I dunno about elsewhere, but when the Galant/Magna was released it was pitched as an affordable yet advanced family sedan, so mortgage would have been more correct then. This description would have totally nailed my family in a nutshell, my father having joked while courting my mother that one day he would buy her a BMW (even though he arrived in the country with nothing but the clothes on his back and a spare jumper in the suitcase). Single below-average wage, 3 kids to feed, and a mortgage… therefore we bought a Magna, and regretted it for years to come.
These days however, they’re strictly student fare, but then again, that would apply to most of the old beaters and shitboxes from the early 90s
Exactly. Although I’m seeing a resurgence in the Galant’s popularity here. Too bad there still isn’t as much aftermarket support (that I know of). Although my Galant isn’t a lemon at all. It has handled my lead foot for nearly 2 years and 35000 miles now with little issue.
just as an example, the 97 Toyota Avalon and lincon towncar are both fullsized luxury vehicles and yet the lincoln is 30 inches longer 5 inches wider which is actually a bit less of difference than I expected but there still is one.
Funny how vague are these American terms for car segments. I doubt that Avalon would be called “full-size” or “luxury” (even less possible) in Europe, as it’s European (or for part of Europe, at least) counterpart is usually the F segment, in which cars are like 20-30 cm (8-12") longer. At least.
Edit: Yeah, just checked. In German it’s described as “obere mittelklasse” (upper middle class) and in Polish as an E segment car, which is the same.
Actually the car classifications in the US are pretty well defined based on interior and cargo volume but end up hilariously scatterbrained because they take platform into account as well and because the classifications are descriptors rather than tiers or ranks like in the European system. As a result you have three main categories; truck, crossover, car. And then four subcategories; full size, midsize, compact, and subcompact. And then of course all the variants like hatchback, wagon, etc which aren’t part of the formal classification system but might seem that way because again, our classifications are descriptions too.
There are a couple reasons for this;
American car classifications are a relic from the 1940s - 1960s when virtually ever car was built on a 2.8m+ (110 in) wheelbase. Then you had cars like the Ford Falcon, Chevy Corvair, and the Nash Rambler which upset this trend so the public started calling them “compacts” and everything else was naturally “full size.” Then even smaller cars like the Pinto and Beetle came out so they were naturally “sub”-compacts. Formal classifications weren’t really weren’t a thing until Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) came along the 1970s at which point it adopted the existing nomenclature.
CAFE makes a distinction between cars and trucks for fuel economy and emissions requirements which on paper makes sense (a truck is never going to be as fuel efficient or have as low of emissions as a car) but had some interesting side affects. A - it perpetuates the non-universal naming scheme and B - it created and proliferated the SUV and later the crossover too. Since wagons and MPVs are more heavily regulated, car manufacturers had strong incentive to build trucks instead. Take a truck, enclose the bed, and slap seats in it and you have a car that is like a wagon or MPV but because you built it on a truck platform you can classify it as a “truck based utility vehicle.” BAM! SUV. Crossovers are the same thing in reverse. Take a car platform, put a big body on it, and slap on a long travel suspension and now you have a car you can call a “utility vehicle” and can now be classified as a truck. BAM! Crossover.
Now just to be a clear, that is a background. I am by no means an apologist for the American system and in fact I very much abhor it. Anyways back on topic:
The PT Crapster - Ugly, reliable, and practical. But mostly ugly
Honestly never heard anyone call the PT cruiser reliable, I often hear about them being unreliable more often than not.
Newer Priuses -
We were told the Prius needed a facelift as people weren’t fond of the looks… apparently they Didnt mean to stretch out all the front fixtures to even weirder shapes.
Argh, that car is crap!
How could that happen? I remember Geo as a badge-engineered Suzuki brand, and the Swift of the early 90s wasn’t that bad at offering basic transportation and nice handling. The 1.6 had AWD (no joke) and nearlly 100 hp are fun with that few kilograms. I also remember the convertible version, that looked really shit but somehow cute. That’s the type of car I 'd like to gift my daughter after getting the license.
I’ve seen a few early 90s Swifts both in person and from my recent binge watching of Motorweek Retro Reviews. It just seemed like a basic car (which I’m used to having ridden countless miles in the passenger seat of my dad’s old Chevy Express cargo van), but the charm that that generation had (it gave me an almost Honda Civic ED6 vibe) just sorta vanished when it switched to the generation I pictured.
You mean the filter for the intake?
Take my Audi and you will hate it. That filter is under (!) the whole mechanical injection system. For my latest-model Fiesta shopping cart, it takes 5 minutes to change. For the Audi, 5 hours, many curses and cuts in the fingers because it’s very narrow down there.
When I pulled it out the first time, I noticed that it was maaaany years old and black. Nobody wanted to do that torture.
The USMD 95-01 model ran on pretty much the same mechanical bits as the 89-94 model. It had the same chassis and engine, although the 100hp 1.6 wasn’t available.
I don’t really see how it was that horrible of a car. It was just basic transportation that got you from A to B. Their main issue, which is why they are now not very common in Montreal, is that they tend to rust quite heavily.
Also, the Swift GTi (the one with 100hp) was still FWD.
The convertible seems to be surprisingly somewhat collectible now, with decent ones being worth a few grand.
