Steyr drivers, am I right? Is there any group of drivers with a worse reputation for parking, here in our bold modern age? I don’t think so. Grab anyone by the upper arm in any major American city, press a folded dish towel soaked in chloroform to their face, stuff them into a large duffel bag, cram them into your trunk, drive them to an abandoned warehouse in the old ham-packing district on the outskirts of town, wake them up with a splash of water to the face, and ask them what kinds of cars the people who park the most senselessly is, and I guarantee they’ll shout out a crisp, clear “Steyr!” You know I’m right!
Maybe they’d say Steyr-Puch, but that’s fine, we’re talking about the same basic thing here. Steyr-Diamler-Puch really hasn’t built passenger cars since 1959 or so, and they mostly built licensed Fiats, though their version of the 500 used their own engine design, an air-cooled flat twin with an upright fan that really looked like a subscale Volkswagen Beetle or Porsche 356 engine.
Seriously, look at it:
It’s that curved fan shroud that does it. But I’m getting off track! I’m here to talk about what shit parkers Steyr drivers are!
I mean, look at this:
Yeah, that’s just fine, Lampshade, just park your car right on the edge of the fucking pool. Who’s going to mind? In fact, why don’t you leave it idling, let those kids really enjoy a heady lungful of rich, creamery exhaust. You can dive in right from the door!
Do Steyr drivers just hate to walk? Like, any distance? Can you park any closer to your table, ma’am?
You’re blocking the whole road, ma’am. The whole damn thing, and I’m not even sure you can drive there, right next to the water. Why’d you stop there? There’s people trying to get to their yachts! Rich people! Move it!
Oh yeah, good job. Way to go. It’s pretty great how you managed to park at a 45° angle from that curb, sir. We were all worried you weren’t going to block enough of that sharp corner, but I can see our worries were for naught.
Miss! Miss! That’s a park. You can’t park here. Squirrels live there. I think you’re on someone’s picnic!
Great work, buddy, just a few more inches and you’ll be completely in those shrubs.
Hey, um, everybody, you don’t have to follow Urinal Rules when parking in a huge, empty lawn. You can get closer, stupid. Why are you all the way out there?
Oh, for fuck’s sake, that’s not what I meant. All of you are blocking walkways, and the maroon car is just sort of taking up that whole intersection, and these are all walking paths and – I don’t know why I bother.
Hey! Hey! You’re on the runway! You can’t park here! There’s planes landing! Hey!
Dammit, that’s cartoonland. You can’t park a real car in an illustrated world. It’s illegal. Now take your Steyr and get the hell out of here, all five of you well-dressed assholes. Move it!
Stupid mother parkers.
There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold
And she’s buying a Steyr way to Heaven
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for
Ooh, ooh, and she’s buying a Steyr way to Heaven
Nice!
Oddly enough, somewhere there’s a photo of my uncle’s red Steyr 500 parked next to the swimming pool in my Oma and Opa’s town, looking suspiciously like the one shown here. I mean, different enough (the real one has the Alps in the background), but still. You’re right, he did park like a jerk!
That one guy couldn’t give 1100 luxus where he parks.
Although I think that the 1100 Familiare is actually a Fiat, since it has Turin license plates.
I think Occams razer says that this isn’t where the cars were intended to be but where they ended up driving to the shoot location. Like the little red car by the pool, that’s where it stopped after rolling away from the parking area, and caroming off the pool barrier, when the parking brake failed. The woman in the park is actually still moving after the accelerator stuck and the gearbox locked into reverse. Fate unknown. The guy about to drive into the bushes? The right front wheel fell off half way into the garage, his partner is leaning on the fender to try and keep it up on three wheels.
Couldn’t the driver just stop the car by leaning over and putting their foot down? That’s what I did when I was a kid on my tricycle.
Instructions unclear – woke up in Cuba. Pls send help
Having just purchased a Steyr-Puch Pinzgauer last week I feel personally attacked.
Put it in “H”!
That putty-colored little wagon is adorable.
And Jason’s first paragraph strikes me as if Douglas Adams had been reincarnated solely for our automotive journalism reading pleasure.
It’s also probably not a Steyr. It has an Italian front plate, from Turin. I guess it was the airbrush guy’s day off.
How the hell do you pronounce Steyr? Is it “Stay-er”, “Stair”, “Ster”, “Steer” WTF?
An alternate spelling is “Steier” if that helps. It’s a region of Austria.
Thank you! Definitely helps
But the “S” is thick, more like “sh”
Even mo helpful! Thank you
Steyr makes the Gelandewagen for Mercedes-Benz, and it’s rare to find one of those blinged-out suburban battlecruisers parked properly.
Only when it’s valeted is when I see any of those parked properly.
Truth.
Re the topshot: the woman in the back seat is being tortured. Her head is craned allll the the way forward into a premature dowager’s hump to avoid the rear curve of the roof, and she’s still going to get neck damage if they run over anything bigger than a pebble.
Re the 45 degree park shot, one of very few with a man in it: what is that red stripe with a peak thing on the A pillar and back over the (I forget what you call that horizontal beam over the doors)?
“What, like the back of a Volkswagen?”
No, look closer – it has a full length soft top sunroof. I want one of those so badly.
Since these are all license built Fiats in Austria this calls for a comparative study of SEAT drivers in Spain and Italian Fiat drivers so we can study the same car in different habitats
Fascinating study. I forget SEAT built various Fiat models under license over the years.
“Yeah, that’s just fine, Lampshade, just park your car right on the edge of the fucking pool”
Meanwhile Rolls Royces are parked IN the pool:
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a65890131/rolls-royce-dunks-a-phantom-in-the-pool-keith-moon-homage/
Thanks a lot Keith!
Oasis dunked a Bristol in a pool on one album cover
Tony Crook’s reaction must’ve been interesting.
Steyr it up (oh)
With your parkin’, Steyr it up (come on girl)
Come on and Steyr it up (oh, I)
The world’s for parkin’, Steyr it up (Steyr it)
Do your car thing (come on, baby)
Come on and Steyr it up (oh, I)
Grass is for parkin’, Steyr it up (Steyr it, baby, Steyr it)
Come on, come on and Steyr it up (oh)
We like your parkin’, Steyr it up (Steyr it, Steyr it, Steyr it, Steyr it)
Given Mercedes G-Wagens are manufactured by Magna-Steyr, that tradition continues today.
Darling, watch where you’re going! You just ran over the Queen’s Guard!
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54798198093_f21ee37eff_m.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54798198083_0c7cd65018_m.jpg
Holli Would couldn’t be seen in anything as boring that car anyway.
I always thought it should’ve been in Roger Rabbit that all the old-school Toons drove Chevys bought from Felix the Cat’s dealership, the only Toon-owned one in LA.
Oh, yeah, those Steyrs are actually sentient living beings and have to be right there with their humans wherever they go, much like the way cats and dogs follow their humans wherever they go.
Even as I write this, all seven of my cats are in the same room with me even though they have a whole-ass house, however small it may be, to roam >^..^<
“all seven of my cats are in the same room with me even though they have a whole-ass house”
Nice humblebrag.
They want food
Steyr drivers have the highest per capita STD rate of any brand owner as well, or at least that’s what they say.
Aw come on – they’re just baby Nashes and Ramblers looking for the grownups.
It’s a long way from Graz to Kenosha.
Long enough for an animated movie with a theatrical sequel and four straight to video ones of decreasing quality from 1994 to 2006.
Of course they can’t steer, they can’t even spell the word!
That Steyr just makes me want to Puch.
I’m waiting for Mary, Fred and the Penguins to come dancing out from behind that last Steyr…
George retired from the Dawes, Tomes, Mousley, Grubbs Fidelity Fiduciary Bank so that he could spend more time with the kids. Little did he know he’d be ferrying Jane & Michael and their friends around in his Fiat 2300, little more than a glorified chauffeur.
I always imagined him as a P5 Rover kind of guy.
Bert the chimney sweep drives a Morris Minor van and Dick van Dyke was constantly trying to engage second gear via the window crank.
You can almost hear the British accent being butchered.