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All cars are created with good intentions. However, somewhere along the way, some cars take on dark associations. Unfortunately, in some cases, they can’t shake them off afterwards and are forever tinged with the incident or ownership that formed that shadow.

It’s a shame in many ways when this happens. Cars don’t pick their owners or what happens to them on the road, but they must live with any ill consequences. Or at least their manufacturers do.

Perhaps an old car of yours brings back bad memories? If you had a vehicle that was nothing but problems, you might be inclined to try and erase it from your personal history and pretend it never happened.

As the classic car insurance provider for thousands of owners in the UK, we’ve seen first-hand how cars can bring both joy and pain – the latter usually associated with long, drawn-out restorations or accidental damage when they’re out on the road.

That’s why it’s so important to invest in adequate classic car insurance. The right policy can help you shoulder the financial cost of repairing or restoring your classic after an accident. Lancaster Insurance are specialists in arranging classic car insurance, as well as cover for vintage 4x4s and other retro vehicles.

Let’s take a look at some cars which will never be able to shake their dark past. Would you own one of these?

1932 Ford V8

The 1932 Ford is celebrated by enthusiasts and engineers alike. Popularly known as the Deuce because of the “2” in the model year, it was a big hit primarily because of its V8 engine. Of the 275,000 Ford passenger cars built in the 1932 model year, around 185,000 were equipped with the V8.

What with being low price, lightweight and packing a decent punch of power, the 1932 Ford V8 became a widely used police vehicle. But these characteristics also attracted criminals including some of the most infamous outlaws of the day. Two of the most notorious among them, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, were big fans of the Deuce. Clyde was said to be so taken by the car that he sent Henry Ford a handwritten letter expressing his satisfaction with it.

Somewhat fittingly, then, it was in a 1932 Ford V8 that Bonnie and Clyde came to their grisly end. On 23rd May 1934, the lovesick tearaways were ambushed and killed by police officers who fired around 50 shots at them. The bullet-riddled car now sits in Whiskey Pete’s resort and casino 40 miles south of Las Vegas, having been bought by flamboyant Nevada businessman Peter Simon for $175,000 at auction.

The car’s history goes back to a woman called Ruth Warren, the wife of a local roofing contractor, who bought the vehicle for $835. However, it was stolen from her driveway by Bonnie and Clyde who then embarked on a terror spree which resulted in the deaths of nine police officers and several civilians.

The car was eventually returned to its rightful owner, who put it on display at local fairgrounds and travelling carnivals, before eventually selling it on. The vehicle was then holed up in a warehouse for a decade or so, before re-emerging to go on auction in 1973.

Pontiac Aztek

You’d be forgiven for never having heard of the Pontiac Aztek. While it might not be a classic car per se, it’s been dubbed ‘The Biggest Failure In Automotive History’.

The Thrillist website explains that Pontiac had big ambitions for the Aztek, but it proved to be a major failure on all fronts: “From the outset, Pontiac was intent on producing a radical vehicle that would revitalize the brand, wow the world, and re-establish Pontiac as the avant-garde American automaker it had been at various points throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The Aztec’s designers were well versed in what the market wanted, but tragically misconstrued the findings.”

It explains that the Aztec was the product of some of General Motors’ best designers. However, the Aztec was designed by a ‘committee’ of designers rather than one person’s vision, which resulted in a mixture of ideas.

However, despite this, the Aztec will forever be a part of TV history, having been Walter White’s car in the hit series Breaking Bad. While association with the show isn’t the worst thing to ever happen to a car, it wasn’t exactly desirable for the Aztec to be forever linked with a character like White. In fact, the underachieving vehicle, with its ugly, plastic appearance is said to be a metaphor for White’s life who had big ambitions before his descent into the drug world.

One of the Aztecs used in the show sold at auction in October 2013, for a meagre $7,800. That probably just about sums it up.

VW Type 1 (Beetle)

The VW Beetle needs little introduction. One of the best-selling cars of all time, loved by Californian surf dudes, college kids and free lovin’ hippies alike, it was in production for more than 80 years, with Volkswagen eventually calling time on it in 2019.

However, the fact is that the VW Beetle would never have come into being if it wasn’t for a certain Adolf Hitler. Hitler wanted to create a reliable car that hard-working German families could afford. He met with car designer Ferdinand Porsche – founder of the Porsche company – in 1935 to put his vision into action.

Hitler’s brief was that the car had to seat five occupants, be easy to maintain, cover the ground quickly on the autobahn and be affordable for the average person.

Porsche and his team went to work but Volkswagen failed to get the car into production before the war broke out in 1939. Porsche was accused by Czech car company Tatra of infringing several design patents, notably those by Hans Ledwinka, an Austrian engineer who Hitler himself was said to be a fan of. Tatra tried to sue, but Hitler invaded Austria, seized its factory and banned Ledwinka’s VW-like prototypes from seeing the light of day. In 1961, however, VW settled the matter out of court. By then, though, Volkswagen and the Beetle had conquered the world.

But it took a little while for the simple, air-cooled, rear-engine Beetle to gain popularity across the globe. The Brits deemed it to be noisy and hideous, while the Americans were resistant to get behind anything with connections to Hitler and the Nazi party.

Gradually, though, people accepted that the Beetle was based on a solid premise and they went out and bought the “The People's Car" in their droves and it well and truly shook its dark origins.

Fiat Uno

Launched in January 1983 to replace the Fiat 127, the Uno has gone on to become the eighth most produced automobile platform in history, behind the VW Beetle.

Being cheap to buy and maintain, it isn’t hard to see why the Uno proved so popular for Fiat. However, as solid as it was, it was largely unremarkable. That was until August 1997 when the Fiat Uno would be written into history.

Many people will recognise that date as the day that Princess Diana died after her car hit a pillar in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris. Analysis of the wreckage of the Mercedes Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed were travelling in revealed that it had glancing contact with a white Fiat Uno car, which left traces of paint on the vehicle’s bodywork.

At the time, the French Police made extensive attempts to find the vehicle involved in the incident but were unsuccessful. Although there were no witnesses who said they saw the Fiat in the tunnel, some reported seeing an Uno exiting the tunnel.

The driver of the Uno, a 22-year-old Vietnamese-born cab driver, was tracked down and gave a statement to Diana’s inquest denying he was the driver of the car that fled that scene. However, Le Van Thanh has since admitted he was the driver of the car in question but that he was told by French police not to talk about the incident.

Today a Fiat Uno from the late 1980s would make a good classic car for a first-time owner if you’re looking for a practical daily driver. But then again, if you’re thinking Fiat, the 500 might be a better way to go. Whichever model you end up with, make sure you protect it properly with classic car insurance from Lancaster.

Porsche 550 Spyder

The Porsche 550 Spyder is one of the most revered vehicles of all time. Dominating on the race track, with famous drivers such as Sir Stirling Moss, Hans Herrmann, Richard von Frankenberg and Jack McAfee at the wheel, a handful of Spyders were made available to private customers, primarily in the United States.

One of those ‘lucky’ owners was Hollywood star James Dean who got his hands on a 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder Convertible, nicknamed the ‘Little Bastard’.

Despite being one of the biggest actors in the world at the time, Dean dreamt of becoming a professional racing driver, and he won several races both on the track and on the road.

However, despite clearly being skilled behind the wheel, Dean was warned off owning a 550 Spyder by fellow actor Alec Guinness (the original Obi-Wan Kenobi) who said he’d be dead within a week. Exactly seven days later, on 30th September 1955, Dean, who was 24 at the time, was killed in Cholame, California, when the Porsche he was driving hit a Ford Tudor sedan at a crossroads.

Many believed the ‘Little Bastard’ was cursed. During the recovery of Dean’s Spyder, the car rolled off the back of the truck and crushed the legs of a mechanic standing nearby. In the years that followed, the vehicle’s parts – which were redistributed and put into other vehicles – were involved in deadly crashes themselves. Also, a truck carrying the Spyder’s chassis to an exhibition came off the road, killing its driver. The remains of Dean’s car are still something of a mystery today, which some might argue is for the best.

Today, 550 Spyders command huge sales prices at auction. The most expensive one to go under the hammer is believed to be a 1956 Porsche 550 Rennsport Spyder which went for a whopping $6,100,000 at Bonhams during the 2015 Goodwood Revival.

The Spyder in question was a lightweight purpose-built race car (although it never actually saw the track), which was powered by a small-displacement horizontally opposed four-cylinder engine that produced 110bhp.

Classics that have turned a corner

While the cars above may not be able to shake off their dark pasts, some classics don’t deserve their bad reputations. In fact, some cars that were the object of ridicule when they were launched, like the Austin Allegro, actually make very good classics today.

If you’ve dismissed the Morris Marina or Triumph ‘Snag’ in the past, you might want to revisit them now both have achieved classic status.

Protect your investment with classic car insurance

If there is one obvious takeaway from this article, it’s that you can’t foresee everything that might happen out on the road while you’re driving your classic car. Adequate classic car insurance is a must. So, whatever make and model of classic you buy, make sure you come to the specialists at Lancaster for a classic car insurance quote before you go anywhere else.

Did you know that Lancaster Insurance is the broker of choice for owners of 96,000 classic and retro vehicles in the UK?

Like you, the team at Lancaster is passionate about classic motors and we want to help preserve them for the future.

Benefits of classic car insurance through us can include:

• Up to 25% discount for classic car club members
• Salvage retention
• 90 days EU cover
• Static show cover
• Cover for historic rallies
• Limited mileage discounts

Two-year agreed valuations of classic cars can also be arranged. Just ask the team for more details.

Get a quote for classic car insurance today.