There are certain kinds of cars that, conceptually, just don’t really exist anymore. Like when a company takes a mass-market everyday car and strips it down to make something fun and silly. That’s no longer a thing. You know what else isn’t a thing? Cars that are proudly cheap. Yes, cheap, as in inexpensive, to buy and to operate. There was once a time when carmakers would have distinctive versions of cars for cheapskates, proudly branded and named and badged and (often) sticker’d, cars that really leaned into the whole idea of frugality, without shame. Frugalcore cars.
Today, the concept of everything having to be “premium” has killed this idea, and has been a disaster for small, cheap cars, which have been forced into metallic gray paint and made to try to be things that they are not, to their detriment. There’s a reason a new Nissan Versa is such an undesirable thing, and that’s because it’s a cheap car forced to pretend it isn’t, and deep down it knows that this just isn’t true.
In the past, a cheap car was something to be celebrated, allowed to thrive and revel in its perfidy, and no attempt was made to hide what the cheap edition of the car was. It was celebrated, in fact, with special names and identities, and there was no shame. As a result, a cheap car could be charming and appealing. Here, to sum up this idea, is a simple diagram, featuring two Nissans – a modern-ish Versa and a ’70s Datsun B210 Honey Bee:
I miss the days when being broke but wanting a decent car wasn’t something you had to hide, but something automakers actually courted, with cars like the ones I’m about to show you. Consider the one I just used as an example, the Datsun Honey Bee.
The Honey Bee was introduced in 1975 as the lowest-spec version of the Datsun B210. They started with the basic B210 two-door with a four-speed manual transmission and the A14 1.4-liter engine. To get the price down, Datsun removed or altered a bunch of stuff compared to the normal B210 (list from Datsun1200.com):
- No Wheel covers (dogdish caps fitted)
- No “honeycomb” wheel covers
- No Spare tire cover
- No Trunk mat
- No Cigarette lighter (blind plug fitted)
- No Speedometer trip meter
- No Rear window defogger switch (blind plug fitted)
- 1976 Honey Bee has the defogger
- No Carpet (only Mat)
- California models included carpet
- No Armrest (pull handle is fitted)
- No Door trim molding
- No Rear side molding
- No Rear seat ashtray
- No Wiper blade high-speed fin (uses basic type from 620 truck)
- No Door lamp switch for assistant side
- No Console box
- No Non-glare glass
- No Chrome molding for windshield
- No Chrome molding for rear window
Changed Equipment:
- Blackwall tires now fitted (instead of whitewalls)
- Trunk finisher: hardboard instead of laminated
- Front seat is folding only, instead of reclining + forward-folding
- Interior Trim: Black or Beige only (Deluxe has Black, Blue or Brown)
- Floor trim: Black only (Black or Brown in California)
After all this, it actually weighed 10 pounds less than the regular B210, too, which helped it hit that 41 mpg highway figure, I’d imagine.
Pretty much all of these seem like reasonable trade-offs to get to a selling price, in 1976 for example, of $2,844 (about $15,700 today, which is dirt cheap for a new car). I mean, no rear seat ashtray? Fine, the kids don’t have to smoke all the time. No wiper blade high-speed fin? What are we, sharks, who needs that? Rubber mats instead of carpet? Good, easier to clean. No spare tire cover? Fine! It’s not like you didn’t know it was a tire already! All of this is fine!
I like how Datsun made their ultra-basic stripper model something that felt fun, more than anything, and the name they gave it reflected this idea of cheap and cheerful, not dire austerity. Honey bee! That’s just a happy name.
Plus, Datsun managed to make an ultra-cheap car without taking the drastic measure that some American carmakers resorted to to get the same basic result: removing the rear seat. Both Chevrolet with the Chevette Scooter and (a few years earlier) AMC with their base-model Gremlin were two-seaters only, the back seats of which had been sacrificed on the altar of frugality.
I made a chart comparing these two stripper models a while back:
Unlike these two, the Honey Bee could be used for an actual family of four, and I’m pretty certain it was, often.
Sometimes stripped-down cheap cars have made fuel economy the banner they fly, proudly, which gives a cheap car a sort of extra bit of justification, as the concept of “efficiency” feels somewhat more embraceable to people than “I’m cheap as shit.” Fundamentally, they’re really doing the same basic thing: reducing content in the cars, here in the name of weight, but it saves money, too, and that was as important for these cars, even if it wasn’t hyped as much.
There are a few of these worth noting, like the cleverly-named Plymouth Feather Duster from 1976, sold for about half a year:
The Feather Duster managed to shave 187 pounds from the regular Duster and get better fuel economy thanks to using aluminum instead of steel for some components (like the manual transmission case), having a more efficient rear axle ratio, and special Slant Six tuned for economy. They also included Mopar’s goofy “Fuel Pacer System” which used the driver’s side turn indicator tell-tale lamp to let you know when you’ve been pushing too much on that go-pedal:
Where Feather Duster was a clever, fun name for their cheap, fuel-economy and frugality-focused car, later on Mopar seems to have lost the plot and named their ’80s-era fuel-sipping car something far less fun: the Miser.
Well, it was either the Dodge Omni Miser or the Plymouth Horizon Miser, but “Miser” was in that name regardless. Can you imagine a carmaker selling something called a “Miser” today? Does anyone want to be associated with a miser? Did GM have the trademark on Scrooge or Skinflint? Oy.
The Miser got an impressive 30 to 35 mpg in the city and 50-52 on the highway, I guess depending on which ad you’re looking at. The price of $5,299 in 1980 comes to about $20,000 today, so that’s definitely on the cheap end of things, and I guess it got there by eliminating things like the rubber impact strips on the bumpers, using the cheapest steel wheels, and even giving up any grille badges.
I like how this commercial couches the idea of buying a dirt-cheap car in the context of “America’s not going to be pushed around anymore,” said by that guy from the Naked Gun movies and who once punched out Paul Newman, George Kennedy.
I think the last really unashamedly frugal car that hit the market was likely the Honda CRX HF, which was an interesting example, as it was an extreme economy/frugality car based on a sporty car variant of a normal-level-frugality/economy car, the Civic.
The CRX HF (High Fuel) version arrived in 1985 and used the 1.5 liter engine with the two-valve-per-cylinder CVCC head, and only made 62 hp, the lowest of any CRX. It was also significantly lighter at about 1,850 pounds (compared to about 2,100 pounds), with lighter-weight sway bars, rear axle, rear brakes, and other parts, letting the HF get 49 mpg city and 52 on the highway, impressive numbers for a non-hybrid to this day.
I’m not sure that commercial up there really got the point across, equating an air pump with a gas pump, but it looked pretty cool.
Today, we still see cars that wear their fuel economy numbers as a point of pride, like Priuses and other hybrids. But the idea of cheapness as something to revel in and be proud of, that feels very gone. The idea of getting economy just from austerity, from deleting unnecessary stuff from a car, leaving just the most basic, usable, and affordable transport, I’m not sure that’s coming back anytime soon.
And yet, it’s a formula that could work for modern EVs, too. Not every EV has to be so damn heavy, and a genuinely light EV could get the desired range demanded with a much smaller and cheaper battery if things like a Featherweight Edition of a Tesla Model 3 or something existed.
But they don’t, and I’m not sure the current car culture will change enough so they could. But I’m still hoping for a cheap-ass car comeback.
Eh, the Versa is more maligned because of the later version Jatco CVT’s. basically this is the same for all Nissan FWD cars to be honest.
the Cheapskate car that more comes to mind is the Mirage. it was for the longest time available at least in the ads for 12,995 as I recall. this was the cheapest car at the time and I think thanks to Inflation these are now around 18K at the cheapest. which is still very cheap, but they are actually selling well still even though the axe is falling on them. One does wonder if they will get replaced by a Mirage Cross or something to explain away the 20-30 price bump on the basically just lifted hatchback they would probably be.
I’m gonna miss the Mirage based on the color choices available alone. Around where I live, there’s a pile of them sticking out like a rainbow on a metallic grey and black sky.
Each of these examples represent periods of bad economic times in these here united states. That my carrier choice and somewhat advanced age brought examples of most of them to me for service is a hoot. It’s no surprise that most of them were owned by engineers.
Don’t forget at one point you could display your frugality and vague racism (or at least like of stereotypes) with one car!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studebaker_Scotsman
The most recent specimen of cheapskate econobox I can think of was the 1st generation Versa 1.6 Base with no A/C, smaller engine, no B-pillar exterior trim, 14 inch wheels instead of 15″ in other trims, black grille and moldings instead of chrome, 1 less gear (the 1.8 Versa came with a 6 spd manual) and no radio.
MSRP was $9990 which is under $15K in today’s money.
Hyundai also offered an Accent Blue as a 3dr HB only at $9970 without A/C nor radio, but otherwise unchanged from a regular Accent.
You’re absolutely right that a cheap car is all about “perceptions.”
In 1984, I was in high school and our marching band had the bright idea to raffle a NEW CAR as a fundraiser.
So we bought a brand new cheapest possible spec Chevy Chevette for roughly $4000. We sold raffle tickets for $5 a pop (meaning we need to sell 800 to break even). We spent months trying to get every person in school and in the community of about 20,000 people to buy tickets for a NEW CAR.
We had to extend the sales period a couple of months and at the end some band parents bought a bunch of tickets just to break even. Raised essentially no money. Disaster.
The kicker is that some high school senior won the car. He immediately traded it in at the local used car dealership for whatever the lower trade-in value + cash for a 5 year-old Chevy Monte Carlo.
Never did anyone ever mention that horrific raffle again in the annals of our high school lore.
My uncle had both a Datsun Honey Bee and two Dodge Omnis. The first one had a VW engine and the second, a Peugeot engine. He favored small, economical cars for years. Later in life, he favored comfort over economy. I can recall a Cadillac or two and a couple different Chevy Impalas.
Hasn’t it always been fairly common knowledge that “DX” was the “Cheep version” of every Honda forever? That shows proudly.
And I think just choosing a Sentra or a Versa is a badge of cheapness
Back when they didn’t come with a passenger-side mirror.
Honda should bring that back to the Civic and offer a proper base model.
There was point in time that base models would have wildly better fuel economy than higher trim models – and those were the models that made the ad headlines.
Yeah I remember those as well as many Tercels and Escort Pony w/o passenger sideview mirrors
The only vehicle I ever bought new was a 1994 Toyota Pickup (Hilux), which I bought in October ’94, less than a week before the new-for-1995 Tacomas were due to arrive, so Toyota of El Cajon was selling off their last few ’94 Pickups and ’94 Tercels for a whopping $7,499. No radio, no AC, 22R-E 4cyl engine, 5-speed stick, no passenger side mirror, no rear bumper. I paid $150 extra because mine had this gorgeous metallic blue paint, but was otherwise totally a stripper. That same year my sister-in-law went for a new ’94 Ranger, but Ford wasn’t giving nearly as good a deal. Mine had cloth upholstery and carpeting, hers had vinyl seats and rubber floormats. My original tires lasted 80,000 miles, hers were bald by 20,000. My battery lasted twice as long, too. And hers cost a touch over $10K. I don’t know how long her truck lasted, but last I checked, my old Toyota was still going strong up in Alaska with nearly 300K miles on it.
Remember when trucks were the cheaper options?
yes, my family purchased brand new Hardbody King Cab and Ranger back in the mid 90s. They both had rear bumpers and passenger side mirrors but the Ranger had no A/C. It was an XL reg cab truck, 5spd, long bed with blue cloth seats, AM/FM radio and pwr steering. That was it
DX was just the name/acronym for the base trim of the model. While they were mostly the cheapest trim level, they were often still more expensive than the comparative domestic offerings, but you got that Honda quality.
The last really “cheap” Honda was the EJ Civic CX (’96-’00). Initially offered with 13″ wheels, no power steering, no rear wiper, no A/C (optional), no stereo (optional), and no tilt steering, but at least it had the 106hp 16v engine shared with the DX and LX trims. The EG CX (5th Gen) was given an 8-valve 1.5 with like 70hp…the DX had 16v and 102HP which I’m sure made it feel miles better.
I had a roommate in college that had a stripper-spec (no not like that) Chevy Cavalier VL, which supposed stood for “value leader”. He called it the “very limited” trim.
Working at a church one day, I asked the pastor about the red CRX HF in the lot. She said it was her baby, and, laughing, related that her parishioners—knowing she stretched every dollar to its limit—had labeled it, Highly Frugal
While I’m pissed that society expects me to wear pants, I’m happy I can buy cheaper ones with no pockets. I got nothing to put in the pockets anyway.
That’s what I think of when I’m reminded of that rear seat delete option.
Switch to the Women’s rack of clothes. Pockets are a function that clothing manufacturers don’t feel women should have.
Obviously if they had pockets they might buy fewer handbags. Can’t have that, can we?
Dad: I’m gifting you this two seat car.
Daughter: What no back seat?
Dad: It’s lighter and more efficient. Yeah, that’s it.
As far as dedicated budget models go, for years, you could get a Dodge Grand Caravan with the Canada Value Package (basic enough it got a fixed bench seat rather than the Stow ‘n Go center buckets), which they did sell a ton of them. I think they did similar on the American market as well, but to not quite the same success. Not really any charm, but cheap, functional vehicles.
Stow n’ Go seats were standard on American market Grand Caravans, at least through 2019
They did offer the removable middle bench in the US on base models too up to the end, still with the in-floor bins in place. 3rd row was always Stow-n-Go though.
Actually – the same was true on the Voyager in the current gen the first time around too, with a middle bench – but I think the returning one is Stow-n-Go only.
my bad, thanks for pointing that out
I seem to recall that Ford offered a super bare bones door crasher priced Ranger in Canada at one time. It’s hard to imagine what they removed. The bed? The frame? Puzzled.
Part of what you’re talking about here Jason is why I’ve previously stated that my Yugo is probably the most honest vehicle I own. It was built to a price point and was no more complicated than it needed to be. There is absolutely no pretense about it, this is a cheap car. It will get you places, faster than if you walked, and with a degree of weather resistance.
A/C: no
Radio: no
Glovebox: no
I feel like history is being more kind in retrospect to the Yugo than it was received in its time. I love mine, it’s fun. But if you bought one back then it was because you needed a cheap car, there was no mistaking that.
My dad was flown to NY to learn to work on Yugo’s back in the day. Everyone knew they were cheap (and not in a good way) and those that drove them had no other choice. All the mechanics hated them because they broke early and often (and in ways that was hard to find and even harder to fix) and the only godsend was that they rusted out even quicker.
We look back on these cars as cute and charming and to an extent are much more kind as you stated. We need to remember that most people didn’t drive them by choice, except that their other choice was to walk or take the bus. And they got rid of them as soon as they could afford to. Or when they turned to rust (which was surprisingly quick in todays standards)
Yes and no, at the peak of the Yugo craze, dealers were running wait lists and slapping extra adjusted markups on them that actually did cause many Yugos to be sold for conspicuously more than what a more substantial competitor would have gone for. That changed once things settled down, but during the Yugomania period, there were many Yugo buyers who could have easily bought something else and went with that instead
I was looking for Toyota Tercel and the first gen Hyundai Excel, but the Yugo is the winner.
Jason you’re forgetting that the build quality of cars in the 70s and 80s was awful compared to today. Yes, the Datsun and Honda were better than anything the Big 3 had on offer, but generally if you wanted something cheap that wouldn’t turn into a pile of rusty scrap in a year or two, you were buying closer to new.
Today’s cheapskates have a much deeper bench of durable used car choices. Today’s Honey Bee equivalent is a 12 year old Camry that’s arguably a better value than the new Datsun was.
Studebaker Scotsman! I guess the Scots had a stereotype of being cheap.
Was just about to post this. Could you imagine a carmaker doing something like this today? Kinda boggles the mind that this was perfectly okay at some point.
Yep, Studebaker was really blatant about it, but you’d see a lot of other automakers use Scottish imagery in ads when talking about fuel economy or cost of ownership. The stereotype of Scots being, um, “careful” with money was very prevalent and accepted in society at the time
Damn, beat me to it
Thrifty, Laddie, THRIFTY! NOT cheap!
I love that the two cars pictured represent [color-wise] both Snow Miser and Heat Miser.
You can’t have a Tesla Miser because people would be confused as to whether you were talking about a car or the CEO.
How about a stripper electric car on the basis on the CRX, instead of all that nonsense of door handles that electrically pop out and so forth.
The Feather Duster and Dart Lite were marketed as fuel savers, but not as cheaper strippers. It was a $50 upcharge on a standard Duster/Dart Sport.
My first car was an 89 Nissan Sentra. 4-speed stick, no radio, no passenger side view mirror, not even a vanity mirror for the passenger. It could be any color I wanted as long as it was black.
Porsche has made a killing stripping down their cars and charging more for them. Maybe Nissan needs to call it the Versa Superleggera and it’ll fly off dealer lots.
As I’ve recently spec-ed out a Versa (as I play my yearly “what would I buy if I had to replace my Focus” game), I’ll note Nissan does half-heartedly try to sell the fact that a manual is available by noting it’s a good choice for driving fun. Come on Nissan, really lean into this!
This is the same Nissan that won’t sell their Nismo Z with a manual? I guess lap times are more important that driving fun.
My first car was a stipped down 82 Honda Accord, no power anything except brakes (no power steering as that was an option). no passenger side mirror, only a dealer installed A/C. Got 40+ mpg on the freeway easy.
Someone needs to convince car makers people would buy a stipped down car. They are just sure nobody will buy them.
There’s “nobody” and then there’s “not enough people to make it worthwhile”, which is a more accurate way to put it. It used to be that strippers and cheap economy cars were a loss leader to build brand loyalty. It costs maybe tens of dollars less to build a stripper model, but you have to sell it for thousands less. That doesn’t compute these days, brand loyalty doesn’t matter anymore, and when you can buy a lightly used upscale trim of the same car for the same money as a used cheapo without sacrificing reliability or (much) warranty… there’s no reason to buy one or build one.
No longer is there the “x at this price” loss leader in the paper, and old car ads often featured the base MSRP pretty prominently. Now everything is more price forward anyway so it’s lease payment or APR, because that’s how most people shop, and the cheapest MSRP doesn’t always mean the cheapest deal when incentives get muddled in.
Yup. Why buy the cheapo when you can get the top trim level with all the gizmos for only $40 more a month for 96 months at 8%?
Who cares what the actual price is?
I get your point but one of the benefits of these modern modular EV platforms was that you could easily build more and very different models on one of them then you could with previous platforms. Things like the CAN bus and subscription \ paywall in modern cars also make it much easier to control content and would in theory make building a economy model even easier. Add that to new improved manufacturing techniques like “giga casting” which should lower the cost even more and the idea of entry level or budget conscious models should be possible.
That would be nice. CANbus has been around for 40 years at this point. I wouldn’t expect any savings from that that haven’t already been realized. That modular skateboard dream for EVs still hasn’t materialized and probably never will, unfortunately. I failed to mention also that as long as loans get longer and people buy more and more on monthly payment rather than price, the cheapo car is a pipe dream. Why get the stripper model when the LX-R fully loaded luxobarge is only $40 more a month for 108 months?
Also, the economy is doing quite well from a macro pov. Not saying it’s rosy for everyone (it never is), but overall, the economy is in good shape. Buyers as a whole have more resources to buy more car, and whether good or bad, they’ll spend them. Fewer people than before voluntarily restrict their consumption these days, so as you point out, there’s just no market for stripper cars.
Sounds similar to my first car, a 1982 Datsun 200SX. No passenger mirror, power steering or A/C. The only power accessory was, interestingly, that lone driver’s side mirror.
I guess you could say it was a “lightened” model, but only because rust is lighter than steel and rust made up much of the car’s structure.
Every car company should have a small economy car and make the Superleggera version and race ’em!!! The Super Light Super Minis!!
The SV badge on cheap Nissans basically means Super Veloce, right?
It’s a little leading to choose the previous-gen Versa (“modernish”) as it’s particularly ungainly; the current model is much sharper looking, if still wonderfully basic inside.
I know someone here has one but I can’t remember who, but didn’t Chevy fairly recently make a special econo-edition Cruze that proudly advertised that fact?
Chevy sold the 1st gen Cruze Limited as a fleet spec special for the 1st year the 2nd gens were sold. Not exactly light on features, though.
Nissan and Hyundai played that game quite well with the 1st gen Versa and contemporary Accent, though
We definitely need more of this.
For me less is more. Only screen I need in the car is for the government mandated backup camera.
Let’s not forget the Oldsmobile F-85, for those of us too cheap to afford the word “Cutlass” on our car.
Although, I guess you could dismiss a lot of 60’s and 70’s American economy cars as examples of bizarro-world homologation – they made a minimum amount so each dealership could use one as a low price example to get people to visit, then upsell them to something that actually came with window cranks.
Nissan did the same thing with the $9,990 base model Versa launched back in the fall of 2008 for the 2009 model year – was hailed as the right car at the right time for the recession, but, in practice, they shipped very few in that trim to the US and they were virtually impossible to find at dealers, and nobody would special order one in for you. Dealers that got them used them for advertising purposes, to get customers in the door, then upsell to something more profitable
That was also the last new car in the US to sticker for under $10k that was legally a normal car and not a Chinese 3-wheeler or NEV.
Hyundai also offered a 3dr only Accent Blue under $10K. A co-worker owned a one until recently. No radio but A/C was optional
Had a 63 or 64 F-85 in the late 1970s. Had a V8 and the 2 speed auto. 4 doors.
Only paid 300 bucks for it.
Was a great beater and got close to 21 mpg in the city.
Wish I still had it.
The CRX HF is the gold standard here. (or the Hugo but let’s not go there)
I tried to do this when we bought a new 99 Hyundai Accent base model. It was Less than $10k new and gave us no problems for 11 years.
As the previous owner of an Omni 024 Miser, a Colt E, a Protege DX, and a Corolla not-even-a-DX, I support this idea.
The Ford Fiesta SFE was the closest thing I remember to this recently. Although marketed as a fuel economy special you did need to make some equipment sacrifices.
Mandatory manual transmission.
Mandatory ugly plastic wheel covers over steel wheels with low resistance tires.
Locked out of interior upgrades/options.
The Cruze Eco was a similar contemporary option. Similar, marketed as a fuel economy special.
Did you pay any price in equipment for the Eco though?
If I remember right you could still get an automatic transmission and a nice interior in the Eco.
Both the SFE, XFE and Eco were more expensive than the S or LS models, respectively. They sold you the re-ingeneering towards better FE, but they never targeted ace of base features. More of a midgrade package based on a SE or LT1.
Curiously the Focus SFE was only available with the crappy Powershift
The Eco was sort of an LT+ in some equipment. It was a bit nicer than most of the eco-minded trims that were so en vogue then. Most were autos too, the Cruze was rarer in offering a manual with different gearing. Corolla offered an Eco trim that actually added more power at the same time and was near the top of the range.
Most were just a small step above or lateral move from the lower trims like you said. Focus SFE was at least initially sort of a package on the SE that locked you out of other options. Honda had an HF trim again for the Civic, Nissan had FE+ on the Sentra. Hyundai had “Blue” and Kia some FE+ badges even but those were sort of just another way of naming the base models. All of them usually just meant they had smaller/low rolling resistance tires, maybe lighter/lower drag alloy wheel or cover, and maybe a spoiler, netting a couple mpg difference.
Cobalt XFE prior to that, as well.
Pretty sure the model name of my first car in high school was the Ford Econobox (did I misspell Escort) and it had a hole in the dash where the stereo was supposed to be. I do not find myself nostalgic for those days.