Back when I was going to Southeastern Massachusetts University, now known as UMass Dartmouth, I had a wide circle of friends about whom I knew their favorite bands, whether or not they had pets, their single or partnered status, and the like, but for most of them, I did not know what they drove. SMU hid its parking lots behind berms, so from campus, all you saw was brutalist architecture rising from terraced lawns. Unless I happened to be arriving or leaving campus at the same time as a pal, I wouldn’t see them coming or going. There was even less chance of me seeing the rides of friends who lived on campus, if they had cars at all.
Those with cool cars tended to let you know, and I counted a C3 Corvette, a couple of GTIs, and a few BMWs in varying states of disrepair. But for the most part, friends’-cars discoveries tended to be the usual suspects: five- to ten-year-old hatchbacks and hand-me-down family sedans and wagons, none particularly interesting.
And so, I was surprised when one friend – I don’t remember her name, it was 1987 – announced that her piece of shit car (as she exclusively called it) refused to start, and asked if I could take a look at it. Of course I said yes, knowing full well I’d be useless at diagnosing anything more subtle than a disconnected battery, or, I don’t know, an entirely missing engine. But still, non-zero chance I could be the hero. I was surprised when she led me to a gloriously brown Triumph TR7. “Have you been driving a TR7 all this time?” I asked her. “Yeah, when it runs,” she replied. Nonetheless, it was still a cool car, a two-seater wedge that I recall being excited to see as a younger kid and still mildly thrilled to see before me as an older kid.
Any coolness it had was lost on my friend. All she knew was it was brown, ugly (to her eye), and crucially, completely unreliable. I get it: Nothing less cool than a car you can’t count on. A few months of misery later, the TR7 was replaced with a Hyundai Excel in nice silver-blue paint with the much-desired “starts every time” feature. She thought it was the coolest car in the world.
Your turn: Ever Had A Friend Or Loved One Who Owned A Cool Car And Didn’t Even Know It?
Top graphic image: Triumph
I knew a very stupid entitled guy that had a mk 4 supera. He bought new and thought it was just a 2 door Toyota. He never changed or even looked at the oil. He claimed didn’t know you were supposed to? Engine seized at around 30k miles. He replaced it with an sn95 mustang and kept saying how it was so great to have a sports car. Along with how terrible and unreliable Toyota is. I guess he woule get his oil changed when ford sent him recall notices. I knew he was among one of the stupidest people I’ve ever been around but in high insight he is even dumber then that. That Supra would probably be worth at least $60k today and that sn95 $3k it you are lucky. Not to mention the Supra really only asks for oil gas tires and brakes.
My dad had this terrible diesel rabbit. He pulled it out of some barn somewhere and had to pull the interior out from it being a mouse resort. This was in the early ’10s. My youngest sisters friends used to think it was so cool because it looked like the ae86 they see in their Japanese cartoons. A few wanted to buy it from him. But it was in bad shape. He sold it to some kid who had the same ideas.
Around 1974 I worked with a woman who bought a Saab Sonnet because it was “cute and different.”
Never, mostly because I was the friend who owned the cool car lol. I also had friends with cool cars, but they weren’t oblivious to it.
This was before I was born, but my dad used to tell me about how my grandmother at one point in the early/mid 70’s had a ’68 Plymouth GTX that, as far as she was concerned, was just any old used car that she bought. If I remember dad’s stories correctly, the original engine had been blown by a previous owner and replaced with a basic 318, so it wasn’t quite the full-fat muscle car it originally had been.
Navy friend in the day had a new 84 or 85 CRX. I think to him it was just another cheap car.
Way back, I had a friend with a VW bus that got in an accident that made the side door inoperable. He gave it to a friend in need who complained about it being a POS. I wonder if either of them think back on that and think that the broken PNW rustless bus is probably worth a condo down payment these days.
My ex from 25 years ago had a first gen MR2. That thing was lit! So much fun to throw around. She hated it and convinced her dad to get her a boring ass Passat instead.
We did not last long.
We had an early 1985 MR2. Great little car, kept it for over 20 years.
VAG has long been the cause of young women’s bad decisions. Surprised it wasn’t a Cabrio.