As a general observation, I’ve come to find it common practice for valets at high-end hotels and restaurants to park the newest and most expensive cars right out front, in fitting with the atmosphere and image of these establishments. It’s a practice that makes some sense from a business standpoint, as it outwardly projects a certain level of status to passers by, almost like free advertising.
Yet to my surprise, on a recent visit to Steel & Rye, a trendy bistro located in a former ambulance garage and what once was a DeSoto dealership way back when, it was not a new Bentley, Porsche, BMW, Range Rover parked in the prime spot but… wait for it… a Pontiac Aztek!?
Maybe the valet who parked it just wasn’t into cars? Or has the Aztek’s image actually improved over the years to the point that it’s considered tasteful? Who knows? In any event, its owner must have felt pretty special when he or she walked out and found their Aztek parked front and center.
Photographed at Steel & Rye in Lower Mills, Milton, Massachusetts – June 2018
The Aztec is finally a success! GM told us way back when that it would be, it just took longer than everyone expected.
A trendy bistro patronized by hipsters who own an Atzec for the irony. What’s surprising by that?
How did the hipster burn his tongue?
He drank his coffee before it was cool…..
Yeah, no real surprise at ironic choices for the valet at a trendy restaurant. Now if this was parked in front of an old school steakhouse, then it would be amazing. I guess everyone else eating there walked or uber’d.
How much does a hipster weigh? 1 Instagram.
Maybe there was a meeting of the Breaking Bad fan club that night.
My name is Walter White and I’d like my car…now…
+1
You know exactly who’s car this is. Say my name.
Heisenberg!
The Aztec is about as attractive as Walters tighty whiteys. Yuk.
Doug DeMuro has an interesting, but slightly irritating, evaluation of the Aztek on his website. I always thought that the front end of the Aztek looked okay, but the rear end looked kind of like a trash dumpster. The name was also a poor choice (I know it’s not spelled the same) as it doesn’t bring any pleasant connotations with it. Could they have offered a Montezuma edition?
Aztec Montezuma would be great. Would parking it in front of a restaurant you don’t like be considered “Montezuma’s Revenge?”
ba-DOOM-ching
I know we enthusiasts have looooonnnnnggggg memories but if you were driving a clean well maintained Aztek I can easily picture the scenarios where you get asked by Joe & Jane Public – “What car is that? Who makes it?”
“…I can easily picture the scenarios where you get asked by Joe & Jane Public – “What car is that? Who makes it?”
Yes, certainly true, with the next question being, em “Why?”
When my 81 year old grandmother passed away (about 3 years ago) her 17 year old Granddaughter acquired Grandma’s Aztek. FWD but nicely equipped with leather etc.
The 17 year old thought it was “cool”. 😉
The irony here is that the original Aztek concept vehicle was actually marketed as a young person’s ‘lifestyle’ vehicle. And it might have worked, too, if GM had stuck to the smaller size of the concept.
Instead, to get it into production, they went to the larger minivan platform which, in addition to making it more of a minivan than anything else (the death knell for a vehicle seeking the youth market), it made it substantially more expensive, as well. Add that the stylish sloping rear roofline eliminated the ability for a third row seat, well, it was destined to bomb.
I never considered the Aztec to be ugly i thought it so cool i bought one in gold. we in the family affectionately called it ……………….The Beast.
That has to be the shiniest and best looking Aztec I’ve ever seen.
And compared to some recent trends in automotive grills and fake vent-isms, quite nicely executed with an air of almost restrained enthusiasm.
Perhaps it was converted to an all electric drive train. There’s lots of room for batteries in there.
But I have to agree with Jose Delgadillo, it’ll be another generation (or two) before the rear looks as good.
Of course I owned, loved, and miss my first gen PT Cruiser, so some consider my taste to be askew.
They probably thought it was a Lamborghini Urus…
No tent = no care
I worked as a valet while I was a college student, and working in Long Island, there were plenty of upper class clientele. The only time we would park a car up front, is if they tipped us $10 and above and requested it. Usually they were nice cars. Maybe that was the case here. Although most Azteks I parked went right to the back of the lot with everything else.
“Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen … ”
– “Mean Girls” movie
When I parked cars I gave the spots to the big tippers and once to a yellow MGTD that matched my yellow MGB. He liked it but he didn’t tip well.
What really bugged me about the early Azteks was the way the basic body color would peek out between the gray lower cladding panels. It looked cheap and nasty. The move to monochrome was an improvement.
I agree and disagree. When they went body colored it ended up losing yet another vestige of the concept, and looked even more like the minivan it was trying desperately not to be. But those gaps indeed looked bad in those bright colors, they should have applied blackout on the assembly line.
Wasn’t there a Stallone movie with these?
I don’t get it – I never thought the Aztek was superbly ugly – just refreshingly quirky, kind of like Subarus used to be – in a good way. Make mine bright yellow (we actually seriously considered one).
Who cares what most so-called “experts” think of the looks of any car – that’s for the buyer to discern.
Yeah, yeah – I still drive a 2012 Impala, too… and I still love it, so there!
Assuming that someone is interested in creating a *good* impression, it is useful to know whether experts think a car looks good. A plaid suit and saddle shoes might well express my personality, but the damage they’ll do to my professional and social standing makes them poor choices. That’s an external influence I really should heed.
As these were generally steaming piles, I’d like to take a moment to agree with Paul N’s past sentiments on GM being not so great. I always was a huge fan of GM and questioned his words here several times. I have a somewhat “older” GM vehicle that I take to dealerships when I need repairs and can’t get to my independent mechanic. The past two times showed gross incompetence at both places. I don’t want to get into details but was shocked at what happened. When the time comes to buy a new vehicle I will not set foot inside a GM dealership. Hopefully Paul finds some redemption in these words as I know he’s endured some feisty comments from others 🙂
Ugly then , just as ugly now. A small cult statis , probably thanks to Breaking Bad , is o.k. , but this monstracity is what it is. A near perfect poster vehicle for the bankruptcy of GM
Maybe the valet considered it cool just because it’s “old.” Keep in mind, most high school kids views the previous generation smart phone as ancient technology…
I’ve seen a similar effect with my Mustang II- Those under 35 don’t feel the same vitriol towards the “Pintostang” as those who lived through the seventies.
Instead, most Millennial/Gen Yers give me a thumbs up or yell out “Cool car!” Since they lack context, it’s just a car they’ve never seen from a time before they were born.
I’m only a few years older than 35, and that’s my reaction to Ramblers. I honestly had no idea that people considered Ramblers “uncool” when they were new until I read Paul’s commentary about them on this site. To me they’re just old cars from before I was born, and that pretty much makes them cool by default.
I’m sure I’d hate ‘70s-‘80s Camaros/Firebirds if I had to associate them with the proto-Jersey-Shore crowd that tended to buy them new. Instead, they have always been cool old cars to me (and I fully acknowledge how shoddy the build quality was and how lousy the base engines were).
A friend of mine, both of us contemporary to that generation of F Bodies, used to call those and the generation before those “Redneck Roadsters”. To those who don’t have the negative past associations, they are, and should be, respected cool cars. I only wish age did the same with humans….
I’m never particularly bothered by associations, If I generalize generalize drivers it’s only because I already dislike the cars in question, not the other way around. I’ve never been one to care much about being trendy or fashionable, if I want something I buy it, period, I don’t get swayed by what friends, family or traffic has to say about it.
Plus, literally every car has associations that can be negative depending on your outlook: e.g. Camrys are owned boring people, Priuses are for eco wheenies, F body’s are for trailer trash, Mustangs are driven into crowds, pickups are owned by uneducated conservatives, EVs are owned by snowflake liberals, Nissans are owned by people with horrible credit, Cadillac/Lincolns are owned by old people, Corvettes are for a mid-life crisis, etc. I think we’ve heard it all, and when you add them all up it’s a wonder any car is acceptable with all those collective stereotypes thrown at them. And even with truth in stereotypes I’m not repulsed by a car a late 70s Trans Am because of jerk off owners, I’m only repulsed at the waft of cheap cologne embedded into the upholstery from them!
I bought one for a friend who need a better ride than his Ford Ranger pick up with 200K. we call it” Big Yella” and after driving it from CO to UT I wanted one myself to go with the other U body…95 Oldsmobile mini van. Still looking for the perfect one
Im loving that Silhouette. Nice color combination.
As they said in the film Get Shorty – ” It’s the Cadillac of minivans”.
Walking out of the club and having everyone watch as they see who drives it adds new meaning to
“The walk of shame”?
Funny/sad part is now it looks like every other crossover on the road now. Oh the irony
Exactly! It was so bizarre when it was new, now it practically blends in with the crowd. In my opinion, even the front end, which I thought was incomprehensibly weird back then, is no more unusual than the current Jeep Cherokee, or anything Toyota is doing these days.
I would say that given the subject vehicle appears to be well taken care of and is in very good condition, that whoever parked it there may have no idea that it was actually a 13+ year-old vehicle and thought it was much newer.
In my opinion Pontiac as is other GM automobiles Was destroyed when they started with econo’s and fwd sometimes in mid 80s!
They always looked like a car from the Soviet Union or something. Ditching the gray plastic was an improvement. Its sister car, the Buick Rendevous, is equally hated but to me pretty nice. It’s more of a typical fairly slick and sophisticated GM styling job. The Azetec was going for more of a no-styling look. I think the design staff were instructed to forget everything they knew. The Rendevous also lost its lower body different color plastic along the way.
I actually find the Aztek more attractive than the Rendezvous, since it owns its ugliness. The Rendezvous, on the other hand, tries but fails to be “normal”.
The Rendezvous also had a third-row option. Sure it was the kind that’s for other people’s kids (not necessarily literally, but so your two can each bring a friend).
The Aztek just ended up being the unhappy medium between the Vibe and Rendezvous, offering neither the former’s compact-car rather than minivan driving feel and gas mileage nor the latter’s passenger and cargo capacity.
I always thought the later Dodge Caliber cut a similar profile and wonder how much the Aztek influenced the styling of the Neon’s replacement. If so, the smaller size of the Caliber definitely would have been the way to go with the Aztek as the Caliber was successful enough, even with the universally reviled hard-plastic interior. The Caliber even had a couple of Aztek-like features with flip-out tailgate speakers and a chilled glove compartment sized to specifically accommodate 12-oz soda cans.
As others have mentioned, the outré styling of the Aztek is almost commonplace these days. Of course, none of the strange front ends and wild swoops and curves have been used on minivans, but on smaller CUV-type vehicles that a young person could afford.. As one might expect, GM had the right idea with the Aztek, but badly botched the execution.
Ugly, unless it lacks cladding (or was later cladding body-colored? I have no idea and have never cared enough to look).
I like them. Back when I was looking for my minivan, I seriously considered getting one (or a Buick Rendezvous). Big failing was the lack of a flat floor.
At least we now know the true purpose of broughams. They make Aztek’s look good when parked alongside.
Great comments on this weird orphan, the Aztek. I like the one about the rear looking like a garbage truck. As for GM service, I cherish mine at Frank’s Truck Center in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. Excellent is the word for their service. They find the problem and they repair it right the first time. I also get advice on when to service the vehicle, an Acadia with 98,000 miles on it. so, one dealer may be poor but others are terrific.
Probably confused it with the new BMW crossovers, it’s an easy mistake to make.
These were awful cars with all the excitement of a minivan without any of a minivan’s practicality. My dealership was stuck with them so they became rental cars for their shop. Until I spent a day in them did I realize how dreadful they were. Then for about a year, every time I needed my car serviced for the day, I had to use one of them.
What a dumb vehicle.
An example of the ‘dumbness’ was the optional dealer tent. That’s one I never could figure out. I guess the theory was it would make the Aztek more attractive to outdoors types. But here’s the thing: a regular minivan with the same tent would have been much more spacious and useful! For a camping trip, I’d much rather have a conventional minivan than the Aztek.
I don’t find the Aztek so ugly nowadays.
Perhaps it is because Nissan is more popular now and they offer a lot of ugly SUVs such as the Puke…….errrr Juke.
Or because it does not look any uglier then most SUVs on the road
I almost bought a bright yellow one last year but missed out on the sale.
I agree; when compared with modern-day Toyotas and other brands trying to out-angry each other with their front grille designs, the Aztek look positively conservative.
Fascinating fact: Aztek had one of the highest customer satisfaction ratings ever. Probably one component of its success in this regard was a certain defensiveness on the part of the owners.