The Autopian is nominally a website about cars. I mean, “Auto” is right there in its name. But we love all kinds of vehicles that make the world move, from semi-tractors and cargo ships to planes, trains, motorcycles, and bicycles. What vehicles do you love that aren’t cars?
My primary love has always been cars. I still trace the beginning of my enthusiasm to when my uncle gave me a Pontiac Firebird Matchbox car back when I was a toddler. If you’ve read my work, you know that I can find good in any car, from the Chrysler Pacifica crossover to even the Chevrolet Aveo. With exceptions, I’m one of those people who believe that there’s no such thing as a truly terrible car.
Yet, while my life has largely revolved around cars, they’re hardly the only form of transportation that I’ve been obsessed with. Ever since I was a kid, I have loved planes, ships, and trains. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched James Cameron’s Titanic. When I was a kid, my favorite scenes were before the ship hit the iceberg, and the camera sometimes panned around the majestic vessel. It’s also why I adored the opening scene of the 2006 version of Poseidon.
Big ships still capture my imagination today, and one of my bucket list items is to take a ride aboard a cargo ship. Admittedly, my love of big ships is why I bought one of the lamps that was aboard the SS United States.
My love of heavy machinery is why I also frequently visit the Illinois Railway Museum, even though I’ve now been there about a million times. As a kid, I loved watching Metra trains thunder out of the Fox Lake, Illinois station. When I started going to the Chicago Auto Show as a teenager, I always took a Metra train to Chicago just for the fun of it. I still do, actually.
When I was a teenager with infinite time, I also used to go to a park next what was a Wisconsin Central line that snaked through northern Illinois, and I just watched trains roll by. Today, that line is run by Canadian National, and once I spotted a freight train that had an incredible line of eight locomotives leading an absolute monster down the rails.
If I had to assign a vehicular love that’s second to cars, it would certainly be aviation. I was a kid when I learned that the Boeing 747 existed, and that changed everything for me. In my eyes, the 747 was like an ocean liner, but one that had glistening paint and flew through the sky at 600 mph.
Then, I discovered that all sorts of aircraft are wonderful, from the slick and sporty-looking Canadair Regional Jet line to the hot rod Boeing 757 and all points in between. As a teenager, I remember watching the film 2012 and absolutely adoring the movie’s “Antonov 500.” I was blown away that the real-life Antonov An-225 was somehow even cooler than the fake movie version. I had made it a dream to get a ride in the Mriya, somehow. Sadly, that one might be on hold for quite a while.
Now, as you’re soon about to read, I’m once again working to satisfy my childhood dream of becoming a pilot. How about you? What vehicles do you love that aren’t cars?
Top graphic image: ERCO
Several airplanes: B17, B29, B52, and my all-time favorite, the SR71, for example.
Some trains, such as the Union Pacific Big Boy and most of their heritage fleet.
Certain ships, like the Iowa class, the Texas, the Titanic.
Bicycles, my Trek 3500 may be an entry level “real” bike, but it changed my life and my understanding completely of what a bicycle could be and do.
FYI, Battleship New Jersey and the Texas both have great YT channels.
Oh I know, I’m addicted to the New Jersey channel in particular.
Without a doubt, vintage Lambretta scooters. Once I learned that they are manual shift like a proper motorcycle, I was 100% onboard. I’m currently rebuilding two, a ’67 SX200 and a Spanish license built ’74ish Serveta.
I don’t think anyone’s mentioned airships yet. I love airships, the way they resemble whales gently drifting through the sky. Mercedes’ blimp ride is absolutely a bucket list item for me.
I am fascinated by helictopters. But I love bicycles. If I could not ride anymore, that would probably be the second-worst loss of an ability I can imagine, after reading. It’s just that feeling that you are doing exactly the best possible thing at that moment while working out.
The vehicle i would love the most which is definitely not a car is the Jetson One! https://jetson.com/
I really wish I could some day fly one of these bad boys…
The other vehicle would be the seabreacher
https://seabreacher.com
I love aircraft in general, but I have an unhealthy obsession with helicopters. Particularly relatively small, turbine-powered ones. If I win the lottery, I’m adding a rotorcraft rating to my license and buying a Bell 407, or Eurocopter/Airbus H145.
I really love transportation in general, but if forced to pick I would go with the Super Guppy and… I dunno, probably the F-18 (discounting the whole Murder Death Machine aspect.) Aviation is cool as hell. As hell.
Early aircraft, the beginnings of people figuring out how to fly. I made WWI aircraft models and hung them in a dogfight diorama. Flew RC gliders as a teen. Earned degrees in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering. Worked most of my career in some form of aerospace. Now working for a company making electric vertical take off and landing aircraft editing engineering documents.
One of my favorite movies is ” Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines”! One of the folks involved in the movie wrote a book about the planes they made and flew (at least one was a vintage original) and the efforts they went to to replicate the planes of the era. I spent a lot of well spent money on that book.
Nice to see someone with enthusiasm for a field, sticks with it, and actually lives it.
Lately my golf cart. I’ve been driving it more than a car since we moved into a gated community.
“I hit two good balls today. I stepped on a rake.”
Yeah – I like ocean liners and cruise ships too.
I’ve been on something close to 20 cruises – mostly Holland America but also Princess, MSC, Cunard and most recently Virgin.
Old ocean liners are cool – and some of them even had garages!
But today’s premium/luxury cruise ships are perhaps the most comfortable way to travel.
Grew up on the water and will always have fondness for boats. Also spent a lot of time around sailplanes and aviation in general as a kid and airplanes are still fascinating to me.
I’ve always had an affinity for heavy duty, work vehicles. Beasts of burden that go about their workaday lives with little love from most people. Heavy trucks, construction equipment, farm equipment, locomotives and trains, all of it fascinating.
You featured images of the Erco Ercoupe but no details! That was the plane that was going to get the general population into the skies by making flying closer to driving. I know this is a car site, but the Ercoupe would make a great article!
It has! https://www.theautopian.com/this-vintage-plane-was-sold-by-department-stores-and-advertised-to-be-as-easy-to-fly-as-driving-a-car/
I fell in love with the SR-71 when I saw it in the movie “D.A.R.Y.L.” as a kid, and 40+ years later and I still love that jet!
I like motorcycles, and trikes, and Sidecars. Im starting to get really interested in Cruise Ships and Ultra Luxury Yachts. (thanks below deck)
Car and motorcycle guy forever, but my vote is for garden tractors. Honest, simple, rugged, higher-quality brands like Simplicity and Cub Cadet models of the 60s and 70s. When there was over 1 acre to mow, snow to plow, or a car to tow from your house to your friend’s house in the neighborhood, these tractors were always at the ready, there like a faithful dog.
There’s nothing like having a garden tractor (size depending on garden), that can do so many surprising things.
I’m a farmer, so tractors and ATVs. My oldest, field-ready tractor is a 1953 John Deere 70, and my newest is a 2016 New Holland TS6.110. Crazy how much (and how little) things have changed in that timeframe in agriculture.
The Long-EZ. When I was a kid, my dad worked for a company that built airplanes, and he built a few of them.
They are crazy looking airplanes designed by the legendary Burt Rutan with the propeller engine in the back.
If I ever won the lottery, I would have bought a Long EZ.
When it comes to aircraft, I have an odd preference for GA stuff, especially fast low-wing piston singles, like the Mooney M20 or Beech Bonanza. Maybe that’s just what I like in flightsims more than anything.
Marine vessels? 3-pointer Hydroplanes, especially the big H1 Unlimited boats. Something about the absurdity of a giant racing lobster with a helicopter turboshaft stuck in the back appeals to me.
But for what hasn’t been mentioned all that often…Bicycles. especially my 1971 Schwinn Stingray Deluxe. Yes, I am a grown man riding a 1970s kids bike, it only has one speed, and you can’t put modern high pressure tires on it because Schwinn used a proprietary front tire, but nothing else in my little cycle collection looks as cool or rides as comfortably. Bring back the banana seat!
Bikes for sure! One of my favorite Autopian articles is about building a functioning E-bike out of trash found down by the river. The commuter train that I take my E-bike on to go to work goes right over that same river!
I have four working bikes and one partially disassembled. Besides the patinaed vintage Stingray, I have a thrashed, rusty 1990s GT Interceptor that used to be my brother’s, an early ’90s Bianchi Forza that I picked up at a police auction, and recently customized with mustache bars and platform pedals, (It has Biopace chainrings!) And a 2024 Zizzo Via, which I bought over other folding bikes because it was metallic Orange, and I resent Millenial Gray. My non-working project is a 99-00-ish Schwinn Predator bmx that I’m planning on backdating with a banana seat, ape hangers, and staggered tires.
Trains! I had a huge model train set as a kid, and there was a railroad line that ran right through the town I grew up in. I haven’t done much to indulge that interest, beyond admiring the trains at the Henry Ford museum in Detroit.
Fun story, when I was nine, we went to Chattanooga and stayed at the train-themed hotel. Despite my best efforts, my parents didn’t book one of the converted rail car rooms. But the hotel did (and still does) have a trolley that you can ride in and get a tour of the area. The day my family rode it, it was gross, rainy, and half the route was closed for repairs. It was just the driver, my folks, my brother and I. Since it was just us, he let me ride up front with him and even let me take over the controls for a while! Still one of my favorite memories from growing up.
Ever since I was little, I’ve loved construction equipment. I’ve had the opportunity to run scissor lifts, Dingos, and skid steers, and it was so much fun (as well as slightly destructive).
My job has me on construction sites all the time, and my biggest issue is that I get distracted and just want to watch the equipment all day.
I’m a fan of everything from skid steers to backhoes to bulldozers to excavators. If it’s big and loud and moving dirt, I love it.
BOATS.
Spefically, fast boats.
So I love cars, but police make cars significantly less fun, as speed limits are designed for the lowest common denominator; garbage trucks, delivery vans, etc. I’m in the midwest, so we don’t really have any canyon roads where 25-45mph is fun or engaging, so you’re pretty much left with sweepers and straights. Which means SPEED makes them fun, and if you get nicked, it’s a MINIMUM of $300 now, plus spikes to insurance etc.
But boats? Most lakes don’t have speed limits at all. You can legit go 100mph or more without issue on most of them! And what a lot of people don’t realize, is that fast boats are a lot more similar to flying/aircraft than boating; as speed gets higher, less and less of your boat is in the water (drag) and more of it is in the air (LIFT!).
And UNLIKE cars, driving fast on smaller boats requires skill; you need to be paying attention to the water so you don’t hit any waves at speed that could cause you to lose control, and when you get above 50-60mph, chinewalking starts to come into play where the prop is literally pushing your boat sideways, so you need to constantly correct the steering. You also have to balance the boat on the pad of the hull; it almost feels tippy so that’s another steering correction. It’s legit HARD to go fast on some of these hulls; I’ve driven boats that had a top speed of over 100mph with a skilled driver, and I couldn’t really go over 75mph without feeling like I was going to die.
Then the DESIGN of boats are spectacular; they are the ultimate speed forms! And there’s a huge a variety both from an aesthetic point of view, and hull technology; you can get into air entrapment hulls that pack air under the hull to increase performance and ride at speed.
And maintenance-wise, boats are EASY to repair compared to cars; zero suspension, zero brakes, just an engine and drive with basically no transmission. They don’t rust, but they do rot out, but doing fiberglass and resin work isn’t hard, just messy.
Boats are FUN! Way more fun than cars, most of the time. I used to autocross but that takes an entire day for maybe 30 minutes of driving while baking in the full sun of an asphalt parking lot. ORRRRRR I could be drinking a beer while swimming, girls are in bikinis, vibes are good, and fast boats rule.
If you need a Boatopian writer, lmk.
Motorcycles. Haven’t ridden in eons, but can still recall the lovely sensations of riding along on California Highway 1 or winding through a forest setting, etc. Maybe will buy a new to me bike for when retirement comes.
NASAs crawler transporter.
Also a lot of great suggestions others have mentioned.
Dirt bikes,especially 2 strokes.