Plain, mostly older cars. No one ever pays attention to them. Ideal CC material, in other words! Let’s start right away with this tour’s most senior curbsider, a 1994 Volkswagen Golf Mk3 1.6 CL.
Mind you, the sought-after Orlando-edition!
2009 Toyota Land Cruiser 120-series 3.0 D-4D, the LWB five-door model, not converted into a commercial vehicle. In many markets, light-duty Land Cruisers (currently the 150-series) are marketed as the Toyota Prado.
2003 Ford Ka. These are powered by an almost antique 1.3 liter four-cylinder, yet they all came with factory go-kart handling.
2002 Volvo S80 D5 (with Volvo’s own 2.4 liter, inline-five turbodiesel) and 2001 Volkswagen Golf Mk4 1.4.
Daihatsu left our market years ago, but this 1998 Charade is still going strong.
This is the parking lot of a farm machinery dealership. The cars must belong to either employees or visitors. Probably there would have been five pickups in a row, if this business were in the US.
Instead, from left to right: 2018 Renault Twingo 1.0, 2000 BMW E46 316i (with the 1.9 liter M43 engine), 2017 Opel Mokka X 1.4, 2011 Suzuki Swift 1.2 and last but not least a 2005 Fiat Punto 1.9 JTD.
The one that stands out is the Twingo, because of its rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout (and for the most part it’s equal to the Smart Forfour). Nevertheless, the generations after the original, first gen Twingo were letdowns.
An oddity, this 2006 Suzuki SX4 4×4.
A-segment vs Golf-class C-segment: 2012 Toyota Aygo 1.0 and 2004 Volkswagen Golf Mk5 1.4. Given its rally-raid looks, the Golf must have been on or near a big construction site or has been driven through an agricultural area. Either way, the roads were smeared with mud for sure.
As an aside, my country’s best selling car in October 2020 was a Volkswagen alright. No, not the Golf Mk8, but the electric ID.3.
2015 Peugeot Partner 1.6 HDi panel van with a small, dedicated trailer for transporting scaffolding materials.
2002 Volvo S60 2.4 (inline-five, gasoline).
The last one, for sale and a special offer, this 2010 Ford C-Max 1.8-16v. Manual transmission, 125 hp, only 90,462 km on the clock. The asking price is € 7,990. For What It’s Worth.
You nailed the title on this one! Every one of these reminds me of that homely girl no one wants to ask to the prom.
Speaking of ordinairy rides, there’s the Toyota Crown who’ll have its swan song after 65 years.
http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/toyota-to-discontinue-the-crown-sedan/
https://www.autoblog.com/2020/11/19/toyota-crown-sedan-discontinued-report/
Sorry, I think both the Golf 4 and 5, CMax of this gen, and SX4 are far from homely. Now the Golf 3, definitely the nadir of the Golf lineage at least style-wise. As for the Ka (named by a Bostonian?) well, it gets an A for effort but makes the ‘96 Taurus look good. By the way, the Prado has only been sold as a Lexus in the US.
I agree about the Ka — this particular example has perhaps the droopiest-looking front-end design of any car that I can think of. Later Ka’s looked much better, in my opinion.
I still see quite a few of the Suzuki SX4 wagons in Vegas. In their day, they were the absolutely cheapest entry into 4WD/AWD. Sure they don’t have much off-road cred, but I’m sure they were plenty good enough for most of the BLM roads we have out West.
Posts about ordinary, everyday cars from other parts of the world that we don’t see in the US are always my favorites here at CC. A post from Johannes or from Tatra in Japan is a guaranteed click for me every time. Keep up the good work guys.
Probably there would have been five pickups in a row, if this business were in the US.
True that.
I wouldn’t turn up my nose at one of the Golfs or Volvos as a daily driver.
Great pictures of ordinary cars!
I don’t recall ever seeing pictures of that generation of Daihatsu Charade — Daihatsu’s brief stay in the US ended after 1991, and they weren’t exactly common sights anywhere before that, but I’d pretty much lost track of the brand afterward. Doesn’t looks like I missed much (at least the earlier Charade was somewhat distinctive), but it’s still interesting to see.