1969 Rado Communt 67 Standard
@nerd
Let’s talk about bad for a moment. No, not like “my alternator went bad” or “I picked a bad color.” We’re talking flat-out bad. The kind that smells like roadkill and leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth just for getting near it.
That’s what the Rado Communt 67 is for us. “A what?” you may ask. No surprise there, as the model lasted just a handful of years before the NHTSA mercifully stepped in and banned their sale due to dismal crash safety scores.
Yet before the “intrusion into our lives” (ask your grandparents) of the government getting into our business and telling us what you can and can’t buy, the Eastern Bloc foisted thousands of these onto us. Why would we have ever bought them to begin with? And does this mean that Ralph Nader really is our savior?
To the second question, the answer is most unfortunate. “Yes.”
But to the first, well… there were a lot of drugs in the late 60’s. I mean, a LOT. Mind altering and psychedelic. That might explain why so many people would elect to spend nearly $800 buying a brand new Rado instead of, say, an 8 year old Ardent Starlight.
By all measure, said out-of-date Ardent would have been the wiser pick. Even if it had almost a hundred thousand miles on it, it was sure to be at LEAST as reliable as the Rado. And more comfortable, quicker, and so on and so forth.
Take a look at some of these test specifications from back in the day that we found locked in the dark archives of the library. The Communt 67’s wheezing 1.1 liter engine managed to squeeze out just 32 horsepower, last seen as “acceptable” in the states when actual horses were used for transportation. 7.7 miles per gallon. We’ve seen Alameda Vegas with better fuel economy. Oh, stopping distance. This is a fun one. From 60 miles per hour, it took 119 meters to come to a stop. Yeah, that’s right. Longer than a football field, including BOTH end zones. Speaking of 60 miles per hour, the Communt 67 WAS able to get up to that speed in just under a minute (not a typo), and had a top speed of 65 miles per hour (also not a typo).
We figured that it would just be high-as-a-kite hippies that would buy these, but not one of our parents or their friends knew anyone who owned one back in the day. Amazingly enough, the largest concentration of these old heaps that we’ve found for sale in the States seem to be concentrated around Albuquerque. No one can seemingly explain why.
We can, however, explain why they keep showing up at cruise-ins now and then. It’s as a simple, straight up, “screw you” to the entire automotive world. At least according to forum user pinkosrock6769, who seems to own a pair of them. One to show off, and the other to serve as a parts car (and hold all the parts from all the other parts cars he’s cannibalized over the years).
All we have to say is: Egads.
Scoring:
Counter Culture - Classics: Very Low (Currently in 3rd)
More reviews to come. I need a nap.