About ten years ago I went with a friend to an estate auction, not with the intention of buying anything ( I worked for an extremely parsimonious university at that time) but with the hope of preventing the friend buying more problems. With two dozen dead and moribund Morris Minors in his collection, a stable of mostly inactive British motorcycles and some semi-active Wolseleys of the sort described as "a waste of Pininfarina's talent", he didn't need any more projects to divert money from his mortgage. The collection being sold comprised mostly motorcycles, including an exquisite 250cc slightly scaled down Manx Norton likeness (I was tempted to call it a replica, but I have friends who deal in art and are pedantic about such words), but there were two cars on offer.
One was a 1935 or 36 Morris Eight, a nice little car bearing more than a passing resemblance to the 1932-4 Ford Eight. They were the typical student car just 25 or 30 years earlier and I remember them well, although I had a Triumph Herald myself. As I recall, the box-section chassis was drilled for lightness, and the holes provided the perfect starting-point for rust. Students of my time were careful, when they took their Morris 8 cars to be inspected, never to let both doors be open simultaneously because they'd never close again. The other car was a different matter. It was a tidy, but faded, 1939 Packard, its blue paint a bit chalky, but it was complete and alleged to be a runner. It had a bullet hole in the driver's side of the windscreen, inflicted from the outside and directly in line with the driver's head...surely a notorious car? Or maybe it was the driver who was notorious. Does the owner's or driver's fame or notoriety confer those characteristics on the car?
At the Southward Museum in Otaihanga, there is a 1950 Cadillac once owned by Micky Cohen. An entirely forgettable car in itself (the armour protection is concealed, apart from the heavy glass), its owner is remembered as a notorious criminal. Whether that makes the car equally notorious I can't say. Like all Cadillacs of the fifties it is very vulgar, and mechanically very ordinary.
The Southward collection includes a large number of cars, both famous and notorious. There is a 1936 Tatra 77, its body designed in a wind tunnel because fuel was expensive in Czechoslovakia, its rear-mounted 3-litre V8 engine air-cooled because Mitropa has severe Winters. Rear engine and swing axle suspension? Definitely notorious, and German officers were forbidden to drive captured examples. Marlene Dietrich's Cadillac V16 is there too, and makes an adjacent Rolls-Royce Phantom VI look small and modest. The various Ford Ts in the collection would have to be seen as notorious by anybody who regularly had to start one on Winter mornings, or descend winding mountain roads in one. There is also a Ferrari Monza 750, which killed its driver (Ken Wharton) in 1957. I'm told that only Mike Hawthorn could tame the Monza, but he was killed a couple of years later, in a more manageable Ferrari, racing with Stirling Moss on a public road. Moss had the sense to back off when it got dangerous; Hawthorn didn't, his notorious recklessness being a good match for the Monza.
Were the Bugattis in the Szchumpf collection famous or notorious? More than a tenth of all Bugatti cars were in that private collection, funded by embezzlement and tax evasion, imprisoned on stands when they should have been driven at least occasionally. The 1901 Mercedes 35HP has to be famous, but its predecessor, the 1899 24HP Cannstadt-Daimler is notoriously difficult to drive, even the sole survivor which has had its wheelbase extended.
The SS1, ancestor of Jaguars, was a bit of a con, with its long bonnet enclosing a very ordinary sidevalve engine, but it was fast and reliable. Famous for sure, unlike the Cord 810 and 812, with front wheel drive and futuristic bodywork and their notoriously frequent breakdowns. The beautiful MGB, for all that it was really just a shortened Morris Oxford with good steering, deserved to be famous, while the famous Lotus Elan was really notorious because any advantage conferred by its light weight was nullified by the need to carry half a ton of tools on any journey beyond walking distance of a railway station. The 1898 Leon-Bollee tricar, its tricky steering, overheating and dubious brakes notwithstanding, was famous while its contemporary the Pennington tricar, with its "self-cooled" engine, multi-spark ignition and direct fuel injection, was notorious.
Fame or notoriety can depend on details. Who remembers those notorious 3-cylinder Kawasakis of the 1970s? They had the ingredients for fame, but a thirst big enough to be noticed in America and a tendency to weave and wobble and wave the front wheel in the air made them notorious. The Ford Zephyr Mk4 could have been famous, but an element of anarchy in the rear suspension made it notorious instead.
Finally, there were two rear-engined, four-seater performance cars in the 1980s. They both used the Douvrin 3-litre V6 engine and the same 5-speed transaxle. Their dimensions were similar, and both used composite material for the body. The Renault A610 was famous, but the other car, with a stainless steel cover over the body, and gullwing doors, was notorious. It was the deLorean.