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?
For a while my family’s only car was a 1981 honda prelude. 7 hawaiians crammed in a miniscule old honda was an experience.
I once used my 08 Honda Fit to transport eleven (11) rims of various sizes, all with tires mounted. My seat was so far up that I barely had room for my left knee to move when shifting. I wish I could upload the picture.
A group of friends were going camping in PA Provincial park in Saskatchewan over the Labor Day weekend. PA is about a 400 km drive from Regina. My girlfriend at the time was not a tent camping kind of girl. Her parents offered up their camper trailer which IIRC about 18 ft long. Great idea, off to Canadian Tire to buy a trailer hitch. A few hours of wrenching and the trailer was attached to the rear of my 70 442 (3.91 geared, high stall converter, 455 with big cam and headers). What an ordeal, the car as noisy, squirrely on the road, got maybe 6 mpg. It was overheating, requiring a stop to change the thermostat. It ended being a great weekend bookended by the awful transits to and from the campground. A couple of other camping related weekends involved motorcycle trips to Banff on gen 1 Suzuki Katana sportbike – not recommended.
I put a trailer hitch on my Chevy Bolt so that I can carry a tray for equipment (I use it for my small business)
However, I once used it to haul a trailer from Youngstown to Pittsburgh to get some stuff from Ikea.
The Bolt is not rated to tow….anything. You also have to run the trailer wires from the hatch because its default brake lights are in the hatch (pre refresh. New ones have them in the bumper). So I didn’t have any trailer lights either
I took the trailer to Pittsburgh, charged up for about 10 minutes (I had enough range, it was just for assurance), and it made the trip back surprisingly well.
Even though it’s not rated to tow, it towed the few hundred pounds of Ikea furniture and a mesh landscaping trailer like a champ.
I love that little car.
I flat-towed two MK1 Sciroccos and one Volkswagen (Rabbit) Pickup from Arizona to Detroit with a VW Quantum. Once I finished my 16V MK1 conversion (super-sweet project) the Quantum flat-towed it from Detroit to San Francisco. And then when some mindless driver in a pickup truck drove full-speed into my project car on the Interstate in Denver, that same Quantum towed the replacement carcass to the middle of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on a trailer. I had that Quantum equipped with a trailer-brake controller and an auxiliary oil cooler. I sold it with 308,000 miles on it simply because the suspension bushings were shot and I had no means of doing them myself and because rust. Lots of other trailer towing during my ownership as well.
One clutch and no engine work on that thing. I kind of miss it even today. If I ever find a Quantum Syncro Wagon for sale, I’d be mighty tempted.
I wish I could post the picture I took.
I used my 2012 Dodge Challenger to pull a 5’x8’ utility trailer that carried my riding lawnmower. It took me a week to decide I needed a beater with a heater and a hitch because I wanted the hitch off my Challenger.
Like the dad in A Christmas Story, my father was an Oldsmobile man, and the credit for this story goes to him.
He was having a 69′ Corvair monza restored* and needed to source and transport a Corvair motor and didn’t have a pickup. To the rescue his 1978 Oldsmobile 98 Regency.
Using a cherry picker he carefully lowered a good Corvair engine in to a the tarp lined trunk.
The funniest part, the darn trunk had enough clearance it actually was able to latch closed
*The Corvair was intended as a dd for my older sister who was about to turn 16… in 1988. Up until that time the only car my parents had bought new was a Corvair when they were recently married and they thought it would be a good high school car. She only drove it maybe the 1st summer after it was restored. She drove other family cars in HS and ended up with a much more recent totaled (lightly rolled) Toyota Tracel as her college car instead.
Oh man, as someone who daily drives a ’90 Miata, the list is LONG.
I hauled my whole life interstate in that car, it was so packed full that I cracked the windshield on the drive.
I used to collect 60 litre oil drums from our supplier and cart them to work in the passenger seat.
All the part’s I’ve ever bought for the car I picked up in it, including the roll cage I (very unwisely) sat in place unmounted and drove to the workshop to fit it.
It’s not a practical car, but I’ve used it for practically everything.
That’s dedication!
I managed to haul 12, 80lb bags of high strength concrete home in my pristine 2004 Porsche Boxster S. The 960lbs worth of bagged cement were distributed between the frunk, front seat, and trunk.
Unlike a Citroen 2CV, a 1984 Honda Civic cannot cross a ploughed field without breaking a basket of eggs.
You can, however, drive it across a ploughed field. You can even do it with a happy dog in the back seat.
My brother used to tow our jetski with his 2010 Mercury Milan. Funny enough we also saw a Focus ST towing a pair of jetskis at the boat launch!
Had a Honda CR-Z for a few years, the two seater “sport hybrid”
It was primarily for getting me around town when I lived in Austin, TX as I work within home health therapy and was a fun car with a 6 speed manual to embrace “slow car fast” while getting decent mileage
But as my only vehicle it also would come home from Home Depot with a stack of boards strapped to the aftermarket cross bars, made MANY packed to the max back and forth trips when moving apartments, and served admirably for a 2,000 mile camping road trip around the Southwest. Cruising at 90mph on I-10 across Texas maybe wasn’t its happy place, but it still did it
I once attempted to transport two 4″8 sheets of MDF in the trunk of my ’85 Mercedes 300D. It technically fit with maybe 52% of the length inside the opening, but I ran out of places to strap it down to inside the vehicle before it felt secure enough. The wheel well intrusions meant I couldn’t tip it down to the trunk floor so it was likely to fall out as it was essentially parallel with the ground. I wisely chickened out.
I’ve transported longer things in the trunk, actually. I once fit a really long bookcase with maybe 50% of it inside the trunk, but it was easier to strap down. Same story with a stupidly tall cantilevered lamp. It’s just a shockingly spacious trunk.
My son put a surprising amount of off road miles on a 2003 Buick LeSabre. Which is why the car has no belly pan (torn off in the snow) and more scratches than average. I just hauled plywood and a mattress on our Ford Escort using the Thule bike rack on the roof.
Well there was a time I road tripped a 1976 Midget from Saint Helens Oregon to Hoover dam in back in 5 days with another dude. There was also the time me and that same dude towed a 24 foot boat from Central Oregon back to Portland with a 4 cylinder stick shift Ford Ranger. Which oddly needed a clutch immediately afterwards but I have no idea what you’re talking about mom…
Well, today I drove my Z4 on Slovenian dirt/gravel/snow roads. I guess that counts.
I moved from my flat with a Ford Ka. It was absolutely loaded, and even my seat had to go closer than normal to the steering wheel.
In a different Ka I went to my summer house carrying a mattress, tools, my 5 pc. drumkit, my sister and her friend, bags of clothes. None of us had room for a deep breath.
Both times those Kas really killed it.
Use of a trailer, not a car… my dad and I once moved the body in white of an Austin A30 tied down to a 6 x 3 wooden box trailer behind a Volvo 760 estate. It looked a bit like a top hat on a shoe box. All was (surprisingly) well and we were breathing sighs of relief as we made it home and reversed it down our driveway to hear a strange phut noise. The driveway flattened out at the very end and the angle of the trailer to car became acute enough for the body to touch the back of the Volvo. When dad went into the dealer on Monday morning requesting a replacement for a completely crazed, but not smashed, rear window all the parts guy could say was ‘but how?’.
Towed 10 000+ lbs with my Chevy tracker. Long live 4low.
Was one of 13 in/on a 1990’s Jetta going to a bar from our hotel room at Sugarloaf.
I drove to work in my empty pickup truck.
Good god, was it at least the v6 tracker?
Nope, the big block 2.0 4 banger.
Well the ol’ J20 is a heck of a motor
Almost 30 years ago, I hauled several sheets of 3×5 cement backer board, 200 sq. ft. of tile and a few bags of thinset mortar in the back of my Civic si hatch. I loaded it carefully but still bottomed the suspension.
My son rode shotgun in his car seat (pre-pass. airbag days). We drove home SALOWWWWLY. Boston area, so cars were roaring past, honking, cussing us out.
A car braked hard in front of us, and I cussed back. My son, learning to talk, discovered the F word: “f***”, he said “F***f***f***f***f***!”
I never cursed in front of him again.
We’ve regularly hauled lumber in our MGB. Put the top down, place 2x4s along top of windshield and on the luggage rack, tie down, drive off. We’re not talking about a lot of it, just a couple two three pieces, but it gets looks from guys in four door short bed pickups who have to put red flags on the same pieces sticking too far behind them.
we hauled a 4×6 piece of cedar lattice the same way once too. That was interesting
Before sending it to go live on the farm, I used to use my 2nd Gen Scion xB like a tiny van/pickup. I moved hundreds of pounds of cinder blocks, bricks, lined the back with a tarp and filled it with mulch. I even strapped a king-sized bed and boxes to the top and drove it 80 miles away to my parents’ place. (that was fun) Multiple bookcases, furnishings, a 5-piece sectional that curved along 17 feet of wall (inside and strapped to roof, but in two loads), and a single piece 9-food midcentury couch. Basically, if I could fit it in the back hatch, or lift it onto the roof, it was a viable choice for transport. Remember folks, never have fewer than 8 ratchet straps and a bag full of bungies in your car. . .
Circa 1978, I needed to get some garden stones and my boss had some he needed get rid of, so I filled up the trunk of my 1971 Toyota Corona with as much as it would hold and drove home, about 15 miles. It soon became obvious that the car was overloaded as my front wheels were barely touching the ground and steering was difficult. The car needed a clutch, but not until 5 years and 50,000 miles later.
In 2002, I decided to buy an exercise bike and it would not fit in my motorcycle sidecar, so I put it in the passenger seat of my 1988 RX7 convertible, with the top down. I had to push so hard to get the box in the car that the trim on the console was pushed off.
Not me, but I spotted a Lotus Elan towing a small Uhaul trailer years back. Memorable sight that made me grin.
Also, love the Grand Canyon NP photo.
For a couple weeks while the trans was getting rebuilt in my truck, I commuted a soft-top YJ with the 4 cylinder about 45 minutes each way on the highway. In winter. The top was not much better that a convertible, the 4 cylinder was so loud I wore earplugs, top speed was maybe 75 downhill, and death wobble popped up with no warning what’s on multiple occasions. By the time I got my truck back, I was so thankful to no be cold and deaf, that I sold the YJ shortly after. It was a fun trail vehicle but that’s about all it did well.