Ask me what I think the greatest cars ever made are. Not just my “favorites,” but ones I really think represent the most powerful or admirable spirit that cars can. I have a couple “obvious” choices in there — the Lamborghini Countach, the Ferrari Testarossa, maybe the Vector W8 for good measure. But here’s the rest of my list:
Honda Civic Type R 2017-2021 (FK8)
Honda/Acura Integra Type R 1996-2001
Honda CRX 1984-1991
Subaru WRX/STI/22B (whatever generation you want up through 2021, they’re all cool)
Dodge Neon SRT4 2003-2005 (I can’t believe I’m putting a Fiat-Chrysler car on this list)
Isuzu Impulse Turbo (1984-1991)
Toyota GR4 Yaris/Corolla 2020-present
Lancia Delta Integrale Evo II 1994
Ford Escort RS Cosworth 1992-1996
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo (whatever generation you want, last production run was 2015)
Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.5-16 Evolution II 1990-1991
Volkswagen GTI/R32/Golf R (again, whichever generation, but I’m particularly fond of the 2010-2014 (Mk6) and 2015-2021(Mk7) GTIs, the MK5 R32, and the Mk4 GTI VR6
Ford Focus ST/RS 2013-2019
Mazda Mazdaspeed3 2007-2013
Add in a 1986 Audi Sport Quattro, a 1990 BMW 328 Touring, a few other cars from the ’80s and ’90s that I’m sure I’m forgetting, and we’ve got a list. And none of this is to mention the true econoboxes–base model civics, corollas, etc–that have been tricked out and modified to glorious excess.
Notice a couple things: With very few exceptions, all of these are 4-5 seaters, and many of them are 4-doors. Very few of them are built by luxury manufacturers, and none of them are ultra-luxury/exotics. Other than the Volkswagens and Subarus, none of them are still in production today. And, while some may sell for well over $100k at auction today (I’m looking at the Mercedes and Lancia), every single car on this list was built on a cheap econo-box platform (yes, the 190E base model was basically a luxury econo-box) and then taken to the extremes.
That’s what cheap speed is. We all know that already–you don’t get cheap speed by starting on a BMW 7-series or Ferrari F40 platform. But I think most people, when they think of cheap speed, think of it only as ‘entry level’–that is, the affordability makes it lesser to the ‘real’ performance machines of the world, which cost six or seven figures and exist largely as investment options for the ultra-wealthy.
None of us should be surprised by this mentality. This is simply consumerism: you’re not supposed to feel satisfied with the entry-level option. Imagine when you and all your friends are in your early 50s making $200k/year and living in NIMBY live-laugh-love McMansions in the suburbs–are you really going to show up in a $35k hatchback Toyota? The idea is vomit-enducing. Your college buddy shows up to the dinner party in his new M550ix, and your former business partner parks his Cayenne GTS, on which he spent $35k in options alone, in your driveway when he comes over to watch the Super Bowl. SO what the hell are you doing?
The problem is, driving a big, powerful car doesn’t make you cool. Neither does living in a big, manicured house. In fact, both of those things make you antisocial (see: cars and houses). In fact, cars are awful for society in any form; but I also like cars, and the purpose of this specific post is to introduce nuance rather than introduce you to The War on Cars (but if the latter sounds nice to you, then welcome!). Let’s say, for the sake of argument and also based on current realities, that cars and the societal/civic infrastructure required for them are baked in and aren’t going anywhere.
Here’s the issue. What makes a car, or a house, or anything deeply desirable to you is some sense in the back of your mind that one day, you may actually be able to have it. The reverse of this is also true: you don’t see millions of people applying to Harvard every year, or saying they want a giant 20-bed 18-bath mansion–and my guess is that if you ask a given low- or middle-income car enthusiast what car they want, they’re not going to say a McLaren F1 or a Koenigsegg Regera. Not to mention that these things are toys of the ultra wealthy and otherwise not that interesting; it’s also not particularly constructive nor inspiring to desire something that is unattainable, and I’d wager this reflects in the majority’s lived mentalities.
Which brings me to the logical next step: if the car you’ve grown up wanting is an ultra-luxury or an exotic, then you probably grew up in a wealthy enough environment that those cars are attainable for you, whether immediately with a small parental gift of $300,000 to start you off when you’re 22, or when you’re 35 and working as a hedge-fund manager at a firm run by an old family friend. Either that, or–even if you didn’t grow up wealthy–you’re antisocial and you dream of an S-Class or an AMG G-Wagen so you can drive on top of the world, be entirely cocooned from the rest of society, and not have to take responsibility for your actions or footprint.
Almost no matter what your path is to owning a big, expensive, super-fast car is, at the end of the day, you end up a loser for owning one, because these cars accomplish precisely one thing: they elevate and shelter you from the world around you. They offer you convenience, destructive power, and personal safety in exchange for physical connection and the safety of those around you. Like a gated single-family home community in the middle of a big city, they display your wealth and eliteness and desire to wall off the rest of humanity, and they make you look like a stupid asshole who’s never had to clean his own bathroom.
Enter the Civic Type R, the Mitsubishi Evo, the Mazdaspeed3. Enter the Subaru WRX STI, the very car that turned me into a car enthusiast when I was eight years old playing Gran Turismo 3 on Playstation 2. Now I’m 27, and I’ve got a friend who never went to college, who barely over five years ago was working at Starbucks and to make ends meet, and who owned an STI from 2019-2021. Another friend, another guy who never went to college and is now the bar manager at my old coffee shop, recently bought a WRX.
At least once every fall, I wake up stupidly early on a Saturday morning to drive out to Katie’s Cars and Coffee, a weekly car meet in a big parking lot in Great Falls, VA. Car culture attracts a diverse set of people, and these meets are no exception: you’ve got the Mustang assholes, you’ve got the dozen-or-so defense contractor-types showing up in 911 GT3s thinking they’re the coolest in the lot, and you’ve got the ultra-rich dudes who probably made a career of consulting for Mitch McConnell or the RNC. And then you’ve got the regular people who work at coffee shops or schools or entry-level tech jobs or whatever, who probably live in their family’s homes in Annandale or apartments in Shirlington that costs $700/month, and who show up to the meet in the car they spent their entire childhood dreaming of: a WRX, an Evo, or a modified Mazdaspeed3. Those are the people I want to talk to.
Cheap speed doesn’t insulate you from the road. It doesn’t get you 0-60 in 1/4 of the time it takes a child to get out of the way of your car. It doesn’t lift you five feet off the ground so that you can tell yourself that, when the climate-driven apocalypse that you helped create comes about, at least you can go off-road and escape it and leave the losers behind. It doesn’t show you were born super wealthy; frankly, it shows the opposite, because there’s not a single person in this world going out there with $500,000 of daddy’s money and buying a used Ford Focus.
Car culture sucks and cars are indefensible. But they do offer one thing: community. The only good thing about cars is getting to share them with other people. Sharing them, without being an asshole with a three-row BMW X7, means driving a little hot hatch that seats five and still hugs those corners on a windy road. It means a cheapo econo-box, one of hundreds-of-thousands if not millions of units shipped to regular people just like you, that happens to have a turbo slapped onto its three- or four-cylinder engine, that spins tires through 3rd gear and looks sick and doesn’t do much else. This is love, this is what we have, in a society where of small cars, city cars, and cheap speed have been replaced by a supermajority market-share of SUVs and pickup trucks. I still think that cars, SUVs, and trucks should all go. But I do love this one part of the culture, even when everything else is indefensible.
midnightstatic 