Many vehicles are designed with a specific goal in mind. Maybe it’s a pickup truck designed to be a tow beast, an economy car designed to be absurdly cheap, or a little lad of a city car meant to make city parking easier. Sure, you can make these cars do things outside of their mission, but they aren’t great for it. You won’t be setting lap records hustling a Toyota Tundra around a track just like a Porsche 911 isn’t going to be towing your Airstream. But some people make their vehicles do tasks they weren’t really built for all of the time. I want to know about that time you used a car for something it wasn’t built to excel at.
One of the greatest joys I get in life is doing something unexpected with an unlikely car. Most people take Jeeps and pickup trucks off-road, but one of my favorite off-roaders was my little 2012 Smart Fortwo. I started off-roading Smarts before it was cool and along the way, I learned these little cars are pretty darn good at it. I mean, you have no overhangs, a tiny wheelbase, and a narrow body. A Smart is basically a side-by-side that you can drive on an interstate. The cars are also so light that the thick plastic factory belly pans take some glancing blows before they break.
Sure, it’s unlikely that Smart’s engineers in Germany ever considered “Gambler 500” as a use case, but the little car, which was designed to be a sort of city supercar, is pretty fun in the sticks.
Add a lift kit and all-terrains and you’ll get anywhere a person with a rear-wheel-drive pickup is going. Towing is also not a part of a Smart’s mission, but I’ve used my little car to fetch countless motorcycles all over the Midwest. Yes, U-Haul installed the hitch, too. The rental giant seems to think Smarts tow 2,000 pounds.
Of course, I never do anything normal with cars, so when my wife and I went on our belated honeymoon Route 66 road trip in February, we didn’t take one of my comfortable German cars. Instead, we hopped into her Scion iQ, a car only marginally better at being a car than a Smart Fortwo. We drove the car 4,000 miles in a little over a week and you know what? It was a great road trip companion. This was a car sold to city dwellers, not couples racing their way across America. Yet, aside from tiring road noise, the little car was fantastic. We even managed to average 30 mpg despite revving the piss out of that 1.3-liter engine and climbing the Rockies.
Sheryl and I loved the first trip in the iQ so much that when we drove to a friend’s wedding over the weekend, we took the iQ for the ride. Sure, my new-to-me Volkswagen Phaeton would have been perfect for the trip, but it’s hard not to root for the little city car. I still have to write about the experience of taking the tiny car across America, but know that it was a blast.
Here’s where I toss you the microphone. When was a time you used a car for something it wasn’t really meant for? Do you make poor Geo Metros into rally cars or Chevy Suburbans into track cars?
When I lived in the LA area I moved my entire apartment, including furniture, using my ’66 Mustang convertible. It worked surprisingly well.
I have two. In the late 90’s I had a brand new Dodge Avenger and was road tripping through southern Colorado with a friend in the Durango/Silverton area. He mentioned there were several scenic views and ghost towns (mines) in the area accessible by a Jeep road only opened in the summer months. Without a second thought I suggested we go as far as we could in the Avenger. As it turned out we managed to get pretty far by carefully pointing the wheels and giving some thought to where each tire was likely to be as we slow crawled up an increasingly poor Jeep road into the mountains. I finally called it after we had been going up for an hour and a half and the few places where we might actually turn around became less and less available or usable for a low slung car.
The second happened when I was in high school and owned an ‘81 Plymouth Sapporo (I have a soft spot for feaux-pars). My dad drove a regular route in his Ram Charger each day which took him from his office to a branch 60 miles out and back. He called me one morning because he had broken down almost all the way out and needed help getting the Ram Charger back to the mechanic. I drove out and flat-towed that lumbering hulk all the back with a nylon tow-strap through countless intersections and stops with its inline four and manual transmission. That was probably my most favorite (and obscure) car I’ve ever owned and the first I would have again if there were any still left in the world.
I briefly had one as well. Remember it fondly as reasonably lightweight and peppy. An absolute blast in the snow, too, as it was simultaneously tail-happy, but also easy to catch & bring back in-line. It did not, however, like seriously bumpy roads: the suspension would deflect in weird ways such that you couldn’t really predict where it would go.
But I would love to find another. And that overhead console was so 80s!
I had a BMW e46 sedan as a daily driver for a few years. I but a roof rack on that thing and hauled all sorts of stuff. I hauled a canoe, full sheets of drywall, full sheets of plywood, 6′ tall wooden fence panels.
In 2012, I put 20 large flats of St. Augustine lawn grass in the trunk of my 2003 Jetta. I put an old shower curtain in first to protect the trunk from mud. That was the point where I regretted selling my pickup and vowed to buy a pickup in the near future.
Used two of my trucks (69 ranger and 08 Trailblazer) to pull down trees and limbs. Throw tow rope, low gear, and hope for the best.
I have two. Back in the late 80’s, my brother and I used his 1979 VW Diesel Rabbit to autocross – it was slow-car-fast kind of fun. Later, when I was a new homeowner I would use my 1981 380SE for Home Depot runs, including loading multiple sheets of drywall on the roof. With a foam mattress pad on the roof it worked really well. Got some funny looks, though.
My mom’s Isuzu Rodeo broke down and the only car I had available at the time was an NA Miata. So I threw the tow strap in the Miata and off I went to tow her home. This was definitely one instance where Miata should NOT have been the answer.
Car as can opener. Does that count?
I was once on a camping trip where we had cans of Spaghetti O’s we were going to cook over the fire, but realized we didn’t have a can opener. We took the short hike back to the car, and I used the hood hinges of my Pontiac G5 to slice the top of the can off. It worked! No idea how I thought to come up with that.
Two instances come to mind – One is a story I’ve shared here before that involved me taking a rental Kia Rio off-roading down a mountainside in Israel.
The other? Almost as dumb… I bought a $500 1963 Corvair Convertible that was in no condition to drive (or restore) and towed it all the way from Charlotteville to Norfolk, Virginia using a 1992 Ford Explorer with a 2-wheel dolly trailer. This thing was not really equipped to tow that car. It did the job (not without difficulty – including one of the Corvair’s tire’s popping while it was on the dolly on the interstate), but it didn’t last much longer after the trip. I think I totally fried the transmission.
2003 Buick Century. Of course it was vaguely brown/gold/beige/gray with tan leather and silver hubcaps.
My Dad and I found a great looking dirt road one day when we were out driving around and being in the Buick wasn’t about to stop us.
The first five water crossings were gravy!
Number seven? Not bad.
Number six? It was a solid 70 feet wide, the stream having been dammed to make a shallow swimming hole. Water got up to the doors, but he gave it a hit of the skinny pedal and we went on through.
That Buick was an awesome car.
I once drove a lemon tree, potting soil and a large terracotta pot home from the garden center in the back seat of my CLK350 convertible.
I also drove up and down the west coast and across the country at the beginning of the pandemic loaded to the gunwales with luggage with the top down when it wasn’t raining in Seattle or snowing in Oregon and Arizona. Tho sometimes with the top down when it was snowing in California.
Who says convertibles aren’t practical?
A boss of mine in ~1999 put one of those round redwood hot tubs on the roof of his daily driver 1965 Mustang. And then drove it the hour and a half to his mountain lair, because of course the kind of person to do that is your typical mountain man. No pics, unfortunately, but he did protect the roof with a couple sheets of styrofoam.
Lined the trunks of two 2014 Corollas with blue tarps and loaded each of them with about 1000lbs of free gravel. I rationalized it by equating it to picking up 3 really fat relatives from the airport with their luggage.
Then I learned that the maximum length of a countertop that you can fit inside said 2014 Corolla by folding all the seats down and still close the trunk is 9 feet 11 inches… because when it’s 10 feet and you close the trunk the end resting on the dashboard cracks the windshield.
Many have heard this from me before: back when I was volunteering for Central-Florida SCCA events I had a ’71 Mustang in which I removed the passenger seat and the back seat.
I stored fire bottles, halligan tools, and bags of oil dry in my walk-in closet, and on race/practice days would load that little pony to the withers. I’d drive from Orlando to Sebring and I swear I’d get sparks from the rear valance scraping the highway (well, maybe not really).
My girlfriend was miffed when she saw the passenger seat laying out in the complex parking lot!, “Where am I gonna sit??” I grabbed an AutoTrader and bought a ’67 Sunbeam Alpine that afternoon. She loved it. Me? Not all the time.
SCCA: Central Florida Region 1980-82
A FORMER employer of mine would tow a car trailer- with no trailer brakes – with his 2009 Dakota and haul 15 passenger Chevy Express vans across a mountain in western Md.
2012 PHEV Prius normal use case excellent as a dd commuter… unique use case? 4440 mile family road trip out west, with 4 people, the car was packed; through S. Dakota, badlands, rushmore, T. Roosevelt National park, Crazy horse, Devils Tower, over & up to Glacier national park, down to Yellowstone, famiky wedding outside Boulder, CO & back to MN.
Well, I commuted into the heart of the city for a year in my ex-Forest Service truck…
I used to go mountain biking with my MR2 Spider. Wheels on the passenger seat, frame strapped to the engine cover.
I used my S1 Elise as a winter commuter on snow tyres. It was remarkably good in the snow. Good traction and great steering feel are what you need when you’ve got snow as deep as your ground clearance.
I’ve had a lot of coupes and sportscars, and a few race cars. But only one big comfy saloon car, my BMW 535i. So which car did I drive a thousand miles to do laps of the Nurburgring? The big sofa. It was glorious.
Moved our stuff across the country in a Fiat 500 Abarth convertible with two adults and a 20lb cat who had to be held like a baby the whole time…
Some highlights:
The Utah State trooper that pulled me over doing 95mph was very surprised to see a huge cat hell at him from the passenger seat. He was very cool about it, and let us go because he knew we were just trying to get through this trip.
For the driver and front passenger, Fiat 500’s are shockingly comfortable for road trips. I’ve done the same trips as a much younger man in explorers, land rovers, altimas, rogues, sequoias… and the damn little Fiat left my back without any pain but those other vehicles didn’t? How does that work?
Saw someone use an Audi A6 Allroad to a Grumman Mallard a short distance.
Everything else that comes to mind is things you think a machine would not be good for that it ends up being pretty good at it.
*to tow a…
This summer my intention is to get back to autocrossing again, this time in my 02 Bonneville SSEi… Once it’s lowered and I put the Brembo brakes on it, it shouldn’t be all that bad, maybe.
Cool! Back when I was doing it in the 2000s, Impala SSs, if not race winners, were always clear fan favorites.
I remember being a good source of people’s entertainment in my G8 GXP back in the day, I figure it’s going to be fun and entertaining in the SSEi too. I know straight away I’ll probably be the slowest there, but that’s not always the point anyway.
We had 17 people in an 89 grand caravan to go to a hockey game, does that count?
Filled my 78 rabbit with firewood and drove it down a forest road. It did ok but I was way over the weight capacity of the car.
I have used a miata for hauling things comically too big to haul in other vehicles… Basically, once I have lumber / ladder / roll of carpet that’s longer than 10′ long, pretty much the only option I have at that point is to use a miata as it won’t fit in anything else.
Not me, but I had a friend with a Range Rover who used it as a reliable daily driver.
It’s worth noting that at the time, I drove a Crown Victoria (’02 LX Sport, black over tan) and was available to pick up on my my way to the office when his vehicle (frequently) was unable to function.