One of the world’s most iconic cars, the Citroen 2CV turns 60 this week. The Deux Cheveaux is an absolute classic but what has been your most memorable motor. Mini Cooper, Fiat Cinquecento, Cadillac, Morris Minor, Mustang…..
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The most memorable motor I have driven has to be the 1987 Pontiac Grand Am.
This is a tough one. Well, I think it’s a 63′ chrome bumpered MGB. It’s not the most memorable motor, that would be my racecar, but it is my most memorable drive. My dad had the car in storage, and we were moving to a new house. I was 11 and he needed someone to drive it to the new house. He gave me the keys and said follow me. There I was, only 11, and he was letting me drive his classic (This happened in 1990, by the way). It was a fairly compact little roadster, so I didn’t have much trouble with the clutch, but I was sure that I was going to get arrested at some point. I got there safe, and even backed into a fairly tight spot. I felt 10 feet tall that day.
I also had the chance to drift in my brother’s racecar in the mountains in Japan. It was a real initial D type of moment, and quite a thrill, but it still couldn’t compare to that time when I was a kid.
My wife’s boss in Taiwan bought an F430 and a Bentley on the same day. He took her for a ride in both of them that day. I must admit, I was a bit jealous. Not about my wife, about the fact that she got to ride in those cars. Lucky lady!
I’m going to chip in with my first and only car….a navy blue 1972 Mercedes 280CE Coupe. Chrome all over, long and slick… but like steering an oil tanker.
this is a very interesting question. well the car that made an irrevocable inpression is the ‘TWO AND A HALF TYRE VEHICLE’popularly called keke napep.like the name suggests its a car to buy only if you have excess cash, because,you will never ever valueit.thanks
A really old Mini Cooper. I didn’t know that these cars have actually quite strong engines, the acceleration was impressive.
Well, if I take the question literally (i.e. use of the word “driven” rather than “owned” ) then the answer has to be the afternoon that, as a callow youth of 23, I drove a Lamborghini Countach for 5 glorious hours. Nothing since has come close to matching a car in which I couldn’t legally (in Canada) get out of 2nd gear. (I didn’t worry about the legalities….hey! I was young!)
However, if you limit me to cars I’ve owned then it’s the other end of the spectrum. My first car was a Morris Minor 1000–cream coloured with lots of blue hippy flowers on the sides. By all standards it was a horrible car–but there was something about the friendly shape, the bug-eyed headlamps, the smell of the red leather upholstery and the lawn-mower-esque sound of the engine which still gives warm, fuzzy memories.
Your link is broken.
@ Kenneth
I just looked up the Keke Napep, and it is awesome. We don’t have those here, but I’d love one. I bet they tip over quite often though.
@ Bob
It’s the little things that make you feel good about a car. If you had actually owned the Lamborghini, I’m sure you would have eventually realized that it’s a bit of a hassle. Every racecar I’ve driven on the street has been laborious. Heavy clutches, suspensions that turn potholes into mountains, and power ranges that will make your ears bleed. On the other hand, sometimes the these are labors of love.
My current car a jeep wrangler or my first car an opel rekord with a 2.5 liter engine. it looked like crap, but boy i could out-drag BMW’s with car……plus it had a great stereo in it.
Sorry George, link now fixed
1998 Saturn that I took for a test drive. I turned a corner, punched it, and threw a rod through the oil pan. I could see a piston rolling on the freeway ramp behind me, weaving back and forth across the line of oil draining out of the car.
But up to that point, I thought it handled great.
A D8 Caterpillar bulldozer.
There is nothing like playing with construction toys as a child and then getting the chance as a grownup to operate a real bulldozer. It was amazing!
I’m ashamed to say it now, what with global warming etc, but the cars which gave me the greatest pleasure as a kid (I owned two of them in succession), was the 4.3 litre, 6 cylinder, RAMBLER HORNET. You couldn’t corner with it, but it flew along a straight stretch of tarmac like a bat out of hell. I’m quite embarrassed remembering it now. It was a proletarian wagon, no doubt.
I’d like to add (nostalgia’s got hold of me now) that the nicest car I’ve ever driven, as opposed to owned, was my dad’s old Van den Plas. If I remember correctly, that was an 8 cylinder job (?), but smooth as butter, purring motor, lovely gadgets and gimcracks inside. I learned to drive in it. Later my father sold it for a song, and I think he regretted that for a long time.
Best I got to drive was a Mercedes 280SL white with red leather and from LA California to Portland, Oregon.
Toughest and most reliable was a light green 1963 Toyota Land Cruiser with an 8,000 pound Warn winch on the front. It started every time I turned the key and even at 26 degrees F below zero. That was before Land Cruisers went luxury.
Best airplane I flew in was a Beech King Air with my carpentry tools in the nose from El Monte, (LA) California to La Quinta, CA to do repair carpentry work on the original La Quinta Hacienda.
One of the most fun was a very old orange Allis Chalmers tractor.
I learned to drive in a forties era International Harvester truck, double clutching to shift gears because it had no synchros, and for the guys throwing up and stacking hay bales on the back.
@ Jon Donnison:
That is a really old car!
I don’t drive!
Dennis
Re: “What’s the most memorable motor”
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———- Restricting it to cars, it was a classic ’57 Chevy canary yellow panel wagon of the legendary Nomad series platform.
Beautiful new paint job and I fell in love after a night out with friends when we ended up at the owners place early in the AM. Stuffed my motorcycle in the back with me and my college buddy’s personal items and drove home 550 miles across Texas.
Had a rebuilt 327 of V8 legend, but hot rodded with milled heads, 3/4 race cam, big 4 barrel carb, Hurst floor shifter, duals and 4:11 drag gears. It would lift the front end while scorching the rear tires which was scary as frrrp since I couldn’t see the road and when it came down the front end was held together with bailing wire and I never knew if it would hold together. Always backed out early, it was that scary.
I sold it for a song that bought me the fastest production motorcycle of the day, that I promptly stripped down and hopped up to arguably be the fastest thing on the road back when. Thrills, chills and some nasty spills.
Those were the days, and if my kids ever attempt it, gonna read the riot act to them. More responsible ways to go now.
Hillman Minx 1967 Estate (with tropical adjustments)
My parents decided to drop everything ,buy a car and drive from the UK to India in 1967. In 1968 when on a picnic in the Himalayas I decided that I wanted to drive the car ,so I released the hand brake put the keys in the ignition ,the car started rolling across the car park on the side of a mountain
,just when the car had started down a slope my Dad jumped in pressed ot the brakes and put the car into reverse.A little further down the slope was a sheer cliff.
The other “memorable” car that I drove was a new Lincoln Navigator that I drove in 2000. (That’s what you get when you ask the car rental for a “small” car… ) We just drove from Toronto to the Niagara falls and back, so about 200km, and when we came back I needed to refill the “baby” – it swallowed 80 liters!!! I nearly fainted, and swore to myself to never get such a gas guzzler again.
An Austin Chanp. A military 4 Wheel drive Job. Could pull a tank, and went the same speed backwards. No longer in use.
Most of us even preferred it to the Landrover which was its replacement, even though the Landrover had more comfort, like heating, and being closed in.
John in Germany
A google-analytics.com, it is relentless, it follows me everywhere, contributes nothing and costs me money for their hogging of the time I pay for on the internet.
Google is the most uncool of all, they slowdown the internet and cost us all money, they ought to be sued in a class action for all of the time they have stolen from us in internet fees.
Best car I have ever driven was an Opel Kadett, a German model and next best was a Vauxhall 2000 estate.
T L
There is no comparison: The 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham D’Elegance. I know a friend who owned one and to describe it would seem unbelievable to anyone who ever had anything other than a Rolls Royce. In 1976, Cadillac was challenged, publically, by the makers of the Lincoln Continental, in terms of ride comfort. It was known as the “Ride Wars” between the Ford Motor Company (Lincoln’s parent company) and General Motors, who builds the Cadillac. Cadillac, which always offered a nice ride, preferred up to that point, to create a balance between ride and handling. Ford, however, chose to swing more toward ride comfort while offering a less precise handling car. In 1974, when the “Ride Wars” began, there were commercials on the T.V. showing people blindfolded rating the ride comfort of the Lincoln vs Cadillac. In 1975, Cadillac responded and built one of the best riding cars ever built to date. In 1976, it rode even better.
The Fleetwood was the very pinnicle of all their engineering talent and was considered by many today as the very benchmark of “ride comfort”. Harshness was non-existant. The seats were like living room sofas. They were electric and they reclined. On the highway, they were quiet, and floated along in total unruffled comfort. The sound of the engine was almost silent, which was, at the time, a new standard in luxury car motoring. Everything that made a Cadillac a Cadillac was there: the four ashtrays, the front and rear reading lights, the rear carpeted foot rests, the litter container up front, nothing was missing. When Cadillac downsized in 1977, the first thing that people noticed was the loss of ride comfort. Gone were the foot rests in the back, and even the very character of the once mighty Cadillac seemed to have been diminished. It was a sad day for Cadillac.
Today, Cadillac is little more than a luxury sports car. There are no cars made in the United States anymore that allow the driver to set the cruise control, sit back, and just enjoy the ride in the manner that even comes close to the “76” Fleetwood Brougham. Anyone over the age of 45, in the U.S., will attest to this. In the early 1970s, every child in the U.S. will have atleast one story of parents parking the car onto the curb accidently and unknowingly, and having to get back into the car to re-park, because the suspensions were that soft and luxurious. That is virtually impossible today as the springs are made for handling rather than ride. The car-makers attribute it to better handling but, the statistics show that more high speed accidents are occurring now because most of the new cars are really sports cars in diguise. They (the auto review magazines)complained that the 1976 Mercury Marquis was one the worst handling cars ever built yet, they failed to mention that they had one of the lowest traffic fatality rates of any car on the road. The cars with the highest? Most of them are considered “premium” handling sedans.
The point being: people drive within the capabilities of their car’s suspension. If you build sports cars, you will have sports car-like accidents. If anyone reading this should ever have the chance to ride in a 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood Brogham, I recommend taking it. You will, after that, never REALLY be in a nicer riding car ever again. It’s a shame.
By the way, I currently own a Cadillac, and have had five, since 1988.