As I’ve shopped for cars to replace my stupid Ford Focus, I’m realizing that I really prefer hatchbacks and wagons. Staggering numbers of compact sedans, Civics and Corollas leading the charge, appear on Craigslist and cars.com every day. Yet I can’t muster the enthusiasm to go look at any of them. I just don’t want to give up the ability to carry home whatever I find. A month or so ago I was shopping with my mom, who recently moved to my town. We came upon a tall cabinet that she wanted for her new condo. No problem! I opened the Focus’s hatch, folded down the rear seats, shoved it in, and brought it to her new home. Maybe this kind of utility is what has always attracted me to the Dodge Omni and its Plymouth Horizon twin.
I remember the first one I ever paid any attention to. My high-school German teacher had one, a ’78 Horizon in dark blue. She liked its tidy, clean, tight European-ness, both its styling and its handling. That’s not surprising; she grew up in Poland (and had a harrowing story of escaping that country after communism befell it). This was not a woman you’d expect to see behind the wheel of any other contemporary Plymouth. None of them suited her style.
I was attracted to the Omnirizon’s tidy clean tightness, too. Inexplicably attracted, because when these were introduced our family car was a swoopy Oleg Cassini Matador coupe, the antithesis of these razor-sharp lines and sensible proportions. Officially, our family scoffed at econoboxes.
Maybe it was because econoboxes used to be so relentlessly plain inside. The Omnirizon driver’s immediate surroundings reeked of cost management, not that you can tell very well in my admittedly terrible picture. I think I prefer the 1990 steering wheel that featured the enormous airbag cover only because it doesn’t scream cheap.
And now here I am, an econobox fan looking to buy yet another one. How times change. But my attraction to the Omnirizon has not changed, it has just come out of the closet. I’d love to buy one in good nick, a later one like this with blackout trim rather than chrome, in this light blue. And gimme the 2.2 L four. I’d drive it to work every day, take it to the store, haul home large items. Maybe I should have tucked an offer-to-buy note under this one’s windshield wiper.
Related reading: The definitive Omnirizon Curbside Classic, and a car-show Omni with 30k on the clock.
Hope its a manual, but if a slusher doesn’t bother you I say go for it! These are good solid little cars. The 2.2 is a durable motor thatll turn good mpgs and make for a decently powered ride. Of course if you wanna get silly with it, you COULD make a ‘synthetic’ GLHS for not a lot of scratch….
I also love wagons and hatchbacks. I love the utility as well as having lots of windows.
I like the Omni/Horizon. Even if they showed cost-cutting, the seats were comfortable.
The one negative is the hatch lift-over height. It isn’t practical when carrying long items.
I once owned a 2006 Ford Focus wagon which I really liked. It could carry quite a bit and it was quite fun to drive for a wagon. I moved up to Ford Escape and then a 2009 Honda Element which I still have (the seats that fold up along the sides make for a huge cube of carrying space. I recently moved and was able to carry quite a bit on my own without the need for movers.
That’s almost identical to my old car. I swapped in a GLHS turbo 2.2 a 555 trans from a Daytona and did a 5 lug conversion to it. That thing was serious fun.
My dad and sister both had “Omnirizons” back in the eighties. Some shoddy build quality regarding the interior, but overall you could spend more for a worse car. Apparently the turbo GLH model is still coveted.
If room is what you seek I’d suggest you also look at a Saab 9000, amazing amount of space, great handling, good heat, and great seats, good on gas, Swedish quirkiness.
Those 9000s (and the 900s) are excellent cars, but as a former owner of both, I will attest to the extremely high cost of maintenance, not to mention parts that are becoming progressively rarer and more expensive with the demise of Saab. Don’t buy European unless you’ve got the wallet to pay the maintenance costs.
I guess you’re right, I’m out of date.
Actually I’ve been driving a Saab 9000 for several years now and have found it to be a reliable, comfortable driver once sorted. (Mine did need some initial TLC but I picked it up really cheap.) Maintenance and repair costs have not been high at all. It helps of course if you can do your own work or have a good independent shop nearby that knows Saabs.
Parts really have been no problem. Saab Parts did not go bankrupt as it was a separate company. (They even recently had a campaign where they sent free replacement hood badges to those who signed up for them.) Though these cars are old enough now that aftermarket and used parts are generally the ticket.
They’re not for everyone but if you find one in decent shape a Saab 9000 can make a really nice driver.
I’m glad to you like your Saab, and the news about Saab parts availability, as I have a 1972 95 in a friends garage awaiting attention someday.
We had four of these over the years, and liked them a lot for their honesty and ability to swallow lots of stuff in the hatch. Our last one was a two-tone brown job with ritzy corduroy upholstery. It had a carburetor ( did they get injection?) and was a bit balky in the ’00s after years of old gas plugging it up.
Take a look at a Mazda Protege5 — the hard part is finding an owner willing to part with it!
As a previous owner of new 2002 Mazda Protege 5 watch out for rust, especially if you are in the rustbelt as the IN plates in the Omni pics suggest. Our Mazda was structurally unsound when we traded it in last august for $300 with no accidents, 80k miles and 12 Chicago winters. that and they don’t fit much in back, but to their credit reliable and fun cars.
Depending on one’s location, the hard part might be finding one that isn’t completely rusted out. (Edit: posted this before the one above popped up).
Around here, rust is becoming an issue on the P5.
First brand-new car I ever purchased, a 1989 model. A measly $6,000 out the door with rebates. Base model, no radio or A/C. The 2.2 was a lot of motor for a car its size – most of the competition had 1.5-1.6 liters. With that much motor, they geared it tall for maximum fuel economy, and it worked. It was pretty easy to get 40mpg on the highway, even though the sticker said 35mpg.
It was a perfectly serviceable car. The only problem was the depreciation curve. Four years and 50k later, I was lucky to sell it for a grand.
I was in Quebec in the summertime this year and that place is still the Rust Capital of the Universe and Mazda cars were by far the worst. The P5 is gone and lot of 3’s are total rustbuckets now.
If you could find one, I’d say go for it. I just looked for one here on a local website–they don’t even list Horizon or Omni. I did see a Plymouth Acclaim though; maybe that would work. If you just do in-town driving, it’d pay for itself in no time. If you do lots of out-of-town driving, you might regret buying an old car.
This one’s perfect too bad you don’t live in Oregon.http://portland.craigslist.org/yam/cto/4804481329.html
Yup, that’s the one I’d want. Low miles, light blue, blackout trim.
They way I feel these days one of these would make a lot of sense for me….but I’d still gravitate the the inferior Chevette because after have so many in the family I am well versed in their foibles and know how to fix ’em with my eye closed.
Before the rear end of the Chevette was restyled you could get a 4×8 sheet of plywood in them….it would stick out of course, but you could get it in there. Don’t know if you could do that with the Chrysler product.
Just so tied of cars with computers and excessive electronics that no one know how to fix except by shut-gunning them with new parts and sensors until the check engine light goes away or you run out of money.
Yeah, of the two, I think the Chevette is more of a ‘cockroach of the road’ than an Omnirizon. I’m not saying an Ominrizon in decent shape for a low price wouldn’t be a good prospect for a beater, but I think the Chevette’s longevity is better, simply because it’s a lot more ‘unsophisticated’ (and that’s really saying something when compared to the Omnirizon).
These have grown on me considerably over the years. My father purchased one new in 1981, it being the 1.6 liter Miser model. Cannot remember if that was a VW or Puegoet (I cannot spell today) engine; either way, the car was flawless for the 115,000 miles he had it. His was even the same color of blue.
If you do get one of these, I would recommend getting a few extra tires to go with it. I had trouble getting 14″ tires for my Galaxie as well as the Buick I had, so tires will require some planning.
The 1.6 was a VW mill if memory does not fail me.
1.6 was Peugeot, 1.7 was VW. Owned them both and prefer 2.2.
Jim, go Japanese to avoid the myriad problems you’ve had with the Focus. There are still a lot of practical hatches out there that aren’t too bloated or boring. I’d look at the Versa, Fit and Mazda 3, or into an indestructible used Outback that is 5+ years old if budget is a priority.
I had some appreciation for these cars from the sidelines in their time. I was too comfortable in my used broughams to actually execute on the purchase of an econobox, but it sounds like the Omnirizon might have been the right pick.
If you dig a little, it seems like Chrysler has always had a decent car or two in their showroom, but the trick was (and still seems to be) to guess which one.
I have a cousin who had a Plymouth Horizon. It wasn’t the most attractive car he’s driven, but it was reliable. 🙂
I considered buying an Omni or Horizon when I first heard about them. However, I was stationed in Iceland at the time of their intro and by the time I got back the Fiesta had taken their place on my “want one list”.
About 25 years ago I almost bought a decent used Omni-Horizon but another Ford at the same lot got my attention…and my money. I bought a 73 Capri instead of a late 80s O-H.
It seems that this silver-blue metallic color was a extremely popular color for these, my friends mom bought one of these new in this same color, to replace her ancient Datsun wagon. I think these were the first “new old” cars I ever took notice off, I still remember how weird it was to be sitting in the interior with the powerful new car smell, but looking at a dash and components from the 70’s, I still remember the old-school push button Mopar a/c controls on the left of the dash(was this the last car to have driver side only a/c controls?)
I can’t remember when they added an airbag to them, but they did redesign the dash when the airbag was added, though I think it was for the last model year only, these ran alongside their intended replacement Shadow/Sundance cars for 3 years before they were finally canned in 1990.
This and the Diplomat/Grand Fury have to be some of the oldest cars that they ever installed factory airbags in, it was such a trip to see the old school 70’s dash with the modern “bumper car” massive airbag wheels.
Hatches are the shit, Ive driven wagons for decades and have only relented to a hatch recently apart from it being inconvenient looking to sleep in it has managed to swallow anything Ive attempted to put in it and of course if it fails on that I can go home and hook my trailer to my Minx to retrieve my finds but the hatch fits in any parking space and is plenty roomy for four adults quiet comfortable relatively quick and runs on very little fuel, hard to beat.
As I’ve said before, my first two cars were VW Rabbits, a 2-door then a 4-door. Very similar in design to the Omni/Horizon. They had what a friend of mine called “inner bigness”. In my last couple years of highschool, I ran a summer lawn care business out of my 2-door Rabbit. With the back seat folded forward, a push-mower, weed whacker, rake, and gas cans all went in the back with the hatch closed.
One thing I hated about the 4-door was that the B-pillar was in the way so I couldn’t rest my arm on the window sill when the window was rolled down. I found that so annoying that it would make this 4-door Omni a NO SALE for me.
“inner bigness” I like that. I was always a little surprised when riding in my friend’s Omni back in the day (during my Chevette years) how much roomier his econobox was than mine. Clearly displayed the ages of their basic designs and the packaging advantages of FWD for compact cars.
I just never did like the 4 door version of that car. I also don’t like front wheel drive. Never have, never will. I like a number of hatchbacks, like the Vega, Pinto, Gremlin, Mustang II, etc. RWD 2 door cars with style. I also like wagons. I have a ’72 Pinto Squire (woodgrain) wagon that I absolutely love, It is big enough to sleep in with the rear seat folded down.
One thing to remember though. Cars like this (including that Omni) are fine for around town transportation. But they are not something you can hop on the freeway with and drive across the country. The Pinto could be used for that if you replaced everything but the body with new parts. I don’t know if Omni/Horizon parts are even still available.
I will soon be looking for a replacement for my drop dead boring 2001 Malibu. The Malibu has been extremely reliable, and I have put over 100,000 mostly highway miles on it in 4 years, so it is now over 200,000. It had 98,000 on it when I bought it for $4000. So I got my moneys worth out of it. But I simply cannot stand the thought of spending the next several years with another FWD 4 door sedan. Because it will be used for cross country driving, it will need to be a late model, and there isn’t much to choose from that I want.
I agree. While I like the styling of the car, and I like the 4 door with a hatch, I’ve never been a fan of front-wheel drive.
FWD has its place. On a small nimble little hatch or coupe it works pretty well. Mini, GTI, Shelby Mopars, anyone? Using V6 or V8 engines with fwd is where it gets pretty wonky. At that point, the packaging makes service pretty much suck, and a bigger chunk of iron over the front wheels makes for some craptacular handling.
At least this is from the perspective of an enthusiast. For cranking out cammacord type appliance-mobiles on the cheap, that have safe predictable handling characteristics in various types of weather, fwd makes sense so that some Elmer doesn’t get himself in too much trouble. But on midsize sporty coupes, notice that those have mostly gravitated back to rwd and more power…the way it SHOULD be. The Cougar, and the Avenger/Sebring twins more or less prove out my theory that fwd wont make for any real winners there. GM’s W body coupes had some success sales wise but only as a last gasp of the personal lux car.
I agree. For cars this size, fwd is perfect. It’s cars larger than this that should either be rear-wheel drive or all wheel drive. )
This Omni is at least a 1986 model. The third brake light is the giveaway. The 4-spoke steering wheel shown was the top of the line sport-wheel when we bought our 1979 Horizon, but I think it was standardized somewhere along the way. There were two more frugal wheels offered in 1979.
I have GOT to remember to look for the CMHSL when dating cars. I’ve made this mistake here at CC three or four times now.
The subject car looks identical to my old Cherry Red 87 Omni America 5speed. Bought it new in Nov. of 86 when I was driving 50 plus miles daily for work. The 77 Newport and 79 Marquis I had at the time were not exactly economy cars. It was a great car for snow, as I found out after a massive snowstorm in Nashville, after just starting a new job there in Jan. 1988. I was the only Mgr. to make it in and had to pick up the rest. Really trimmed pretty good for an econobox. Loved the Cordoroy type velour seats and the little consolette below the radio. Car got around 37 to 40 on the highway and was not that bad of a little cruiser as long as you kept the speed below 75. Much above 75 the car began to feel unstable. I bought mine based on my folks 84 Horizon. It too was a pretty decent car which they even drove from Atlanta,GA to California and back in. My 87 had been plushed up a bit over their 84. Kept the car until 92 when I got a deal on Saturn SL1.
The Hatch was convenient and it had a tray on it which would hide the luggage compartment if the rear seat was up. My only mishap with that was loading an 8 foot 2X4 in it carefully running between the seats and letting it rest on the dash. I then carefully lowered the hatch to make sure it would close. However when I raised it to slam it down to make sure it latched it must have touched it enough to push it forward and shatter the windshield.
Kind of miss the little car.
One other thing on the steering wheel. Remember one bitterly cold night in Nashville the Omni was sitting out and all of a sudden the horn started blowing. The Vinyl on the four spokes had shrunk enough in the cold to cause the metal contacts in it to make contact. Not fun going out at 11 PM at night pulling the fuse to turn the horn off.
Heh! I had the opposite issue once. I had a Yugo back in the early 90’s when I lived in Atlanta. One July day it got so hot that the cheapie metal spring that held the horn button up relaxed and caused my horn to sound. It took me a while to find the right fuse, but THAT was embarrassing.
In my town there is a daily driver Plymouth Horizon in the same color as the one in your photographs, so I have seen evidence that an Omni/Horizon is still possibly a viable daily driver. Alas, the owner is well known to have no interest in selling.
A1973 AMC Hornet hatchback is another classic daily driver in my town, but its owner likewise has no interest in selling!
I also had one of these, same color and everything. I’d like to know how many thousands of gallons of that bluish-silver paint Chrysler went thru, since seemingly 75% of all the Omni-rizons I’ve seen were the same color. I remember these as new cars, and kind of resisted getting one since I thought I wouldn’t like it. Except once I had it, I found it was awesome. Reasonably quick (definitely faster than the 1.6 Escort I had) more room inside than it looked from the outside, the car was getting up near 300K but was still chuggin’ along (and yes, the engine/trans had been rebuilt once, but any car living in Wisconsin with that many miles has to be tough)
As far as new(ish) vehicles with hatches, check out Mazda 5’s. I have one of those now, it’s the only vehicle with 6 seats in it’s size. Ours gets 30mpg, has 170K and has been fantastically reliable. Plus it’s the only car-sized car with sliding van doors, after having those, I can’t figure out why ALL cars don’t have them.
Is it just me or are these getting even better looking? Love that deep-dish steering wheel, it’s so unique.
I took a hard look at the TC3 sporty coupe version in 80. A pretty decent driver, but I just couldn’t pull the trigger due to the Omnirizon’s tragic, catastrophic, horrendous lack of reliability. A Fiat level of black circles in Consumer’s Reports. Set an all time record for number of problem areas in Road & Track’s owner’s survey, even besting (worsting?) the Lotus Elan. As R&T enumerated all the problems and comments, they quoted one owner as suggesting Chrysler be allowed to fail. What with having lived with the POS Zephyr’s monthly trips to the shop, an Omnirizon purchase would have had to include a self-lobotomy kit.
I figure the ones that still survive are probably safe reliability bets!
I figure the ones that still survive are probably safe reliability bets!
Or a measure of their owner’s tenacity. After dragging the POS Zephyr to the shop every month for two years, you would think everything would have been addressed, but it was continuing to entertain me with new failures, so I dumped it. Ran into the guy who bought it maybe 4 months later: he had the carb rebuilt (a constant trouble spot for me too) and the A/C had quit (a new issue as the A/C was the only thing on that car that had worked flawlessly for me)
I could make the same “everything must be fixed by now” argument for a late 70s VW Dasher, or Scirocco, or 80s GTI, or Cabriolet, or Corrado, but I don’t think so.
I’ll stick to the old computer geek equation “GI=GO”
My mom had an identical ’85 Omni with the 2.2/5 speed combo. It had a few issues (balky when cold, electric fan didn’t shut off and killed the battery a few times) but overall a pretty good car that handled well and had plenty of power from the 2.2. Unfortunately she put it into a ditch back in the fall of ’87 and totaled it…but fortunately my mom walked away with hardly a scratch. The Sundance she picked up next had the turbo 2.2 with a 5-speed, and was a hoot to drive. She got over 200,000 km out of it with few problems and it was still a good car when she traded it. The one drawback that stuck out with both cars, though, was a heavy clutch and a clunky shifter.
I never owned one, I did however test drive a Horizon GTX when it first came out, what I
remember was a bad rattle in the dashboard as if a UAW worker had left a wrench or a
coke bottle inside it. When these were in production I remember they had lots of anecdotal stories of dismal reliability.
15 years ago, I was looking for seats from an older Mopar to replace the miserable front seats in my ’79 St. Regis when an ’85 Omni very much like the one in the photos caught my eye. It had different seats than the CC featured car. I noticed it had adjustable headrest that looked like what is in my St. Regis. After some measuring and checking, I discovered that this car had what amounted to 1970’s RWD Mopar seats with the bonus of having the side bolsters and support of more modern seats. I bought the seats for 30 bucks, took them home and unbolted the Omni seat tracks and bolted them to the St. Regis seat tracks. The final touch was to swap over the St. Regis head rests to the newer seats. Since the Omni seats were blue and my old seats were camel tan, I put covers on the seats to match the head rests and hide the blue. They were infintely more comfortable than the butt killing too low to the floor seats the St. Regis came with. Those seats are still in the car today and eventually will have them re-done to match the factory rear seat in colour.
I also noticed the the PRND2L indicator on the automatic floor shifter was the same font as what I had in my late ’67 Sport Fury which was an unimportant but oddly comforting small detail.
Jim, it always bums me out a little when you remind us of how much that Focus sucks. I always liked them just as much as I like the Omni/Horizon, particularly the hatches, and have considered buying one many times as a beater/DD. Driving one at work occasionally pretty much turned me off from that idea, though…
It drives well – sharp handling and great steering feel – but everything else about it is bad bad bad. Flimsy, cheap, rattly, full of electrical bugs… the engine would probably seem nice if the automatic it’s attached to wasn’t a total piece of crap and it wasn’t sporadically misfiring in the mid-RPM range. The rear suspension feels like it’s about to end up in the back seat sometimes and I have to be careful when opening the doors to avoid ripping the handles off, which has happened twice.
That car has been to hell and back, so perhaps it’s a lack of maintenance more than anything. Plus, it’s a total stripper 4-door from the early years, so maybe the higher trim levels were put together more solidly and got better as they went on. Your comments don’t give me much confidence, though!
I still think they look great:
Your assessment is pretty spot on – I’d avoid a used one like the plague. The 2000-2007 models are pretty much all the same car, and they were all built cheaply. Chintzy hardware and lots of vibration from the crappy motor mounts (especially in the base automatics) usually lead to lots of rattles at a very low mileage (under 100k), electronics are flaky, and the suspension components are equally disposable. Nice steering and handling, ruined by everything else. I’ve driven probably a few dozen of them at varying ages and only the most pampered, lowest mileage ones (talking under 60k…) didn’t have the excessive rattles and broken components everywhere.
They were nice cars to drive new for the price, and in specific rare trims they can be a total blast, but they seem to disintegrate piece by piece quicker than most modern cars. Most pre-’08 models are either beaters or are headed quickly towards that path. The ’08-’11 models aren’t much better – with the added benefit that they are uglier and have even more flaky electronic crap to break.
Ford really didn’t get its crap together till the ’12 models. But I do agree the original looked great.
Mine looks much like the one pictured – silver 4-door hatch. Mine’s an 06. Leather and sunroof – as nice as they come. My dad owned it before and took good care of it, so I know bad maintenance isn’t the problem.
I’m growing weary of this car search. I’ve taken to driving my older Toyota Matrix — which feels SO much better screwed together. In the new year I’ll have my mechanic assess the niggling remaining issues: transmission hunting between 3rd and 4th, burning smell from the heater, and infernal body squeak probably caused by a rubbing brake cable (covered by TSB). If the cost to repair all of this is $1000 or less I may just get it done and keep driving it. Because anything I’m willing to buy and drive to replace it will cost $2-3k more than I can get out of selling this Focus.
Jim, save yourself a ton of aggravation and get yourself a Gen 1 Honda Fit. They are going reasonably in the used market now. They are the only recent car I car I can remember that had all “much better than average” ratings by Consumer Reports. Every single category. There is loads of flat load floor, the car is a riot to run around and the cost of ownership a pittance compared to anything else.
Old cars make great weekend toys, but get real, do you want to drive a thirty year old car to and from work? Without an airbag or ABS, or four wheel disks? No thanks.
One of the things I absolutely love about older cars is their lack of airbags and ABS. Discs are fine, as long as they are under my control. I consider airbags to be just plain dangerous. I also love cars without electronics. I like carbs and distributors. Maybe FWD is not such a high price to pay for a car without without all the “modern” crap. I hate the feeling of “driving” a computer, and having a bomb just a few inches from my face. I drive my ’64 and ’72 all the time when the weather permits. Have to have A/C in the summer, but I just may put A/C in one of them.
How do you feel about four wheel brakes? I hear that they are dangerous, since their stopping power is so prodigious that any car following you will rear end you.
Those figure highly in my search. I’m hoping for a 5-speed Fit Sport, 07 or 08. They’re kind of hard to find. Even base automatic Fits from those years aren’t common here.
I’ve mentioned this here before, but a buddy of mine and I co-owned a 1988 Horizon 2.2L 5 speed that we took autocrossing. We had “back door” sponsorship from a Dodge dealer in the next township North of us and it was a lot of fun. Once I found out I was going to be a father, I sold my interest in that car to my friend.
One of my former co-workers had an early 80’s Omni. I was always impressed with the nice interior the car had and the relatively plush ride for such a small car. It seemed to handle well, but I never drove his vehicle. At a minimum, it was quieter than most of my friend’s Rabbits/Golfs and Civics.
I don’t know if I would want to commute in a nearly 30 year old car, either. If nothing else, it would be nice to get to the early 2000’s, at least you’d have some version of traction control and ABS. I never gave them a lot of thought until a couple of years ago I got caught in a whiteout while visiting family in Cleveland. Fortunately for me, the ABS and the traction control on my G6 kicked in and kept me on the road (and not the ditch) while struggling to maintain traction and forward motion. I became a big fan of those technologies that day…
I want to own one of these but they’re quite rare on the roads here. Used to be a lot more at one point.
Ahhh, because they were cheap econoboxes that were used as disposable appliances?
I have related here before my five years with my Mom’s 80 Horizon, also this color on the lower body but with navy blue above that belt molding.
My most unpleasant experience involving these was spent following another one on an interstate highway. It was going almost exactly the same speed I was going, and the sun was just right to make the most debilitating glare I have ever experienced off that flat glass on the hatch. I finally had to nail the gas to get ahead of it, because I could not take another hit from that laser beam that was a joint product of Mother Nature and Mother Mopar.
An Omni had been one of the travelling options of mine for my trip to Ireland circa 9 years ago. It was a 2.2 Litre carburated IL4 and with a 3-speed automatic transmission. The softness of the suspension, quiet engine and the smoothness of the transmission amazed me. The Car was beyond my expectations in positive way of course 🙂 The biz went undone 🙁 The neat lil’ car’s reg. certificate was permanently pulled-off from the traffic…
My EX- brother in law. Drove a 1981 Horizon. It was moms car. He kept the gas or the clutch floored. Likely got that “hovercraft” sound out of it. Was a four speed.
I often commute in a 51 year old car during the winter (in Phoenix, AZ), and would love to do it on a daily basis. Having been completely rebuilt mechanically, the holds up fine. All it needs is A/C to make it a great year round commuter. I actually would prefer something about 15 years older. A late ’40s or early ’50s model would be great. But, I am a serious vintage car enthusiast. I find anything with a computer in it to be totally disgusting.