Salvage Yard Of Shame

Lest you think I post only about the good cars I've owned to brag on them, here's the other list.  In a multiple choice world, I've checked the wrong box more than I care to remember, and have some parts to hang on the fence at the Salvage Yard Of Shame.  In order of ownership:

1960 Rambler Ambassador
1969 Volkswagen Beetle
1968 Fiat 124 sedan
1966 AMC Ambassador station wagon
1967 Oldsmobile Toronado
1979 Mercury Zephyr station wagon
1979 Mercury Zephyr sedan
1993 Ford Escort GT
1994 Chrysler New Yorker

Actually, the Beetle was an OK car, and fun.  By 1969 it had fully independent rear suspension.  The Escort was an OK car.  It had an automatic tranny for dense rush hour commutes and it "functioned as designed," reliably, for 10 years.  I include them for full disclosure, not to cast unfair aspersions.

What this list says about me, besides sometimes needing to replace a dead car in a hurry and bad judgment, I don't know.  And I'm not sure I want to: two Mercury Zephyrs, bought new?  A definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and expecting a different result.   I repeated my Zephyr behavior hoping for the same result.  (And got it.)  Like ignorance of the law, the fact that some of these cars were bought used and in a hurry was no excuse.  The Toronado and the New Yorker were gifts from my mother.  I was grateful, in a mixed feelings way.

The Rambler's front suspension failed on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  Whee!!!
The Fiat 124 started out black but became the color of iron oxide.  Fun to drive, though.
The AMC Ambassador lunched its bottom end right after I did a valve job.
The Toronado got 12 m.p.g.  Everywhere, always.  2.5 tons of small back seat and trunk.
The Zephyrs were cheap, largish, boxes.  But that didn't justify the terrible Ford Falcon six's I chose.
The New Yorker had brake discs the size of pot pie tins.  You planned braking, like docking a yacht.  It also ate a/c evaporators.