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From reading European websites and watching Top Gear, it seems like 75% of the cars in the world don't get sold in the US. Ladas, Citroëns, Renaults, FIATs, SEATs, Peugeots, etc are never imported here.
Counting the cars in my family, we've had Volvo's (PV! - the newlywebmobile of my parents) Fiats, Peugeots, BMW's, Audi's, Volkswagens (a few - they just work), two Cadillacs (when we actually lived in the US) and now a Lada Niva. :)
octothorpe: if Ladas were sold in the US, there would be no end to complaints. The build quality is awful and the cars generally lack power steering, airbags, air conditioning etc - anything you'd expect from a modern car.
Yeah but then, some people pay 400 USD on monthly payments on their cars, while I just bought the entire car for 400 USD. So hey, I'm not expecting airconditioner, or for the seats to be as surprisingly comfortable as they are, or even for it to last that many years. I just need a cheapomobile and wanted to start somewhere fairly cool (knowing me I'll be driving it ten years anyway).
Daniel, I'm sure that you are correct about the Lada but I'm complaining about the general lack of choice for US car buyers. Especially if you are looking for a small 4 cylinder economical car, there isn't too much to choose from.
dabitch: Fair enough :) Another good thing about Ladas is that they're relatively easy to fix thanks to their simplicity. The downside is, this tends to happen quite often if you drive one day to day.
Hahaha, yeah probably, but I do like a car that I can fix with hairpins and bubblegum, as opposed to a car that needs a NASA computer hooked up to it before you can even open the hood. ;) [I also prefer diesel - I don't care about the noise - to gas cars for their drive forever before you need to stop at a station /borrow some diesel from a traktor ability. Farmer-mentality, a.k.a "do it yourself" is firmly bred into me I guess]
... ooops, I forgot the last part - the reason I didn't get Diesel was because of tax-change around here, Diesel cars are much more xepensive in tax. Otherwise I would have kept my eye out for an old diesel mercedes.
i have hairpins and bubblegum! i want a cheapomobile! i could decorate it willy nilly, wings one week, jewels a month later, the possibilities are endless!
My brother's first car was a Lada; this is around 1980. He bought it brand new; I'm in Canada by the way. I never see them around anymore, so perhaps they are no longer available here. That car lasted forever. It reminded me of a kleenex box though, because it was so square.
My first car after learning how to drive was a 1981 VW Rabbit four-door diesel. Only three of the back doors worked at any given time (the latch cable on one snapped right after I got the one on the other side fixed) and it had a cracked engine block (had a mechanic not powerwashed it to find the leak, I wouldn't have had to refill it quite as often), but I absolutely loved it. The lack of antilock brakes turned out to be a disadvantage, though, as I eventually wrapped it around a tree after recovering from a skid -- the brakes locked when I got on the road, and I skidded right across.
Still, I'd buy one in a minute if I had the extra cash and a place to put it.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
