I originally planned to Autopian Ask ya’ll about your Thanksgiving road-trip plans and/or any past holiday-haul adventures, but it turns out Matt already posed that as his Big Question in yesterday’s Morning Dump:
Are you hitting the road this Thanksgiving? How long of a drive, and what are you taking?
… so there goes THAT idea. But do feel free to reply to Matt’s Q here if you missed it yesterday. There are no rules, man.
Still, I needed to come up with a new question, and thankfully, The Bishop came through: “The FC RX-7 is the cranberry sauce of cars. It just sits there and nobody understands how good it is. What other cranberry sauce cars are there?”
See, that’s a good question. I suppose it could have been just “what are some under-appreciated cars,” but a cranberry-sauce car feels like something a little more special. A car that is a little sweeter, a little tangier than a merely good, underloved car. And for sure, the FC RX-7 is a great one. Just look at these two Bring a Trailer examples:
Pretty great, right? While all pop-up headlights are fantastic by default, the FC’s have a neat trick. When stowed, the lamps can be flashed through those clear-lensed slots in the nose, so you can let the left-lane bandit ahead of you know that you’d like to spin up the 13B’s dual rotors. Neat!
How about going topless? Those taught 1980s body lines make it easy to clip the roof off without goofing up the styling, and in black with those wheels? Saucy, indeed.
Your turn: what cranberry-sauce cars would you like to feast on?
Top graphic images: Mazda; DepositPhotos.com
The early ’00s Nissan Sentra SE-R and Altima SE-R. With all the Jatco CVT/sub-prime-lending/Carl Ghosn nonsense that’s tanked the brand’s reputation, society has forgotten that Nissan’s market position used to be “the sportier alternative to Toyota/Honda,” and that it was genuinely in conversation with those brands as a worthwhile buy.
These cars in particular were serious compact and mid-size sport sedans, too — genuinely practical, fun to drive, stick-shift options that were affordable to the young Import Tuner fans without being 100% boy-racer.
Also, reading through this thread, I can tell that I’m not alone in identifying a “cranberry sauce car” as basically “remember Nissan before they got sh*tty?”
My buddy drives an ’03 Maxima with the 6 speed. While not an SER or anything, its still just a good daily with a bit more fun in it than one might expect.
Love that generation of Maxima! I almost inherited my grandmother’s as my first car — never happened, but I always enjoyed riding in it, and got to drive it a few times while practicing for my license.
I worked with a guy who drive one of these (same gen, 6spd but prob a few years older) back in the day. I remember being shocked at how quick and buttoned up it was. 255hp in a family sedan was remarkable back then!
Great assessment of Nissan. It really did used to have this more edgy, visceral feel than the polished Hondas or dull Toyotas of the era, and it definitely chased the enthusiast crowd more. Anecdotally, I’d see way more manuals in Nissans than in wow-this-is-better-than-a-Buick-honey Hondas or appliance Toyotas (excepting the cheapskate/fuel mileage crowd).
:sob: I miss my Spec-V even more
I like your suggestion, but would nominate the first generation SE-R before the later ones, for an early nineties car it was quite quick, and perfect, upright, practical little package. Perfect commuter car with a big dose of fun mixed in. They are not exactly overlooked or forgotten, but certainly don’t have following of the Civic Si.
Had a ’91 FC, absolutely loved that car. Until the rotary went poof, that is. Oh, and maintaining it in midwest winters. And when the rear caliper stuck. And a terrible stereo. And those front lenses that always fall out. But other than those things, wonderful.
Actual answer, the 2001 IS300 that replaced the RX. THAT car was magical. Stupidly sold it when I left the country for 6 months. Should’ve just parked it.
I still have an IS300, I was going to nominate it but you beat me to it. Thought I wanted a contemporary 3 series BMW, but then I drove an IS, much friskier, still comfortable, much more reliable. My only gripe was they drink a lot of gas for how fast they are.
Z31 300ZX. These days the Z32 geta all the love, but the Z31 was an incredibly cool car for 1984. Make mine a two-tone blue Turbo with the blue velour interior, please.
Seconded. My dad had a 1984 300ZX Turbo. Pewter. T-tops. Manual. That instrument cluster. The fiddly little graphic equalizer. The G-gauge. Big-ass car phone. When we’d take road trips, I would just bring pillows and lay in the back.
Hey, my dad had an ’84 300ZX Turbo, in that sort of purplish gray (or was it grayish purple?), with t-tops and the full-blown digital dash. No car phone though. Dad was not a very social person.
There are precious few cars of that era that look as good with rear window louvers.
I really enjoyed my Z31, but I do wish my ’87 2+2 had been a Turbo, and not just for the power. The proportions of the 2+2 just don’t look quite right, even if the extra seats do make the car more usable for daily driving duty, and the extra wheelbase dulled the handling. Still, I’d love a 5-speed hardtop Turbo Z31 again. The glow of the dash and gauges at night brings me happy memories…
The ones with the digital dash and all the stereo buttons are oh so cool
Given all the Mazda answers (which I agree with), I feel like I should invert the question: Which Mazda is a Brussels sprouts car? You understand why it’s there on the table, but nobody wants a big serving of it.
The Navajo, maybe? Like, I understand why they would want to cash in on the ’90s SUV craze, and I understand leveraging the Ford partnership to do so, but in its heyday that first-gen Explorer carried so much name recognition and brand cache that the Mazda version just kind of became an afterthought.
Or a better, more contemporary answer: definitely the MX-30. Pretty much a pure compliance EV in a world where even compliance EVs are expected to achieve a basic level of usability. Lots of oddball design touches, but no real compelling selling points that I can see. The rotary range extender is definitely a cool concept, but even then — aside from being a hardcore rotary geek, wouldn’t pretty much anyone rather have a million other more practical PHEVs?
Hey now! I had one of those Navajos, and I regret selling it for a new Expedition. It was a damn nice little SUV and I appreciate that it didn’t have a blue oval (many of my other cars were Fords, though). Made it stand out just a little bit as the Explorers were everywhere.
Navajo was spicy. Eat your plain B Series veggies.
But maybe Mazda5
Most Italian auto brands, which is the inverse of any Italian food on the table.
Ha! Make mine a Dino in Chiari Rosso
Italians don’t really do a traditional Thanksgiving. We still serve pasta. It would be uncivilized not to.
Late 90s B-series pickup. Just buy the Ranger already.
CX-3?
The Tribute (does that even count)?
Another one… Toyota T100. The Pickups/Tacomas get all of the love, but the T100 was awesome. Thanks to the chicken tax, they are relatively rare, but they are tough as nails and incredibly reliable (especially when they went to the 5VZ). Fun fact: They were assembled on the HINO truck assembly line. Which other Toyota passenger vehicle was made there? The FJ Cruiser.
In the Mazda vibe I feel like the 2nd gen MX-6 always was a little sweeter than the Probe, but the Probe got all the press for it’s looks(and that name oy!). The MX-6 almost had this future retro vibe going in the early 90s before the New Beetle hit, nice 2-door coupe with swoopy lines.
Fantasic choice. They looked a little like a stretched out (on both axes) 911 to my eyes, which isn’t a bad style to imitate.
A former coworker had an MX-6 and she loved it. Was royally pissed when some dingus ran a stop sign and totalled it. She replaced it with the next best thing, a new 1st gen Mazda 6.
Speaking of which, the Mazda 6 is a good candidate for cranberry sauce car. Sportier handling than its contemporary competition, reliable, and you can pick them up for pennies on the dollar in the used market.
Yeah, ‘cept it didn’t come with those fat 225s like PGT (thus wasn’t the hero autocross choice)
I think the 6 cylinder MX-6 was actually a little faster in the straights as it was a little lighter than the Probe GT, with softer suspension, but again, the Probe gets the glory, MX-6 was the quieter one.
2014 and on Mazda6, to the extent that sedans even matter. Fulfills all your daily driver duties with some added zoom zoom, good gas mileage and an upscale interior. Plus it’s great looking.
I have a 2020 N/A 2.5 and absolutely love it.Although it may not be very fast the car handles great and is relatively comfortable.I have almost 100K and other than basic maintenance the car has been bulletproof.5 years old and still get compliments on how nice looking it is.
I would argue the RX8 as well. I owned two and loved them. Good looks, amazing handling, inexpensive, easy for an idiot like me to maintain.
Also, the Chevrolet SS. Not a great looking car, but so good in every other way IMHO.
Except everyone knows what a Chevrolet SS is. The prices are insane for them.
Ehhh gonna disagree on this one. When it came out, it created a ton of buzz. Everyone was excited, it looked like nothing else on the road, and went toe to toe with the 350z, also then-new and handled better. Agree they are great to drive and look great (and are surprisingly practical with the rear seats and clamshell doors). Then the realities of ownership set in…
There’s a reason they are cheap and it’s the Renesis engine. When I picked mine up, it was on its second (factory) engine and was already losing hot compression again at about 25k into the new engine. I replaced coils 2-3x, spark plugs, replaced the catalytic converter, bunch of other stuff I can’t remember. Ran premix in it and of course mileage was pretty terrible. Truly unfortunate — I loved driving it, and had a lot of fun with Rallycross (and the rx8 was a great winter driver with the right tires).
You say Cranberry Sauce.
But you show me it’s poor stand-in of Cranberry Jelly.
It’s like saying saying you want to talk about how great the Ford Focus is as a car, but then show me the American “2nd gen” Focus sedan instead of the the worldwide Ford Focus.
As an owner of one of those, HEY…I resemble that comment!
As the resident FC owner, I will agree. A cranberry sauce car is a good descriptor, but it’s also the middle child of RX-7s. Everyone loves the nostalgia of the original SA/FB and craves the swoopy, timeless FD and the FC just sits there going unnoticed. Which often makes them the best value of all of the RX-7s.
Those BBS meshies were factory only on the ‘verts. I bought a set in a junkyard years back, and I’m current running them on my daily, a 2006 Saabaru Aero. I think it might qualify as a cranberry sauce car. Best looking impreza of its generation, yet they often sell for half of what a comparable wrx wagon goes for.
Do you realize how rare the 06 Saaburu 9-2X Aero is? Absolute unicorn.
Indeed good sir. I hunted this unicorn for a couple years. I drove an ’05 non turbo for years while I lusted after an ’06 turbo. After I bought it, I ended up buying all the body panels from another one, so if anything happens I can get an impreza shell and build another one.
I think it would be fun to do a Smyth ute version, and stamp the old Saab airplane logo on the tailgate.
I want to build an emblem out of the Subaru and Saab together. I want the black and while, front of airplane with 4 propellers Saab design, with the Subaru stars in the sky behind it.
I also have a full set of sedan fenders, rear quarters etc. I plan to sedan wide body this beastie. I’ve done that level of body work before on a car, so I’m confident I can pull it off, though I’m not claiming it will be easy or anything. I’ve a decently modified 1971 Travelall I’ve been working on. If interested, you can find the build on youtube under Project Tallhoe, by Alchemy Motorsports. I just haven’t posted in a year….. but the project itself has continued.
Mazda LOVED those BBS RG’s. I have the 15″ ones as factory on my ’95 M-Edition Miata. Oh, and great call on the 9-2x. Awesome car!
I had the BBS mesh wheels one of my UK market FC coupes.
I loved that car. A mate still has it parked outside his barn, with weeds growing in up through the rotted floor like it’s the worlds saddest greenhouse.
The 2nd gen Tiguan. I put 900 miles on one in 36 hours, crossed the border twice, sat in Toronto at rush hour, spent the morning with an angry 800lb gorilla of a customer, and still remember that trip fondly because of how great that VW was. It’s the only rental car that ever left me feeling actual longing.
Great looking cars. I don’t think theres a gen of the RX that I don’t like the look of.
Renault Laguna MK 2 GT: A Mégane RS engine in a beige car with a superb chassis.
Also available as an estate.
Another Cranberry sauce car is the final gen (3rd gen?) Rav4 V6. Just like cranberry sauce, it’s a sleeper. Heck, it was the fastest thing in Toyota’s lineup for those years, but was unassuming in all of it’s beige car glory.
Volvo C30 (USDM Spec). It’s genuinely a hot hatch that had to compete with the Mk5 GTI and early Mini Cooper S. Guess what? The C30’s are the reliable ones. They sound the best (especially when opened up). You could get it with a manual. They look really cool. It’s similar to a Mazdaspeed3 (same chassis) but way less blowupy. Comfiest car I’ve owned… 10/10 recommend.
Closest thing to a P1800 that Volvo ever made for sure.
Sexier tail lights tho…according to this guy:
https://www.theautopian.com/this-official-photoshoot-of-a-volvo-designer-and-his-beloved-taillight-is-proof-i-didnt-make-up-taillight-fetishism/
I very much regret selling mine.
Toyota Matrix and Pontiac Vibe.
first gen especially. good pick
Very much overlooked. I bought my wife the worst Toyota Matrix on the planet on eBay. Looked great in the pics. When I got there to pick it up it was obvious airbags had popped, car was smoked on, panel paint didn’t match. Loved the concept and the car, but that one was a run away car (which I did).
Then we to look at a new one with a manual transmission and learned not to trust dealer’s online inventory representation.
The Matrix wasn’t meant to be apparently.
We ended up getting a Honda Fit, smaller version of the same concept.
As I am sure you know they also made the zoomy XR-S with the revvy engine.
1st gen Scion xB? With a few simple mods, it did autocross, Tail of the Dragon, countless miles of daily duty and all while able to carry a clothes dryer & 3 suitcases.
I want to build a mint one someday. RS2.0 (yellow) manual with every TRD accessory. One can dream.
Would it be out of line to nominate the Merkur offerings? This covers both types of cranberry (sauce and jellied – XR4Ti and Scorpio, respectively).
To me, Merkurs are like one of those of simple European meals that Americans would actually really like if they’d just ignore any preconceived notions and try it.
I saw a couple of women getting into a brand new looking XR4Ti Merkur in park slope last year, and complemented them on it. They said that they had six more at home.
Early 90s Nissan Sentra SE-R. It looked just like every other boring shitbox Sentra until you bit into it.
i agree these are still underappreciated despite being on the Car and Driver 10 Best every year they were made.
The 92-96 G20T may be my pick, though. Almost as good as the SE-R but had leather and 4 doors 🙂 And very much ignored for the plain jane looks.
I think the B15 SE-R falls into that as well, at least the non-Spec V variants. The 6-speed and limited slip in the Spec V made the car feel special and unique enough that the regular SE-R just seemed bland…except it was still a huge upgrade over the SE (at least with the 5-speed, not so much the fun-killer automatic).
Agree, old Civic Si gets more love, but the Si motor had no grunt compared to the Nissan.
As I was just recently discussing with a friend, the 94-98 SN95 Mustang.
Not the legendary Fox that preceded it nor the attention grabbing retro-stangs that succeded it, it’s unfairly overlooked. And with the passing of time, its compact package and raw, analog feel is even more desirable, at least to me.
My friend just buttoned up the suspension on his vortech supercharged ’97(?). I have to admit I scoffed a little when I heard he bought it, but it looks good and is a riot to drive.
I’d say you could extend that out to the new edges (99-04) as well.
True – people often think of it as the better of that gen, but that’s faded at this point.
I own an ’02 (the height of its be-scooped and -spoilered ridiculousness) and always think of it – fondly – as the over the top version of the classic.
I had an 03, which was also overdone. Had a love-hate relationship with that car. Had the usual domestic quality issues of that era, plus despite buying it with only 6k miles on it, had been in an accident, which hit the carfax after my purchase (and wasn’t repaired well either)
I agree with this as long as we are talking the V8 cars. Back in 2001/2002, the owner of the company I was working for had a ’94 Cobra convertible that another coworker and I nicknamed “Goldilocks” because it did everything well but nothing great. At the time it was also vastly overshadowed by the Fox and new edge Cobras, even though it was nearly as good as both. I’m not a huge Mustang guy, but I always keep my eye out for a clean SN95 5.0L Cobra.
I drove a ’98 Cobra and, while I was disappointed with the performance and it was a rattly POS with only 60k miles on it, it had character and was fun to drive.
“a cranberry-sauce car feels like something a little more special. A car that is a little sweeter, a little tangier than a merely good, underloved car.
To me, a cranberry-sauce car is one that is shaped like the container it came in and nobody but that one weird uncle will drive.
And for that – Nissan NV (full size).
This guy cranberrys.
You’re thinking of the jellied cranberries. That stuff plops out of the can in the exact shape of the can. The sauced kind doesn’t hold the form like that.
That said, your NV selection is a good one.
Those vans were incredibly mis-advertised. They don’t make incredible commercial vans. You know what they do really well? Vanlife vans. Easy to work on, easy 4wd swap for offroad adventures, and decent parts availability (since it’s a Titan underneath).
Ford Flex. Boxy SUV way before its time, had an available twin turbo 6cyl, came in nice 2 tone combinations, and didn’t look half bad imo.
I’ll say any of the rotary coupes other than the FD, but especially the RX-8.
I have a friend that is obsessed with them (he’s on his 3rd, a 2011 R3).
It’s Renesis gets bagged on. But it’s comfy, handles amazing, and that engine screams all the way to redline with a wonderful sound. The suicide doors actually make it so 4 adults can both enter/exit easily and be comfortable.
I still don’t want one, but having driven them many times, they never fail to put a smile on my face.
2nd Gen. Mitsubishi Montero SR