: That's true.

LEO PARENTE: They even ripped off that

fastback-y rear thing.

MIKE SPINELLI: Well, by the '80s, they had actually

started making strides again.

This was sort of like-- a lot of the late '70s cars felt

like they were all just sort of patchwork because the

economy was so bad.

So they just took what--

LEO PARENTE: I'm not disagreeing.

MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, exactly.

LEO PARENTE: We sold the same car 14 times.

Matter of fact, to that extension,

you had Gran Torino.

MIKE SPINELLI: Right.

LEO PARENTE: You had Thunderbird build off that.

Then you had the Gran Torino Elite.

MIKE SPINELLI: Wait a minute.

Your Gran Torino Elite--

LEO PARENTE: Oh, that's your car?

MIKE SPINELLI: No, you had it on your list,

the Gran Torino Elite.

So what the heck was that?

LEO PARENTE: Well, that's the whole point of platform

sharing packaging to its extreme.

You change the opera window, and it's a different car.

MIKE SPINELLI: Opera window.

See, that's another thing.

That's like one of those conceits from the '70s.

What was the deal with that?

You we're going to the opera so you need to

look out the window.

I mean what was the--

was it supposed to be like opera glasses?

LEO PARENTE: You're asking me questions I don't

know the answer to.

MIKE SPINELLI: But all right, I mean, it could be like opera

glasses, but it was one of those dopey-- like Landau

roof, right?

I mean, the Landau car in the old days was the driver was

outside, but the passenger was inside.

But that was like the '20s.

LEO PARENTE: Yeah.

So?

MIKE SPINELLI: Or even in like the buggy days, I think.

LEO PARENTE: Hey, I guarantee you can go someplace at some

dealership either in mid-America or probably here

in New York and find padded roofs on cars that they're

currently selling.

MIKE SPINELLI: Perhaps.

That became a dealer thing, you're right.

LEO PARENTE: Anyway.

MIKE SPINELLI: All right, so we've got the weird Gran

Torino Elite with the side.

What do you call it?

The--

LEO PARENTE: Body molding.

MIKE SPINELLI: Body molding.

But they were like--

LEO PARENTE: Well, depending on which car you ordered.

MIKE SPINELLI: What were they made out of?

LEO PARENTE: Oh, it was vinyl-y something.

MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, it was like weird

but soft vinyl, right?

LEO PARENTE: Some of them, sure.

MIKE SPINELLI: OK.

LEO PARENTE: Based on the car you ordered, it was where they

put the molding.

MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah.

LEO PARENTE: So Thunderbird, Gran Torino Elite, just work

your way up the car.

MIKE SPINELLI: All right, so I want to just bring out the

Mustang II, because the Mustang II is an

obvious one, right?

Because they took the Mustang off the

Torino platform, right?

LEO PARENTE: Lee Iacocca.

MIKE SPINELLI: Yes.

LEO PARENTE: Was God to that car.

MIKE SPINELLI: Yes, he was.

LEO PARENTE: Most Italian households, there's Sinatra,

Pope, Iacocca.

MIKE SPINELLI: Iacocca, right, exactly.

LEO PARENTE: I mean that's an obvious choice.

MIKE SPINELLI: Three pictures and he'd getcha.

LEO PARENTE: So anyway, Iacocca did what?

MIKE SPINELLI: So by '73, the Mustang had exploded out to

the Torino platform.

LEO PARENTE: It was huge.

MIKE SPINELLI: Right, but it was in that, right?

It was on that platform?

LEO PARENTE: I think so.

MIKE SPINELLI: And then they took it off that and put it

the Pinto platform.

LEO PARENTE: Makes sense.

MIKE SPINELLI: Makes perfect sense, which Iacocca would go

on to do at Chrysler with the K-car platform becoming the

platform for everything for Chrysler and actually saved

Chrysler with that.

And by the way, one might argue that the crappy as it

was Mustang II saved Ford because they

sold more of those--

LEO PARENTE: Totally.

MIKE SPINELLI: --than they had in the '60s as a Pony car.

It was actually an economy car that was

more sort of up market.

LEO PARENTE: Well, and I liked how the whole thing evolved.

It started with a V6, a European V6, that was

originally the German Cologne engine from Capri.

MIKE SPINELLI: Capri, right.

LEO PARENTE: So it had a 4-cylinder overhead cam, 2.3,

and then the V6.

MIKE SPINELLI: Right.

LEO PARENTE: But then it all took hold, and we had like V8s

and King Cobras.

MIKE SPINELLI: The Cobra, the King Cobra.

LEO PARENTE: "Charlie's Angels."

MIKE SPINELLI: Yes, Farah had the white with

the blue stripe Cobra.

But Jaclyn Smith had the sort of-- the Ghia.

LEO PARENTE: That's right.

They picked the Mustang based on their personality.

MIKE SPINELLI: Exactly.

They did, except that poor Sabrina got

stuck with the Pinto.

I thought Sabrina was hot.

I don't know.

LEO PARENTE: Oh yeah, well, she makes my list, too.

So now we've moved from cars to--

MIKE SPINELLI: Yes, to "Charlie's Angels." But I

mean, it is the '70s.

LEO PARENTE: And what of "BJ and the Bear?"

MIKE SPINELLI: "BJ and the Bear" drove a Kenworth, right?

OK, anyway, so we've got Fairmont.

We've got Granada or Versailles.

We actually took Granada off, so it's now Lincoln,

Versailles, Mustang II, EXP.

LEO PARENTE: I feel like I'm doing a lottery card.

MIKE SPINELLI: No, no this is a lottery card.

It's actually the Ford '70s lottery.

All right, but if you win, you lose.

LEO PARENTE: OK.

MIKE SPINELLI: That's the kind of thing.

We have to say Edsel, even though Edsel wasn't--

LEO PARENTE: I would say not, but keep going.

MIKE SPINELLI: Well, the problem with Edsel was that

they spent a ton of money, but they also launched it into one

of the worst recessions since the war.

I mean, the '58 recession was bad.

LEO PARENTE: So you like Edsel in effect?

MIKE SPINELLI: I don't really like the looks of it a lot.

I think the thing is that they made a car that was sort of a

little bit ugly and polarizing, but it was not a

terrible car.

LEO PARENTE: Edsel becomes a terrible car to me the way

Pinto is a terrible car.

You may be right about the circumstances and the product,

but it's like Obamacare.

The perception and the reaction have far exceeded

what the car is all about.

So Edsel is a problem for Ford, because

it's everyone's punchline.

It still is the punchline for failure.

MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, it's the punchline for failure.

And that's the problem, is that that's not necessarily--

LEO PARENTE: Oh god, he's changing his opinion.

He's changing.

MIKE SPINELLI: No, it's not necessarily their fault.

All right.

LEO PARENTE: So, fine, we got--

MIKE SPINELLI: So are we leaving Edsel, or are we

taking Edsel off?

LEO PARENTE: You can leave Edsel on the list if you want,

or you can take it off, if you like.

MIKE SPINELLI: I would like to take it off.

LEO PARENTE: Take it off.

MIKE SPINELLI: I'm taking it off.

So now we got Fairmont, Mustang II.

You got your Lincoln Versailles.

You got the Ford EXP.

LEO PARENTE: My baby Thunderbird.

MIKE SPINELLI: Pinto.

So what's next?

So, one of your motorsports Heritage cars, the first Ford

GT, was it '64?

LEO PARENTE: Yeah, I couldn't do the bad Ford list without

tapping into racing.

So when Ford launched their GT project, the first time they

went to Le Mans was 1964.

Cars had like a Colotti gearbox.

24-hour race, all three cars barely made it like the first

and second hour.

The car was just a disaster--

wire wheels, not built well.

The only way it succeeded was after they took it to Shelby,

brought it--

sorry, UK people-- to America to fix the car.

And then the next cars became American built, and it was all

a big success, all the way through the John Wyer days,

which funny I mention that name because he came from

Aston Martin to run Ford Advanced Vehicles to start the

Ford GT program, which was the failure that

makes it on the list.

Because that whole Ford GT, Ford in Europe was a big, big

thing for the company.

It was very important, and it was failing

that first two years.

MIKE SPINELLI: I would say I would disagree with putting it

on a list of all the Ford failures.

I mean, I think that the whole Ford GT program was a success,

just the idea of them doing it in the face of Indy.

And there was a lot of negative press coming around

for racing at that point.

LEO PARENTE: Yeah, but a bad car is a bad car.

That was a bad car.

It was a bad race car.

It was almost as bad as the Tucker/Ford/Miller

collaboration in 1935.

MIKE SPINELLI: Front-wheel drive?

LEO PARENTE: Well, Tucker convinced Ford to build 10

race cars for Indy 500 with Miller.

Front-wheel drive to your point.

And somehow the steering box got next to the exhaust, so in

the early laps they all kind of failed.

Ford had on their face, Tucker walked away to do other

brilliant things.

MIKE SPINELLI: That Tucker.

LEO PARENTE: But that's another bad car.

MIKE SPINELLI: But he was that Tucker.

That was Preston Tucker.

LEO PARENTE: He was that Preston Tucker, yeah.

But that's another bad race car.

MIKE SPINELLI: Wow.

I did not know that.

So OK, well, wait a minute.

So is it first Ford GT on the list?

Are we doing Miller?

LEO PARENTE: Well, if you allow me to put it on the

list, I like the Ford GT on the list as a bad race car.

The Miller was just like a little vignette.

MIKE SPINELLI: All right, all right.

So we'll keep the first Ford GT.

You know, this is a good one.

This is another one of yours.

This is the last one that you have--

the Heritage Edition Ranchero.

LEO PARENTE: [LAUGHING].

MIKE SPINELLI: What the hell is a

Heritage Edition Ranchero?

LEO PARENTE: So, I'm assuming everyone understands what the

Ranchero/El Camino concept was.

MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah.

LEO PARENTE: Ranchero was at the end of its life in--

I don't know-- '79, '80, something like that.

And on the Thunderbird side, we had the top-of-the-line

luxury condition called the Heritage Thunderbird.

So at the end of the model year, it turns out we had too

many Heritage Thunderbird front

seats, velour and leather.

So someone in Dearborn got this brilliant idea to put the

front seats, which we had too many, in the last Rancheros,

which we were closing up production.

Next thing you know, a $12,000 Heritage Edition Ranchero that

no one frickin' wanted.

I mean, this was a wholesale disaster.

MIKE SPINELLI: So wait a minute.

Tell me about that.

How often did stuff like that happen where there was like

seats left over, and you had to create like an edition

around some stuff that had been built?

LEO PARENTE: I have a feeling--

MIKE SPINELLI: You know, we got extra stripes.

It's the Rally edition.

LEO PARENTE: I have a feeling more than we knew.

I can tell you that each region, each district, had the

flexibility to do their own special equipment type

vehicle, special edition, and to help the wholesale.

I became notorious at that.

So literally, by checking off boxes on the RPO, some type of

special order type process, I was tapping into

the leftover parts.

MIKE SPINELLI: [LAUGHING]

Causing trouble.

LEO PARENTE: Selling cars, just selling cars.

MIKE SPINELLI: All right, so we've got to narrow this down

to the top bottom five.

LEO PARENTE: OK, fine.

Let's go.

MIKE SPINELLI: All right, so OK, Fairmont, yes or no?

LEO PARENTE: No, Fairmont's a good car.

Fairmont Thunderbird to me would be the

first one on the list.

That was a crappy Thunderbird

MIKE SPINELLI: All right, so you're right.

It's a Fairmont with conceit, which makes it worse.

All right, so let's put that-- that will be number five.

LEO PARENTE: Why'd you look at me when you said conceit?

Keep going.

MIKE SPINELLI: All right, keep going.

OK, this is in no particular order because we'll just let

these guys figure it out.

Granada, you said--

LEO PARENTE: I liked Granada, actually.

I thought it was a decent car.

MIKE SPINELLI: OK I'll give Granada, except that you also

didn't like the Lincoln Versailles.

LEO PARENTE: I hate the Lincoln Versailles.

MIKE SPINELLI: For the same reason as the Fairmont T-Bird,

it's a bad car with conceit.

LEO PARENTE: The pretense was just flawed.

It was a Bandaid at the time, but it was a bad car.

MIKE SPINELLI: OK, that's in, too.

All right, so that'll be--

Mustang II, let's leave it to the end?

LEO PARENTE: Sure, whatever you want to do.

MIKE SPINELLI: Because I think there might be a difference of

opinion on this.

But anyway.

LEO PARENTE: Because I'd throw it on the

list, but keep going.

MIKE SPINELLI: Ok, Edsel?

I'm taking it off.

LEO PARENTE: Fine, fine.

MIKE SPINELLI: EXP?

LEO PARENTE: Bad car.

MIKE SPINELLI: All right, bad car.

LEO PARENTE: It was a front drive--

MIKE SPINELLI: EXP is on the list.

LEO PARENTE: OK, good.

MIKE SPINELLI: OK, Pinto.

We got to--

I guess Pinto has to be--

LEO PARENTE: Well, I thought you started with you wanted--

MIKE SPINELLI: I'm a Pinto defender.

LEO PARENTE: We don't have to put it on the list.

I think it was a bad situation.

It might not have been a bad car.

MIKE SPINELLI: All right, screw it.

Pinto's off.

Pinto's off the list.

LEO PARENTE: See, I'm helping you.

MIKE SPINELLI: Look at that.

I thought we would be-- we'd have more of a fight.

Your first Ford GT.

LEO PARENTE: I think it's a bad car because

it was a bad car.

It failed miserably.

MIKE SPINELLI: But I think that the whole idea that Ford

was actually going after Ferrari was a good thing.

So I think everything within that umbrella was good.

LEO PARENTE: But we're not ranking the ideas.

Otherwise, we'd go back and have the Edsel discussion and

the Pinto discussion.

The car sucked, OK?

The later-generation GTs were brilliant, and maybe their

suckiness motivated success.

But that car, bad race car.

MIKE SPINELLI: Suckiness motivates success.

I'm going to get a T-shirt with that on it.

So we'll put the Ford GT on.

LEO PARENTE: You're going to give me one?

MIKE SPINELLI: We're going to give you the Ford GT, the

first Ford GT.

Fairmont T-Bird is on it.

LEO PARENTE: I'm up to three.

I've got the Versailles and T-bird and--

MIKE SPINELLI: OK, here you go, here you go.

One or the other--

Gran Torino Elite or Heritage Edition Ranchero?

LEO PARENTE: They built more Elite so that's the worst car.

MIKE SPINELLI: Because they built more of them?

LEO PARENTE: Sure.

MIKE SPINELLI: I guess you're right, the overall effect of

the Torino Elite.

OK cool, so we're down-- all right, that's it.

So we're down to Mustang II.

LEO PARENTE: Ooh!

OK.

MIKE SPINELLI: Is the Mustang II going to knock another car

off the list just because its crap?

LEO PARENTE: Even though Mike Musto loves--

my mic's all over the floor.

Even though Mike Musto loves the steering gear from the

Mustang II, because they're in most hot rods--

MIKE SPINELLI: That's right.

It's a very compact

rack-and-pinion situation, right?

LEO PARENTE: And even though Iacocca came up with Mustang

II for a good reason, [BLEEP]

[BLEEP]

[BLEEP]

Mustang, bad Mustang.

On the list.

MIKE SPINELLI: I say no, and here's why--

Farah Fawcett-Majors.

Three words.

LEO PARENTE: Well, you know what?

If she came with every car--

MIKE SPINELLI: Well--

LEO PARENTE: Don't do the joke that's going to go

with that line, OK?

Sure, whatever you want to do with Mustang II.

But it would never be on my list of--

it would be on my list of bad cars.

MIKE SPINELLI: I'm taking it off, off the list.

LEO PARENTE: Well, it's your show.

It's "AFTER/DRIVE."

MIKE SPINELLI: King Cobra, also off the list.

LEO PARENTE: But by the way, back to your cladding comment,

what a festival of cladding that was.

MIKE SPINELLI: Well, cladding isn't always bad.

LEO PARENTE: What do we got?

So what about the fans?

MIKE SPINELLI: That's it.

We're done.

LEO PARENTE: Well, we're done, but what about the fans?

What do you guys think?

MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, well, what do you guys think?

Which are the worst Fords in history?

LEO PARENTE: Oh, and I've got add, because we have

completely ignored Europe, and I'm going to--

MIKE SPINELLI: Oh, that's true.

LEO PARENTE: --frankly play to a little bit of--

oh god.

The point is, tell us what Ford cars around the globe we

may have missed as bad Fords.

MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, very good.

LEO PARENTE: Happy birthday, Henry.

MIKE SPINELLI: Happy birthday, Henry Ford.

You're 150, and you did a lot of good things, but some

things not so much.

That's "AFTER/DRIVE" for today.

Don't forget, slashdrive.tv, @drive on Twitter,

Facebook.com/drivetv, also drive.jalopnik.com.

And we're on Pinterest now.

So post and pin some crap.

That's it.

See you guys next week.

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