All cars are Autopian cars in their own ways, of course, and simply loving your car makes it an Autopian car (and you, an Autopian).
But there are certainly some machines that resonate on what one might call an Autopian frequency, a vibration that comes from weirdness or earnestness or goofiness or an undefinable something else (or it may just be a missing wheel weight, you never know).
This evening, I’m wondering what vehicles you’ve owned or experienced in some way that you would consider “most Autopian.” And for inspiration, I’ve put the question to The Gang:
Mark Tucker
My most Autopian car, hmm … probably the 1991 Mazda Miata that I owned before my MG. It had 205,000 miles on it when I got it, and 250-something when I sold it. I paid $2,000 for it, with a factory hardtop and an extra set of wheels.
I sold the hardtop for $900, the extra wheels for $100, and eventually sold the car for $2,500. Had the entire car apart at one time or another, except for the engine and gearbox internals. It was my daily driver for eight summers, and my only car for two years. Stock except for a Hard Dog Fabrication roll bar, 2001 Special Edition Miata leather seats, and a MOMO Montecarlo steering wheel. I still kinda miss it.
Mercedes Streeter
My most Autopian car is my 2012 Smart Fortwo Passion Coupe. This car continues to serve as proof to me that dreams can come true. Further, this is the car that I used to prove to myself that I am capable of anything. Back when I was dirt poor, I used this car to tow motorcycle trailers some 20,000 miles and I’ve even driven it for a few thousand miles off-road.
Like me, this car has done things nobody ever thought it could achieve. I also have nearly two decades of encyclopedic knowledge mostly uselessly floating around my head. Cars will come and go in my fleet, but this Smart, as well as its five other comrades, will probably be with me until the day I die. I own far weirder and far more historically significant cars, but only Smarts are so distinctly … me.
Griffin Riley
My most Autopian car was my first car, a Scion xB. My Dad loved it, it took me to many a party and date, and it had an engine and sound system even folks in the early aughts would pity.
Second-most-Autopian was the Ford Bronco II we repaired, which I learned stick on. Dad forced me to sell it cuz he didn’t want me to flip on the highways between Tucson and Phoenix. [Ed Note: Stupid Dads and their love, so annoying! – Pete]
Adrian Clarke
Matt has asked us about the most Autopian car we have owned. As everyone is probably sick of hearing by now, I have a highly strung Italian car that has left me stranded a couple times. That’s probably my most Autopian car.
But I think my second most Autopian car would be my old Land Rover 110 Defender. 1990 G-reg, bought sight unseen from eBay for about £1200 (that will tell you how long ago it was). Decidedly non-turbo diesel, no power steering either. Ran out of breath at about 65 with the off-road tires singing. A one hour drive gave you a four hour headache. I lived in the Docklands. Did I need a Defender? Nope. Did I want one? You bet your right elbow banging on the driver’s door I did. Only reluctantly sold it because I wanted a motorbike to learn to ride on.
Stephen Walter Gossin
I suppose my Most Autopian Car would be the ’66 Citroen 2CV that’s currently sitting in my driveway. If you recall, I picked this car up last summer while helping Mercedes score her dream ’46 Plymouth from the same seller.
Interestingly enough, I find it to be a cool car and wicked unique, but it just doesn’t move my soul as much as my ’03 Stratus Coupe does. I’ll be replacing the soft top & the bullet-riddled glass windows (flat glass!) and getting it ready for sale in the upcoming weeks.
Torch
My most Autopian car may have been my Reliant Scimitar; technically strange (fiberglass body, front-mid engine, first split folding rear seats), famously owned by a princess with a horse fetish, built by a company that’s mostly thought of as a joke, shooting brake, weird gearbox (overdrive on rear drive, so you have 3 1/2 gear and a 5th gear) and just deeply, satisfyingly weird. Quick, too!
David
My most Autopian car was Project Cactus, a steaming heap that started out as a parts car for my main project, which I found out was in no shape to be a “main project” of any sort. The amount of work to put that thing together in a single month was shocking, but in the end, it became an Australian hero.
I bought the MGF featured in one of Mercedes Marketplace Madness posts…
*thumbs up*
So, how is it? Any fun Easter eggs—or, ‘Aw, crap’s ?
I had to install a clutch secondary cylinder shortly after I got it. It needs paint correction and I’m in the process of installing a high mount brake light (it is a poverty spec car). But I did find one of his majesty’s pounds under the drivers seat.
Mine would be the 1959 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider that I bought in ’69 for $250 from a scrap yard. Not a junkyard or an auto recycling yard but a scrap yard. Car was rusty & dented everywhere including floor pans gone. Engine was mostly in the trunk in pieces with some missing pieces. Took 2 years to get running again as a stripped bare Autocross car. In retrospect I really had no clue what I was doing and it was a death trap. But fun to drive and hooked me on Italian cars 🙂
To me an Autopian car would be one you bond with, one that eggs you on to do things you might regret, one that you look forward to sitting in every morning. So the most Autopian car I own is my Renault K-ZE (think Dacia Spring development mule but sold to the Chinese public).
Its not much car on paper (920kg, 45hp and 27kWh, maxes out at 75mph, 140 miles on a charge), but I’ve done 10+hr trips in it, climbed mountains on dirt roads with dried-out ruts, moved an entire apartment’s worth of crap (over many many trips), filled it with almost 400kg of humans (in a 4-seat microcar, mind you), and it’s just so peppy, so light and so tossable that I get to go full beans on almost every trip. Load it up with crap and stomp on the gas; it spins both front tires and asks for more. Eager like a dog, practical like a mule.
Before I got this car I was sure EVs were devoid of soul and character. 7 months and 10K miles later, how wrong I was.
“To me an Autopian car would be one you bond with, one that eggs you on to do things you might regret, one that you look forward to sitting in every morning”
This. So much this.
I didn’t own my most Autopian car, but I borrowed if from a friend for several months: a 1980(?) Lada Niva that I drove in Kenya around 35 yrs ago. When you stomped on the brakes it dove left, (of course!). I nicknamed it Leonid because the lamps over the headlights made me think of Brezhnev’s eyebrows.
I have a ’91 Yugo GV Plus. I don’t think I need to say any more.
But I will, because I also have a ’77 Porsche 924, the slowest, least powerful, and least valuable Porsche of all time. I rescued it from sitting 16 years in a dry garage. Spent more money on it than my wife realizes to get it road worthy, told her I would flip it but now it’s grown on me. Also, in true Autopian fashion, it currently doesn’t run.
I was fully smitten by the 1956 Lincoln Premiere that I bought, and the best detail was the Knight helmet emblems on the side and rear. On the rear you lifted the Knight’s visor to insert the key to open the trunk. Perfect. We fit 9 people and a dog in it to get ice cream in the summer.
I think that my most Autopian car would be my 1976 Lancia Beta Coupe. It was the second car that I ever purchased with my own money. I bought it when I was a college freshman in 1987. It had stylish, brown leather seats and a fresh coat of Porsche Guards Red paint but not enough power to hurt anybody. I eventually traded it in for a 1987 Yugo GV – a pretty Autopian car too!
A 1973 VW Westfalia camper van, bought out of Dad’s repo lot for $400 in 1988. I spent the summer disassembling the interior and deep cleaning everything, pulled the dents out of the nose (foreshadowing) and sculpted new curves out of Bondo, tuned up the engine and drove it for a year. I hooked it up to an extension cord in the driveway and slept in the fold-out hammock through July and August with the top up. Going from my sister’s precise Honda 4-speed to the vague, distant manual in the bus was an education.
I sold it after a woman pulled out in front of me and ran her Nissan up over my bumper, ending up about 6 inches away from my passenger’s knees. I miss that old girl more than any of the others I’ve sold since.
Mine as 91 Escort GT. Ford’s attempt at a hot hatch. 5 speed, 1.8L sewing machine un the hood. I bought it on a lark but it served me for over 6 years. I miss that Black car with it’s 90s neon blue and pink decal.
For a while, I had a manual-swapped Lexus IS300 sportcross. That was an excellent car.
That is the exact car I was shopping for when I bought my Z4 coupe!
I’m easily distracted, but at least I got the 3.0 straight six part right, and the ability to get a bicycle in the back.
I still keep looking for a manual swapped IS300 Sportcross. In many ways it’s the perfect car.
I got to poke around at and get a nice long ride in my buddy’s Bricklin in the sweet spot between him spending too much money having it restored and getting bored with it and selling it. Replaced it with a Lotus Turbo Esprit.
The things you can do when you don’t have kids.
Volkswagen Thing. It’s pure Autopian strangeness.
My friend’s mother used to do the school run/office commute (in 1980s Britain) in a Haflinger. The ten miles into the city would be covered VERY slowly except on rare snowy days when we’d sail past everyone, covered in blankets with the canvas tilt flapping away.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steyr-Puch_Haflinger
I thought this was peak Autopian as it’s an incredibly obscure and not very valuable vehicle being used for a purpose that it wasn’t designed!
My ’79 El Camino.
I bought it in 2000 with around 500K miles on it, slightly resto-modded it from 2000-2004 (upgraded the 95hp V6 to a 305 TPI from an ’89 IROC, 15″ rims instead of the stock 14″ ones, cowl-induction hood, Gaylord hard tonneau cover, salvage yard interior and new paint) and still own and drive it today, although it’s far from a daily driver.
I think they only thing I’ve owned that would qualify is the 1998 Accord I had for a couple of winters. 5 speed, rebuilt title, front fenders were a different colour and mostly bondo. Then when a big chunk fell off that side was fiberglass from a repair kit. EGR was clogged up so it sometimes had a surging/cutting out issue. If it’d been a 99 it would have been easy to clear out with an access panel. I just lived with it.
Despite its numerous faults it always started and got my to work.
Most Autopian Car 73 Buick Century Luxus Coupe. Blue with white vinyl top and blue and white on the inside. 302/C-4, 10-15LT tires out back, air shocks and a Targa Top.
Most Autopian Truck 1950 F-1 sitting on a 1973 Travelall 1210 4×4, 345 with 392 4bbl intake, 727, 9-32 16.5 Buckshots. (first IH)
Most Autopian 4×4 1973 Scout II Cab Top formerly 258 3sp 2wd transplanted on 1972 345 4sp 4×4 frame. This is the one that cemented my IH addiction, in part because the first “parts” truck was too good to kill.
A full-stripper spec 1974 Mustang II from the Petersen museum. Always had a crowd, always had stories, always had hecklers. No power steering, no power brakes, no power windows, no power seats, no power engine. Dyno? 59.97hp, and the first time it ever hit 100. 74 was all it could do on flat ground.
Of course you had to mention your mustang II Alec
I also had a1974 Mustang 2. Not museum quality by any means.
it was a laughably bad rust bucket at age 13 but hey, Cleveland car.
Definitely my Datsun 280Z.
Bought it as a rolling project that “just needed some bodywork” while I was living in a flat with no garage.
Ended up taking the whole thing apart for a bare shell resto, swapped the gearbox, fixed up the heater, countless small things and I’m now building a stroker for it.
That thing made me a decent wrench and changed me deeply (more confident, less risk averse).
Not sure if it’s the Multiple MR2s, Multiple Matras, the Lancia Shooting brake, the Lotus Hatchback or the Brown (admittedly with mud) Diesel manual wagon.
It’s the Lancia shooting brake, and you know it.
I’ve been fortunate to own a nice amount of cars through the years to give me perspective.
Most Autopian: 1987 Red 944 T 5sp. Such a fun car. Followed by 2002 Blue Jetta Vr6 5sp. It made really fun noises.
Best built power train wise: 1997 Green Supra TT 6sp.
Most fragile feeling: 2003 Red Evo VIII 5sp.
Car I miss the most of the 16 I’ve owned:
2019 Red Mazda Mx-5 RF 6sp.
I can’t decide between the Lada Niva, the Land Rover Series 3 Stage 1 or the VW Transporter T4 dual cab syncro I still drive after 22 years ownership from new…
My Most Autopian Car was probably the 1988 Daytona that I owned in my early 20s. It was a Pacifica with the Turbo-I engine and a lot of toys, and had previously been a salvage repair job from a guy I knew in high school. I learned almost everything I could about the car, and spent a weekend with my dad swapping the drivetrain from a similar vintage Shelby Z Daytona into it to have the best of all worlds. The final product was fun and a little scary having so much power and torque going through the front wheels in a chassis that wasn’t REALLY meant for it, but I enjoyed daily driving it until eventually when I was in grad school I realized that I just didn’t have room in my life for a sports/project car and sold it to someone who could dedicate more time to it. I hope they loved it as much as I did!
My dad bought a 1979 metallic root beer manual diesel Rabbit (2-door hatchback) brand new, and drove it as his daily and kept it garaged and minty till his last day on the road in 2022.
I was born in 86 and grew up with that car with loads of memories.The belch of black smoke every time it started up, which I got a great view of since the garage was too full of stuff to open the passenger door so I had to wait outside till he backed it out. Sitting in the small back seat as a teenager with long lanky legs since it was my little sister’s turn to get the front seat. Getting onto the freeway with a 0-60 time of “perhaps”. And then, years after getting my license and moving away for college, finally being offered the keys to use it while I was visiting (this was a huge badge of honor for how much he trusted my driving, as he would NEVER let anyone else drive that car in all the years he had it).
I would say this is the most Autopian car I’ve experienced not just because it’s a brown manual wagon (fine… hatchback), but because it was an ordinary car that was loved and cared for way more than any normal/sane person ever would.
I miss you dad.
I’m from the sport coupe region of autopia (it’s small, but we’re fairly fanatical), so it was clearly my Chevy Beretta.
No options but the upgraded gauge package, indifferent GM build quality, but a 5 speed manual and bright red paint, she was a great example of a type of car that just doesn’t exist anymore.
A wonderful daily, a surprising autocross competitor, and easy to live with, she was everything that that type of car was supposed to be.
A late friend’s last car was a bright red five-speed Pontiac G5 with the goofy Cobalt SS spoiler and few other options. “Sheila” (the Tank Lady) was fun enough to drive, and ended up helping a mutual friend out when his Fiat 500 was being a Fiat.
Ah the days when GM would stick a spoiler on anything…sorta the that-era version of lower body cladding!
I always thought the Beretta was a sharply styled car, I think they look good even today. If you can find one.
Thumbs-up! A companion to by Z52-package Corsica sedan, which I consider to be (one of) the ultimate performance evolutions of the Beretta/Corsica platform.
Interestingly, there were a number of Beretta variants vying for the title, most of them based on 4-cylinder power. The Corsica instead went the V6 route, but had to drop the manual along the way, allegedly due to manual-equipped versions of the earlier LTZ badged versions having clutch issues. Apparently the packaging restrictions of the platform limited overall clutch size and the V6 with upgraded ECU programming became a clutch-eater. So, the Z52 went with the automatic. You got overall styling and handling meant to challenge the imports, gene-spliced with a powertrain that had more of a muscle-car heritage. (The 3.1 V6 was blueprinted off of the small-block Chevy V8) In the pre-electronic-controlled and multi-geared automatic era, GM was doing some wizardry with coupling fancy variable-pitch vanes in the torque converter plus a full lockup clutch, with what was essentially a performance valve body from the factory. It was definitely not your average slushbox; it traded classic GM buttery-smooth operation for noticeably crisper, mechanical-feeling shifts (and downright aggressive shifts under full power) but ultimately a technological detour compared to what came later. Definitely not your familiar, average rental-fleet Corsica.
I had a good friend with a V6 Corsica – just the regular version, but she was a great all-arounder for sure.
Both it and my later Beretta had very nice, for lack of a better word, balance. And perhaps lesser appreciated, but wow the seats were fantastic – super comfortable, reasonably firm, and (surprising to me) with some actual bolstering on the sides. I still miss her seats.
One thing I always liked is that the Beretta/Corsica styling remained the same their entire production run. A trim tweak here and there, but I like to think GM realized it had done the overall package nicely, and if it played around with it, it would never quite capture it again.
Hell yes, the seats in the Bereatta/Corsica cars were awesome, and contributed to making them excellent roadtrip cars.
Always refreshing to see a US car line that followed the more European tendency of the times to keep a car design consistent over a long run, with just small incremental updates instead of the US automakers’ tendency to re-work everything just to advertise “New! New! New!” year on year.
It always seemed that there was a little bit of bad blood between Chevrolet and GM corporate over the L-body Beretta/Corsica platform and the corporate J-body. Allegedly, Chevrolet was forced to wait several years before getting the GM10 platform for the Lumina in exchange for going their own way. If so, then they probably had a smaller budget and didn’t squander it on superfluous trim and sheetmetal changes. (Other than perhaps the change to very Mercedes-esqe ridged taillights on the Corsica…) The only major running change that wasn’t intrinsically connected to other GM corporate changes, like powertrain changes, was the ’92 facelift of the interior. The original interior had a decent 80’s European-influenced look, but the plastics and switchgear felt cheap. The facelift was 100% better in fit-and-finish, and brought back proper fixed shoulder belts instead of the door-mounted ones, thanks to the addition of the driver airbag.
The L-body shared a lot of suspension design with the J-body. The J-cars catch a fair bit of criticism, and I’ve cast my fair share of shade on them too. I mean, c’mon — Cadillac Cimmaron?? They attempted, and largely failed, to compete with imports. And yet, the J-body was actually built and sold in Europe successfully. I can only speculate that the European assembly lines put them together better and must have calibrated the suspension better than what we got in the US. The L-body’s ride and handling was certainly an improvement over the J-cars in general, so somebody must have done some work to get it sorted for the new platform. Probably just putting the parts on a newer, stiffer body structure helped.
Your insights now really make me miss my Beretta! I always thought even something basic like better tires would have really brought out her best abilities (sadly, I didn’t have the money then b/c a kid).
Manufacturer tire choices were often a weak point on a lot of cars from that era. Usually because the manufacturers needed to meet Federal CAFE mpg standards, and shaving a little grip and/or ride comfort could get the numbers in the range they needed. Tire upgrades were often a good idea.
For my Corsica, although the Goodyear Eagles it came with were quite competent, changing them out to a set of Goodrich Comp T/As brought out handling nuances and gave a better ride as a bonus. No need for a wheel upgrade, either; it came with a nice set of alloys.
Virtually any L-body version could benefit from an upgrade from the stock rubber.
Owned? 1977 Ford Capri Mk2.