International Vintage Volkswagen Forums

While in my local library on Saturday I sat down with a book I found there called Cr*p Cars, (this title spelt in full on the book cover, but may offend the internet, so cr*p cars it is here).

The author Richard Porter, lists and gives opinions in reverse order of cars he considers cr*p.

For the most part I found it an entertaining read, until I got to the back, and 'the World's most Cr*p car of all' – the VW Beetle :shock:

I list here extracts from this section, and I QUOTE:

"The Allegro is the Godfather (of cr*p cars), but let it be told, this (the Beetle), is the Daddy;
Dismal Germanic car with the engine in the wrong place;
It's also clearly bo**ocks;
A list of built in faults so long that they would fill every paqe in this book;
Owners are marked-out as a kind of mush-brained tit who knows nothing about cars;
The only good thing about this cramped, ugly waste of perfectly good metal is that after 57 years of production – about 55 years too long – is that Volkswagen finally killed it off. And good riddance."

Well at least he admits that Beetle is made of perfectly good metal, unlike I suspect many of the cars he likes. Maybe that's why many Beetles have lasted so long :!:

BUT, this is the clincher, you would think that this is from some obscure publisher, but It is under the banner of Top Gear, BBC Books :shock:

You could say it is all a bit of fun, and ignore it. But – does this make me a fool? – I was for a short while offended, (well for as long as it takes for a good old split to get from 0-58 anyway).

If the Beetle was a religion – it virtually is to some of us who who face Wolfsburg and pray for a KdF to materialise – can you imagine, and rightly so given the written contempt, the huge backlash over this.

I can only say that this book is a waste of perfectly good paper :evil:

It seems that this book appeared late 2004. The contact details of Richard Porter if you wish to challenge him (I have) are: sniffpetrol@blueyonder.co.uk

I don't think that I shall see Top Gear in the same light again. I thought that they had at least some idea of a good successful car, but then the Beetle doesn't move as fast as a Bishop from a brothel raid, and fails to frighten the elderly, children and cats 😶

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I think it's great that this book rates the beetle as the worst car of all time and I'll tell you why:

If you are the sort of person who needs a book to tell you what cars are cr*p then you don't deserve to own a beetle.

I doubt there are many cars developed in the '30s which made it into the book so unless he's comparing like for like, it's meaningless rubbish.

I don't care, I love them!

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Of course they're rubbish! noisy, smelly, slow, handle badly etc etc.

Especially those old KdF's or really old convertibles... I suggest everyone who has one sells them off cheap and replaces them with a nice new BMW or Merc. In fact, I'll take them off their hands for free - just drop me an email

:wink:

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Richard Porter works with BBC and is involved with the production of Top Gear, which i suppose is no surprise :!:

He has his own website, where I obtained his email address.

Here’s the email address to contact Richard Porter if you wish to give him your opinion. I’ve given mine reasonably politely – and you can guess the sort of reply I had. Contact him on: sniffpetrol@blueyonder.co.uk

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I noticed that on the TV programme, the Top Gear team is often xenophobic about cars.
If it's not British or British-powered, it's no good. They have a relentless hate crusade against Porsche for some reason.
I think a lot of people are bitter that the Morris Minor never reached the heels of the Beetle in terms of looks, success, reliability and however you see the Beetle, it has gone down as an iconic classic essential like no other in the world! 😃

Didn't top gear reckon that the Bugatti Veyron was THE best car EVER? And Bugatti is owned by Volkswagen and the Veyron was the brainchild of Ferdinand Piëch (of Volkswagen), and Volkswagen wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the Beetle... :wink:

https://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,12529-1890873,00.html 

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I suggested to Mr Porter that he compares the Beetle with other pre-war cars – and not with those from the late 20th Century, as in his book.

Compare it with an Austin 8, or maybe a Ford Popular – poor build quality, 3 speed, no heater, indicators etc.

But then it's a compliment that the Beetle has made it through to the 21st Century to still be a subject of comparison, even in a rubbish publication such as Tor Gear's Cr*p Cars :!:

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An extract of the description of the book by Richard Porter on his website:

"Take a trip back to the 70s and 80s…"

And sure enough, all the cars in his book were launched in that period – except the Volkswagen Beetle, a car launched in 1938, even worse, he shows as an example a Split-window model :!:

With the creators of the other cars having an extra 50 years knowledge and technology advancement to play with, the Beetle did very well one could say.

Another extract, this is from the back cover:

"… the car industry's losers". This has to be the biggest blunder by Mr Porter, who clearly just seems to hate the Beetle for no intelligent reason. Volkswagen a loser with the Beetle, doh! 😃

Maybe this book's the loser here :?:

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If any of you contact Richard Porter of the BBC and get an intelligent, constructive reply, please share it on the forum 🙂

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