These Are The Most Dangerous Cars Our Readers Have Driven

Too many car enthusiasts bite off more than they can chew, while some are in the wrong place at the wrong time. We asked our readers earlier this week what were the most dangerous cars that they’ve ever driven. Apparently, you all have a bug problem. A disproportionate number of responses featured a decades-old Volkswagen Beetle that needed upkeep. But don’t worry, we have the entire gambit covered, from Vipers to U-Haul trucks. Without further ado, here are all the cars that you all are surprised that you survived driving:

Early Dodge Viper. No tech assist of any kind, poor visibility, pedals made for small children or elves’ feet in the smallest contained space imaginable. First time in it, out to a live road course. Equal parts fun and terrifying. Ok, maybe, 60/40 terrifying.

Submitted by: MisterHappy

I was going to talk about how I dailied a 66 F100 through high school and college, or the Suzuki X90 I ran around VIR, but probably the most dangerous one I drove was an FSAE car. 100 mph in a barely running tube-frame car built by half a dozen college kids in the middle of the night? Why yes, the wheels could fall off at any time (and just about did on me once 2 nights before comp).

Send it.

Submitted by: AxelRipper

I guess most people would say my Viper because, you know, it’s a Viper. In my experience though, if you drive it like a normal car, it drives like a normal car.

My ’71 Vette has the rear trailing arm pockets rusting out pretty bad, so that’s always pretty present in my mind when I get it out now, though I don’t get it out much because of that. My ’67 Dart is pretty much all built by me in my driveway, but so far, it’s been doing okay on daily driving duty.

You could also argue my motorcycle it unsafe, just because it’s a motorcycle with the inherent dangers that come with that.

Submitted by: MoparMap

In the late ’80s, as a late-teenaged driver, I had a 1965 Mustang GT. 300hp, no crumple zones, no power steering, heavy clutch for the 4-speed, primitive radials (by today’s standards). It was both quick and fast. It had zero modern safety amenities. No headrests to protect your neck, no shoulder belts, no side-impact protection.

While it was mechanically and structurally perfect, it was a 1960s pony car. Not the best choice for a young driver.

Fun though.

Submitted by: JohnnyWasASchoolBoy

In the 80’s I drove a VW 1982 Diesel Rabbit as my daily. It had 52 horsepower. I can’t believe I survived driving that around the Beltway in DC. I can’t believe that I was even able to enter the Beltway at that horsepower. The seat belt was attached to the door.

It was a great car otherwise. There was a choke and you had to wait for the glow plugs to warm up.

Submitted by: sjstearns

A 1997 Dodge Neon prepped for autocross. Now, the car was in fine running order, however, it was on Falken Azenis RT-215 tires that were worn enough that the tread looked like it was drawn on with a marker. If it were sunny and dry, I’d be fine. However, on this particular day, there was a dusting of snow. Every slight bend in the road was perilous, even some of the heavily crowned rural roads were challenging to drive straight on.

I normally would not have driven that car on such a spring day, but my daily driver was down with a broken timing belt from a sketchy “friend” replacing it and subsequently doing a very poor job. And I needed to get to work in the meantime while I sourced a new head and fixed it all myself.

Submitted by: Tom Hinkemeyer

’85 Chrysler Laser bought sight unseen thru a friend for $200. Had to hitchhike to get to the car. Was told to sit down before putting my feet in so I pulled up the carpet and saw the gravel driveway. Drove it home since it was already paid for and only other option was my chevrolegs. Took about a month before it caught fire from some insulation that dangled over the exhaust pipes. That didn’t kill it. Later busted a tie rod on a vicious pothole. Tow company handed me a check for $175 since the engine still ran. Hitchhiked to a dealer for my next car.

Submitted by: Laserinop

Not sure this counts, but a U-Haul box truck rental. Wheels only vaguely did what the steering wheel told them to do. Brakes worked on their own schedule. Taking that thing down the Alewife Brook Parkway in Somerville, MA in rush hour was the scariest driving moment of my life.

Submitted by: Crucial Taunt

At 18, my first car was a 1976 Chevy Camaro RS 350ci, 4bbl, with bald tires, worn-out linkages and a shake above 55 that turned headlights in the rearview mirror to vertical lines. So of course I took it out to a back road and opened it up to 120mph, getting a bit of air when I hit a railroad crossing. Two days later, one of the steering linkages broke off as I exited a gas station. How I survived that first car is beyond me.

Submitted by: GoPadge

1973 VW Beetle

Bought it in 2003 from the original owner and in excellent shape. Still, under 40 hp and 4-wheel drum brakes in traffic with 6000-pound SUVs was a bad idea. It never left me stranded, but the brake system was a nightmare even with garage storage. I paid a premium for a German master cylinder and as many German brake parts I could get. Within 2 years, the master cylinder was covered in rust and wheel cylinders had chronic problems of failure where the drums were frozen. Brakes were such a PITA on that car, even as a pure hobby. Respect to the people who had these as used cars and primary transportation in the 80s.

Submitted by: Tex

My 1972 Volkswagen Beetle. Let’s start out with the base level of, it’s hard to understate how dangerous these things were in a crash fresh off the factory floor and while they were sold as rock solid and reliable, they were none of those things. Now add 15 years of poor maintenance and give it to a high school student as their first car.

The steering had roughly a quarter turn of slop in either direction. The windshield would fog up on the inside the second you closed the windows and there was no heat, as the heating channels had rotted off years before. The floor was rusted through dangerously in multiple spots so that you needed to place your feet carefully when you got in lest you step through the floor, the brakes were never good to begin with and were oh so bad by the time this car came into my hands. The tires were nearly bald, old and shiny in that way that says traction? what traction?

It was bad enough that, when my mom needed to take my car for the day because hers was in the shop, when my dad got home that evening, she read him the riot act for putting their son in a car that was that dangerous and insisted that it be taken to a junk yard and scrapped before it killed someone. It survived that but not for much longer as the bad tires, bad brakes and bad visibility in rain conspired to kill it about a month later. I survived but it was taken to the junkyard before it could do any more damage.

Submitted by: Buckfiddious

Easy decision. I restored a 1972 VW Beetle convertible. It was a full body and drive train restoration back to what approximated factory new condition. BUT It had drum brakes all around (until I installed a disc brake package on the front end) which were strictly press and pray. When approaching a light-controlled intersection, I had to guess whether the green light was “fresh”. If it looked like it might be turning red I had to decide if I should start braking NOW. On one occasion, this resulted in me coming to a stalled stop in the middle of the intersection. This being Canada, everyone looked at me, stayed put and waited while I got her going again and proceeded through on the red light. Oh yeah, and I also had 10 gallons of gas just on the other side of my dashboard right in the crush zone of the car’s front end. So there was that too.

Submitted by: justtoombs

I had a ’70 VW Baja Bug. Thing was light enough one person could lift the front bumper and turn the thing around. Its power curve essentially ended after 3rd gear, so it could hold 55 uphold, but that was it. Downhill, wide open in 4th, I could get 80 out of it, flat ground, somewhere 65-70.

But it was that downhill part that was dangerous. A bug is basically shaped like an airfoil, and with that added ground clearance you could feel it lifting from the road. With fiberglass for everything but the shell itself, and a partly rusted floor pan, any impact at speed would have resulted in annihilation.

Submitted by: Tom Paine