Notable eco-cars (old & new) spotted in the wild: post your pics!

[niky]

We had one. Lovely car, until the suspension gave up the ghost and the exhaust rusted off.

Which took... oh... all of six months after purchase.

But seriously... rust-resistant these things were not. Incredibly fun and zippy, though. Because there's a Mazda chassis underneath the sheetmetal.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by niky

Incredibly fun and zippy, though. Because there's a Mazda chassis underneath the sheetmetal.

IIRC the MK3 has nothing to do with the Mazda 323, unless the American version which had the Mazda RF Diesel as an option.

[niky]

Okay... had to double check. Yeah... they're different cars. The Escort/Laser here in Asia was a 323... and the cars look very similar.

[broski499]

According to the License Plate this is a 1971 Honda coupe. Pretty sweet little car. Kind of makes the smart car look big. Not sure how fuel efficient these little guys where but I bet it gets amazing MPG for such an old car. Having trouble posting pictures but here are links to imgur.

http://imgur.com/jekooy3

http://imgur.com/jekooy3,uTec5Lk#1

[some_other_dave]

Imgur has bits on the right of the page, one of which is labeled "BBCODE". Pasting the contents of that field here gives us:




EDIT: Nope, it's not an N600, it's a Z! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Z

-soD

[Jack-Lee]

Old VW Polo from 1991

[freebeard]

An electric, fiberglass Model T. With a golf cart motor and lead-acid batteries under the hood and floorboards.

[Arragonis]

Haven't seen it yet but heard it running (via mobile) - someone I know has a Toyota Aygo DIESEL which he bought cheap and is fixing up. His Mrs is nearly ready to give birth so he might be interested in selling.... Hmmm.

[The Other Andy]

Originally Posted by War_Wagon

A 4 cylinder helps it's cause. But it's still a heavy vehicle with a car transmission in it. Same as the old Caravans. But there isn't much point on debating the merits of a particular, 15+ year old vehicle. You might get lucky, and you might not, I've had cars that were terrible on paper but never let me down, and had things like 4Runners that "never die" die in traffic, right in front of an oncoming bus! The fact that the current owner bought it broken and never got around to fixing it makes me wonder if he found some other things wrong that made it not worth fixing. But as always, buyer beware, make sure you look it over before you make an offer.

And my vote for best minivan from the '90s is the Previa with a 5 speed. From the '80s, Caravan with a 5 speed. But seeing as you live where stuff rusts, I doubt you'd find either of those. Sometimes, given budget and availability, you can't hold out for something "good", you just have to go for whatever is the least bad ha ha

Not exactly efficient, but my vote for both decades has to go the Chevrolet Astro/GMC Safari. Big, RWD/AWD, mostly reliable (until the late 90's it seems), able to tow and cool looking. They also tend to be pretty well rustproofed aside from the roof; my 2000 only had a few small areas of rust when I got rid of it, my '92 had roof rust problems. Never hard to find many for sale. The rest of the minivans from the era all tend to be junk now.

The Astro/Safari are capable of 23mpg stock based on experience, though there was a short lived 4 cylinder version.

[AlexanderB]

Saw a 1st gen Prius today, just down the street. Never really saw one before in the wild, untill I started paying attention to them, I guess..