Y’all are the best. The Pontiac Aztek has been a bit of a theme around here lately, so when we were thinking about some stunt we could pull to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of The Autopian and encourage people to become members it didn’t take long for us to arrive on the idea of purchasing an Aztek if 200 people became members or upgraded their memberships. There’s still a week to go and we’re well beyond that number.
Obviously, thank you all so much for becoming a member. And a reminder that just because we’ve hit our goal it doesn’t mean the discount is done. If you want to become a member just go to our membership page, select an annual plan, and enter code: mustang2yearanniversary and you should get 20% off of the purchase.
Alright, so now that we’ve hit our goal we need to actually buy one of these. We’ll take you through the process, but I’d love to hear from you all about what you’d like to see in a Pontiac Aztek and, specifically, if there are links to any for sale you think we should follow.
Here’s one a reader found in the Discord that includes an encouraging description:
I love how it being a “Walter White special” is somehow the least disturbing part of this description: Real seller, VERY minimal body damage, and Las Vegas.
There’s no holy grail version of what we want and David already bought a tent, so that’s not a must-have anymore, though there are a few things we would give extra points for:
- Two-tone! Everyone loves two-tone.
- A working tent, because two tents are better than one.
- The early GM digital heads-up display. HUD!
- The Pontiac Aztek cooler.
- The functional removable rear table option.
Everything else is sort of gravy.
David is based out of Los Angeles so somewhere nearby is ideal and also brings with it the possibility of a low-rust situation. If you find a super low rust version in, say, New York, I’d be extremely tempted to buy it and drive it to Los Angeles, though I’m not sure how well that would go over with the family. Also, now I kind of want one of these.
The plan is to purchase one quickly, start blogging about it, and then set up a situation where David can live in it for a week. We’re also going to start using this as the company car when we’re in Los Angeles for a while, since the $2000 Nissan Leaf has some obvious shortcomings.
This is going to be fun.
Definitely get the HD 3500.
Yay! Looking forward to the articles…shower spaghetti should be incorporated somehow
Overland Expo’s coming up. Way to show those guys how it’s done, on an Aztek
I really hope the Aztek goes to some epic locations. I wanna hear about it all.
Apparently all it took for my lazy ass to become a member was Matt joing up and the prospect of David living in an Aztec. Y’all should add a stretch goal that requires David to live in the Aztec in Charlottesville for a week in August and he is required to drive through Rappahanok County doing at least 20 mph over the speed limit.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ugly_cars
An excerpt:
Ha, I gotta love that most of that Maddox (wow, there’s a name I haven’t typed in years) list has proper FANS now. Like, they’ve been redeemed for their plastic-cladded sins…a bit. Kind of. Mostly. Well, they have other redeeming qualities that makes them FASCINATING to car sickos. The cladding was a mistake (…bcc: Subaru in 2024), but hey, it’s a period-correct mistake now and therefore lovable.
This is some of the best news I’ve received in ages! Not sure what that says about my life but hey, I could be living in an Aztek right now.
I hope the next good news will be that they’ve found a nice orange example.
I noticed a couple of commenters saying this could look bad.I dont completely agree but it would be nice if The Autopian could lean this in the direction of sympathy for those living in cars
Uh, the Donut Media guys did this a while back: “I’m going to live in a Mustang for the week for internet lulz”. And they quickly realized how messed up that is considering the whole housing crisis and the number of people in California who HAVE to live in a car. We spent a couple of months unhoused when I was kid… mom did her best to make it fun for us by calling it a camping vacation, but us kids knew shit was bleak. We got back on our feet pretty quickly, but not everyone is that lucky. Not saying to go all “woke” here, but this seems a little tone deaf.
Yeah I gotta kind of agree. Maybe if he goes camping in it, but “living out of your car” in LA for clicks and giggles when you’re financed by a millionaire gives me the ick.
I’d argue this different because living in it is sold as the big headline of the Aztek – you can use it for camping! It’s the car of the versatile future!
It’s also only tone deaf if you make it so. Keep in mind that this is David, he seems incapable of being mean, if there’s someone who is going to find a way to make this concept both respectful and fun he’s the guy to do it.
The unfortunate side benefit of getting more and more subscribers is that you’ll start pulling vehicle-adjacent people in, and someone will therefore be more likely to start bleating about whatever is happening in the world instead of a dude camping in a tent that came new in a vehicle 30 years ago.
I’ve been a car enthusiast my whole life, and I’ve been reading the Autopian from the beginning. And I followed the crew for years when they were at Jalopnik. The writers here have always been thoughtful and respectful of the whole spectrum of the car world, which is why this series jumped out at me as maybe being a little less respectful. And I get it, this is a car site, a place to escape the vitriol of the world. So let’s let this be just a guy camping in car for a week.
1000% agree. Which is a lot of percent.
Hard disagree. People camp in their rigs everywhere, and people have similarly been homeless forever (unhoused?). David is not dunking on anyone here.
I’m just saying, the headlines of “David has to live out of an Aztek for a week for laughs” is a little tasteless. Framing it as “join Autopian and I’ll camp in an Aztek for a week to see if the car deserves the flak it gets” is much more compelling. This is how David seems to be viewing this in his previous article so I’m totally on board with that. I don’t think anyone at Autopian is trying to be insensitive here, but “having to live out of a car” is a sensitive topic, so just be thoughtful about it. Donut media took their video as a chance to acknowledge the housing crisis and shine a light on the people and organizations who are trying to solve it, while also making some interesting car enthusiast content. Which I thought was real classy.
Yes ha ha YES
David could totally turn that thing into a rolling meth lab. For that application, the Aztec has charm!
So long as he doesn’t don the Walter (tighty) White(ies) as part of the gimmick.
do we get a poll on which one David should buy? so far my money is on this one Tint_the_bitch (1).jpg (600×450) (memberful.com)