Man asleep in a car - Art-of-photo/Getty ImagesSometimes, you're out on a road trip and you just don't make it to the hotel one night. Maybe you got caught in traffic, maybe you were just optimistic about how much driving you could really do in a day, or maybe you planned this all along, saving your AirBnB cash by crashing in the driver's seat for a night or a nap. Regardless, if you're reading Jalopnik, you've probably slept in a car at some point. That's why, earlier this week, I asked you to tell me about the worst car you've ever slept in. Anything form a camping overnight to a childhood nap in the backseat counted, and you returned results all across that spectrum — from minutes to hours spent catching Zs on four wheels. Today, we're looking through your responses, and we're going to see exactly what makes for the worst sleeping car imaginable. Let's see what you said, and figure out if we can discover any common threads. Read more: These Automakers Should Build New Supercars, According To Our ReadersFord PintoPicture this: A dad, two children under the age of 12 (of which I was one), and a Great Dane leaving at 3:00 am from the suburbs of Chicago to drive to the suburbs of St. Louis in a Ford Pinto (not even the hatchback version, but one with a trunk) to show the Great Dan in a dog show (think Westminster, but way smaller, outdoors, and not at all glamorous) and trying to sleep on the drive there.I would prefer not to picture that, actually. That sounds better. AdvertisementAdvertisementSubmitted by: JerriesBerriesU-Haul box truckRome, NY - Jul 20, 2025: Wide view of U-Haul truck and Signage, is the largest trailer renter, trucks, and self-storage units in the United States, was founded in 1945 by Leonard Shoen and his wife - M. Suhail/Getty Images20ft U-haul with a pair of bucket seats that you can't recline. I seriously considered climbing in the back and moving a bunch of stuff around to make room on an uncomfortable couch I had in the back.If you'd gotten in the back, you would've absolutely baked in there. There's no winning with a U-Haul. Submitted by: ChaseFord FocusMilton Keynes,Bucks,UK - May 6th 2026: 2014 red Ford Focus car driving on a British road - Sue Thatcher/ShutterstockWhen my wife and I were a bit younger, we booked a last minute trip to New Orleans and had an early flight out of Baton Rouge. To save a few bucks, instead of staying another night at the hotel and leaving at 3 or 4 AM to go to BTR, we decided to drive there the night before and sleep in the car until it was time to drop it off and head to the terminal.It was an early third-gen Focus hatchback and had a decent amount of room for two people. What made it terrible was the near 100% humidity and heat. I didn't want to run the car the entire night so I would start it up to cool the car down if it got too hot, which was every 15 minutes. Those 5 hours were pretty miserable as well as the 12 hours of flight delays in an airport with only one airside food option. AdvertisementAdvertisementSeth, if I were you, I would've just slept in the airport. Submitted by: ODDsethToyota TacomaA Toyota Tacoma pickup - IFCAR, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsI spent the night sleeping in my 2000 Tacoma extended cab. Camping is great fun, but not when you finally get to the campsite after dark and it's pouring rain. I could barely even recline my seat because I had a bunch of stuff in the back that I didn't want to leave in the bed.Around these parts, we call arriving at the campsite in the dark "pulling an Amber." If you're arriving back at a campsite after dark, while drunk, it's a Mercedes. Submitted by: badrearFord F-150Teal and white Ford F-150 - Mr.choppers, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia CommonsThe cab of my 1994 F-150 regular cab with the sport buckets and jump seat. Lumpy to the max.Meanwhile, the bed was perfectly flat except for the ridged drop-in liner.For the next trip, I brought a thick workshop mat along in the bed and had a great night's sleep.AdvertisementAdvertisementA bed in the bed is the move, though ideally with some sort of bug protection above it. Submitted by: potbellyjoeToyota CoronaBandung Indonesia July 19 2025 classic Toyota Corona 1600 wagon TT137V on display at JDM Fest 2025 - RMT51/Shutterstock'78 Corona Wagon. Back seats folded. Two tween boys. Car packed from bottom to about 1 foot from the roof. Back and forth from Vancouver to Calgary a couple overnight trips for a move. We were basically luggage. (Oh, and waking up in the snack tray of jello, remnants of which never did come off the roof, was a hoot.) Gotta love the 80s. I still have PTSD. Hey, at least you got to be inside!Submitted by: Marc CorraSmart ForFourKrasnogorsk, Russia - June 1, 2025: German compact car Smart Forfour (W453) in the city street. - Art Konovalov/ShutterstockWe had tickets for the 2006 Olympics, but there were no hotels available, so we rented a car and a parking spot at a train station. They gave us a Smart forFour. Seats barely reclined, hardly space to keep our bags in the car while we slept. Would not recommend.AdvertisementAdvertisement"We" is suspiciously nonspecific about how many people were involved here. Were you trying to sleep four in this thing?Submitted by: AndrewB1966 Mustang1966 Ford Mustang Convertible. (Photo by National Motor Museum/Heritage Images/Getty Images) - Heritage Images/Getty ImagesBack in the early 90's my best friend and I decided to road trip his '66 Mustang from Los Angeles to Guadalajara, Mexico. The why is not important. But it was quite the adventure trying to sleep at a gas station in Mexico in the front seats of that car. The trip gave the us and the car a beating and rather than drive it back to LA, my buddy sold the car for a significant amount of cash and we flew home. Good times.Google tells me this is a 28-hour drive, which seems reasonable enough to manage with just one overnight. This really does sound like such a classic American adventure, though. I'm kind of jealous. Submitted by: Pelican FlyerOldsmobile Custom Cruiser WagonA green station wagon with wood paneling - That Hartford Guy, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia CommonsMy grandpa had an Olds Custom Cruiser Wagon. it had the rear facing seats in the back. I'm like 8, my cousins are 6 and 7. We got to sit in those rear facing seats on a drive through country roads in southern Indiana. So, super twisty, super hilly. I fell asleep, feeling queasy. I awoke to the sound of Cousin 1 barfing on the floor then on cousin 2. I then proceeded to barf on the floor and Cousin 2.This was not the last time someone barfed in the custom cruiser. Those southern indiana roads are brutal.Do not recommend sleeping in an Olds Custom Cruiser Wagon.AdvertisementAdvertisementThis is the most Family Truckster-looking car I've ever seen.Submitted by: BuckfiddiousA MiataPhoenix, AZ, USA August 18, 2025 Mazda Miata RF Launch Edition by: JoshBryan - JoshBryan/ShutterstockMiata is always the answer.What, do you need space to sleep, or something?Submitted by: 17SecondsWant more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox, and add us as a preferred search source on Google.Read the original article on Jalopnik.
