It Turns Out Everyone Loves The Pontiac Aztek

The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is the fanciest car show on earth, replete with caviar bars, oyster bars, champagne bars, huge sun-hats, celebrity sightings, and cars worth more than most houses. It’s an over-the-top spectacle of opulence, and we had no choice but to try to crash it with our $3,600 Pontiac Aztek — arguably the ugliest car of all time. And crash it we did.

We weren’t sure how people would respond to the Aztek; would they be amused? Would they be appalled? One thing we knew they wouldn’t be was indifferent, and that was very, very true. You see, the Aztek isn’t exactly a car you can ignore; its ridiculous face, with its turn signals mounted at hood-level with its headlights down below, with its weirdly low rear bumper that accentuates an already awkwardly cut-off tail, with its strangely slab-like doors — it’s historically been a love-or-hate type of car, but as we learned at Pebble Beach, in 2024 the world has shifted far towards “love,” with only one tiny tiny quip of hate.

That little quip happened during the Exotics On Broadway parade. This is an awesome event involving 400 of the fanciest supercars you’ve ever seen — Koenigseggs, Paganis, Bugattis, along with the Porsches, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and McLarens you’d expect — all driving down Broadway in the city of Seaside, where 40,000 spectators look on. It’s a monster event — apparently the largest (by attendance) single-day event of Monterey car week.

We’re grateful to have been allowed in.

Heading To Monterey With Our Fellow Supercar Owners

Our trip up to Monterey had begun a few days prior. We’d assembled with a bunch of supercars at Porsche Santa Clarita, the start of the “Fuel Run” road-rally that would conclude in what would be, at least for that week, The Holy Land of Cars: Monterey.

Fuel Run is a well-planned road rally for folks who’d like to hang out with other supercar owners. Here’s a bit about it from the Fuel Run website:

Our teams will unite on Wednesday, August 14th, 2024 with Hyper, Exotic, and Supercars alike. Our welcome and starting point is at the state of the art, Porsche Santa Clarita. …We will have our event registration, you’ll collect your official FuelRun merch, enjoy Breakfast, have your Fuel Run graphics professionally installed, and finally head north toward Monterey with some of the most breathtaking views the West Coast has to offer.

After a scenic and exhilarating curated drive, we will arrive to the waterfront in Morro Bay, CA at the Great American Fish Company for lunch. Voted best seafood in San Luis Obispo for 12 years in a row, it has been a favorite among area residents as well as Fuel Run for 8 years. After departing from Morro Bay, we continue on our picturesque drive to our final destination, Monterey, CA. Plenty of more exciting details to come, so stay tuned!

Needless to say, a Pontiac Aztek doesn’t quite… fit into that picture. And yet, the Fuel Run folks let us join anyway, and they were great! There was a Lamborghini Countach:

There were multiple Aventadors and at least one Huracan:

There was a Porsche 918:

You could argue that, aside from that solitary Countach and the 918, the Aztek was technically the most exotic car in the mix. I didn’t see any other one!

 

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Everyone had a great sense of humor about the Aztek surrounded by supercars, though after the driver’s meeting that we skipped in order to eat delicious breakfast from Porsche Santa Clarita’s restaurant, everyone just… left! They ditched us!

Our First Test Of The Aztek We Bought Sight Unseen: A 300-Mile Trip To Monterey

With there being absolutely no chance that we’d catch any of these cars, we took the shortest route up to Monterey instead of the scenic one. We gave up beautiful Pacific ocean waves for… oil rigs:

This was our first chance to test the Pontiac Aztek that we’d bought sight-unseen from Arizona for just $3604. If that sounds like a smokin’ hot deal, it’s because it is. Just look at what other Azteks sold for on Cars & Bids:

Obviously, ours is a beige two-wheel drive base model, but it’s in amazing shape, as we found out on our trek to car-heaven.

 

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There was a bit of overheating happening on inclines. Maybe not overheating overheating, but definitely the needle getting far too close to the red for our tastes. I think at one point we had to turn on the heater just in case. As it was 105 degrees outside, this was not optimal.

But after the steep grades in the hot desert, the Aztek cooled off, and got us 300 miles up to Monterey blowing ice-cubes from its air conditioning most of the way. We were all impressed.

The Aztek Felt At Home

We arrived at the hotel, where the Aztek could begin a week long of hanging out with its fellow supercars:

For the next few days, we — Beau, Jason, Matt, and I drove from fancy event to fancy event in our exotic machine, parking next to supercars and hypercars, driving by crowds of adoring fans.

And I’m not even saying that jokingly. People would stop and take photos of the Aztek even when there were hypercars just ahead of it. Perhaps it’s the power of Breaking Bad, or maybe there’s something disarming and lovable about a cheap, ugly car, but in any case: The Aztek is clearly one of the most beloved cars on American roadways. And we could feel that, whether talking with a Delahaye owner or someone working at the hotel. The car brings joy to all.

We went to a rather bizarre reveal for the new Karma supercar:

We attended The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering:

It was at The Quail that we ate at a caviar bar, sipping champagne. We also saw Lamborghini’s CEO reveal the company’s new vehicle:

Ruf showed of its new Rodeo off-road-ish 911-inspired sports car:

Plus I saw The Actual Quail itself standing next to a new Cadillac concept car:

We also attended a number of auctions, one of which involved Beau buying one of the coolest cars of the 1990s (more on that later):

We attended a showing of the incredible movie Edith: Volcano Ascent about Porsche’s record-breaking altitude record in a 911. The car was even out front:

We also went to the Maserati House so Matt could drive a fast car as Jason and I sat around in luxury:

 

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All the while, as we attended these events the Aztek sat in parking lots next to its fellow high-dollar machines:

Everyone Loved The Aztek

We even took the Aztek to Monterey Historics (an amazing event during Car Week that involves folks driving vintage cars around Laguna Seca), with the intent to try to get the vehicle in the paddocks with all the fancy race cars. This turned out to be no problem. We were waved right in… We were amazed.

In fact, we not only got into the paddocks, but we could have driven right onto the grid if we wanted to be banned for life.

Here we are, right next to the starting grid:

“I did not think we would get as far as we got,” Matt, who was the primary Aztek driver during car week, says in the video. “People. Love. The Aztek. It’s so lovable that no one stops it. It’s also invisible. People either see it and they go ‘holy crap it’s an Aztek,’ and then they just let you do what you want, or they don’t see it — beige car — and it disappears. It’s amazing.”

We also attended the wonderful Concours d’Lemons event, which features a number of fantastic cars, even if they weren’t quite as exotic as the Aztek. You can see the Aztek’s factory tent in the background of the image above. Here’s us entering the event behind a Bricklin:

Finally, After Over 2 Decades, The Aztek Receives Its Redemption In A Parade Among Its Peers

Right after Lemons was probably the pinnacle of the Aztek’s time at Car Week: Exotics on Broadway. Again, this is a humongous show involving extremely expensive supercars driving down Seaside, California’s Broadway Ave as tens of thousands of people line the streets to get a peek at the gorgeous metal (and carbon fiber).

Not only did we crash this supercar parade, but we did so with the tent deployed. Yes, it did drag at one point:

And the tailgate did slam shut:

But a set of vice grips held the gate up, and to keep the tent from sagging, I sat on the tailgate as the car drove. Jason joined me:

As we entered Broadway, fans cheered the Aztek as Jason and I handed out free T-shirts and stickers.

Everyone kept asking Matt to rev the poor Aztek’s little 3.4-liter V6, and Matt, aiming to please, did just that. Here’s Jason and me complaining about the resulting exhaust fumes:

The event was incredible, and believe it or not, as much of a misfit as the Aztek should have been, it just wasn’t. It was a certifiable hit. Even though the tent was only held on halfway at the top (I’m just realizing this now; d’oh!):

Just look at that incredible machine finally, after 20 years, getting its redemption after being the butt of jokes for over two decades.

We did receive one sorta negative comment once we parked.

“How did you get this great parking spot,” the man asked. “What are you implying?” I replied. This Aztek is an exotic; there are loads of Lamborghinis and Paganis and Koenigseggs, but only one Aztek!”

His reply: “Yes, there’s one Aztek. But there should be zero.” Then he walked away as I held Jason — who was calling the guy a beady-eyed something, rage turning his head bright red as steam billowed from his ears — with all my might so he wouldn’t pursue the Aztek-detractor. Jason eventually calmed down, and the rest of our trip went swimmingly.

We got to see Beau debut the new BB Porsche brand.

 

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Plus we got to see some incredible cars on the lawn on Sunday during the Concours. What’s more, we even got the Aztek on the lawn with the $1 million+ Bugattis and Delhayes and Talbot Lagos! Look!: