AFF Greatest car of all time?

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So what do the members feel is the greatest car of all time is?
It doesn't have to be the fastest, doesn't have to be the most reliable.
BUT you do need to give a couple of reasons as to why you think this car would be considered the greatest.

Also remember these are people's OPINIONS so please dont start a flame war.

Below I've thrown an article that talks about their top 10 greatest cars. They have listed it and given their reasons why.

Greatest cars of all time
Harvey Grennan, The Sydney Morning Herald, January 9, 2009



From Ford's classic Model T to Australia's favourite compact car, the Corolla, there are plenty of contenders for a list of the all-time best.


Luis Guarch with his fully restored 1966 VW Beetle


From Ford's classic Model T to Australia's favourite compact car, the Corolla, there are plenty of contenders for a list of the all-time best.

How does one define the best cars ever made?

Are they the most beautiful, the fastest, the most technically advanced or the most prestigious? Is it a contest between the E-Type and Stingray, the Ferrari and Lamborghini or a Rolls-Royce and the illustrious Bentley?

Or should we look at more prosaic qualities, such as which cars gave us the seatbelt, the automatic transmission, pneumatic tyres and cup-holders?

There have been many attempts to identify the world's greatest car. A decade ago a worldwide vote among 133 motoring journalists found the Ford Model T was the car of the century. The runners-up were the Mini, the Citroen DS, the Volkswagen Beetle and, of course, the Porsche 911.

Men's Vogue magazine in the US named its 25 most influential cars recently. While the Mini topped the poll, most of those on the list were predictably either testosterone-charged, such as Ferraris and Bugattis, or of US origin. Consider, if you will, the intellectual rigour of the Ford Edsel, Chevrolet Bel Air, DeLorean, Cadillac Eldorado and the Hummer as among the most influential on car design. The car most revered by European rev-heads, the Citroen DS, managed just 17th place.

Autocar magazine in Britain, managed a more credible, if Euro-centric, attempt with its "five cars that changed the world": the Ford Model T, Volkswagen Beetle, Citroen 2CV, Mini and the Fiat 500, also known as the "Topolino".

So there is little argument that the Model T, Mini and Beetle are towards the top of everyone's list. But the truth is none of these automobiles were all that original.

Henry Ford was not the first to dream up a moving production line, just the first to have a car with sufficient demand to justify one.

The Mini was far from the first automobile to have front-wheel-drive or a transversely mounted "east-west" engine.


And the Beetle was a dead pinch from a Czech-made Tatra, which was killed off by Adolf Hitler out of sheer embarrassment.

And if those US and British magazines can take a parochial view of what is best, why not Drive Life? What about the Charger and the Magna, both created with "smell-of-an-oily-rag" Aussie ingenuity.

The Charger was a Valiant with a few inches chopped out of the wheelbase, a swoopy boot tacked on the rear and a very attractive price tag of just $2800. It was Australia's answer to the Mustang.

The Magna was a Sigma sliced down the middle and widened to create the Australian Six ("Big Aussie Six") family car on the cheap. Both vehicles were hugely successful.

Don't forget the much-maligned Leyland P76. It was yet another automotive triumph of Aussie inventiveness, let down by poor execution on the production line.

The cars on the market today are the best made, safest and most technically advanced in automotive history. They boast standard features that not so long ago were extras or the exclusive province of expensive German marques. None of that is surprising given the march of technology. But they are also cheaper than they have ever been - a testament to the industry's resilience and creativity.

Drive Life's 10 best cars track not the beautiful or the powerful, or the prestigious but the cars that made those qualities affordable to the masses. And there's not a Cadillac or a Hummer among the lot of them.



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Drive Life's 10 best cars


Ford Model T

The "Tin Lizzie" was the first car produced in volume and at a price for the masses. While the Model T was simple and cheap, it had a lot of new technology including high-strength steel-alloy axles to keep weight down, a detachable cylinder head and a planetary gearbox that did not require any particular skill to change gears.

Morris Mini

The brilliance of the "flying brick" was not in the front-wheel-drive or "east-west" engine, which was not new, or even in its novel rubber suspension but in the efficient packaging. Four adults could sit in a car just three metres long. It was also cheap to run, fun to drive and made designer Alec Issigonis a legend.

VW Beetle

Hitler's "people's car" introduced a number of innovations to mass-produced cars - the backbone chassis, independent torsion bar suspension and a flat-four engine. But the Beetle's most stunning achievement was its longevity: production started in 1938 and essentially the same car was still being produced in Mexico in 2003.

Toyota Corolla

There has never been anything revolutionary about the Corolla. Its strength has been its simplicity. It arrived on the Australian market in 1968 and has provided mobility to more people than any car in history, with some 34 million produced and sold.

Holden 48/215

A parochial indulgence here. The first Holden, also known as the FX, was a world leader of sorts for its light weight, genuine six-seater capacity and powerful performance. It was a match for the Ford V8s of the day. The FX established the formula for the "Big Aussie Six", which was copied by Ford and Chrysler.

Chrysler Voyager

The Voyager "minivan" arrived as a Plymouth in 1984 and re-invented the people-mover. It showed other manufacturers that you could fit front-wheel-drive in a van and it offered multiple seating positions to suit a heap of passengers or luggage or both.

Porsche 911

The Porsche 911 is widely considered the best all-round sports car in the world, with outstanding engineering quality, razor-sharp handling and sizzling performance. But the Porsche also gave the motoring world the tiptronic gearbox.

Mitsubishi Pajero

This is the vehicle that made the soft-roader sexy, a good or bad thing depending on your point of view. Until the first Pajero in 1982/83, four-wheel-drives were very agricultural beasts indeed, with few comforts and a truck-like ride - unless you could afford a Range Rover.

Citroen DS19

The Goddess, as it became known, stunned the motoring world when it was released in 1955. Apart from the classic aerodynamic styling, it was notable for technical features such as self-levelling hydro-pneumatic suspension, detachable body panels and headlights connected to the steering. The beautiful shape did not change for 20 years and the handling was sensational.

GM Volt

This is a bold prediction because the Volt will not be on sale until 2010. It's not the first all-electric car but will be the first full-size, high-volume example from a mainstream manufacturer. Many pundits would opt for the hybrid petrol-electric Toyota Prius but hybrids may prove just a stop-gap until the widespread adoption of all-electric or hydrogen fuel-cell powered cars.