This looks like a north east Duster by the mid 1980's

Were they worse than typical cars of the era?

All of the cars that I obsessed over when I was a high schooler in the 1990s were notorious rust buckets. In particular, Darts/Dusters and Datsun 240zs.

As another North East person, remember and miss Caldor and Bradlee's too! Much of my Transformers collection came from those stores!