There is one of these driving around my area. Beater mode, rusty, exhaust leak, but still going.
The Mazda2 wasn't around for very long in Canada before it was pulled off the market. I see a few of them now but in ten more years, they will be gone. Saw more of them when I visited Montreal, great small car for the big city.
Toyota Crown Athlete V
cheating a bit here since its a jdm model but I've always liked these cars. I wish I could have a big comfy and somewhat sporty japanese yakuza sedan with "276 hp".
>sporty
It's a Lexus LS man, it's not sporty
Before the Tempest became a more conservative midsize platform and the GTO built upon it to kickstart the '60s muscle car craze and piss off the heads of parent GM to no end, Pontiac (at the time with THAT John DeLorean as chief engineer) tried themselves at a compact Tempest (mind you at a time when landbarges were on a streak and the only American brand to even build compacts were AMC) as a weird cross breed of innovation and cost-cutting for a few years. DeLorean had a few ideas he wanted to put into a car, and GM gave the thumbs up as long as he would keep the costs down. Here's some technical data:
- body borrowed from a Buick/Oldsmobile compact developed at the same time, available as 2dr sedan, 2dr convertible, 4dr sedan and 4dr station wagon, Buick and Oldsmobile were also available as a 2dr hardtop
- independent rear suspension in the form of a swing axle transaxle borrowed from the Chevrolet Corvair developed at the same time
- base 3.2L straight four made from literally cutting Pontiac's V8 in half, was assembled on the same line as the V8 with a majority identical parts
- no balance shaft, instead the engine had giant dampeners to decouple it from the body, and ran its power to the wheel through a tubed flexible torque shaft called "rope drive"
- optional V8 was a 3.5L aluminium unit developed by Buick at the same time, discontinued in the late '60s and then licensed to Rover in the UK who refined it and used it for another 35 years in Rovers, Land Rovers, Range Rovers, MGs, Triumphs and TVRs
A few records and firsts of the platform:
- largest petrol straight four fitted to a post-war production car
- Buick sister was the first production car with a V6 (kicking off GM's long history of V6s)
- Oldsmobile Jetfire sister (alongside the Chevy Corvair at pretty much the same time) was the first production car with a turbocharger
- independent rear suspension shortly before the Corvette received it, transaxle LONG before the Corvette received it
God fucking damn that is a good looking car, absolute shame to waste it on rabid jungle monkeys.
It would be if it wasn't FWD.
Gimme pls
God I love Detroit
As always
Also I own one, but pic related isnt mine.