Car Rambling about COE Trucks and Little Cars
4/30/1

And what, Postwood, are the terribly groovy vehicles you�ve been drooling over?

The latest in my book of useless but terribly cool vehicles is the Cushman White Truck. It gets immediate disqualification from my COE (Cab Over Engine) truck thoughts because of it�s top speed of 22 mph. But, hey, what a sweetie. The coolest COE that I�ve seen lately is the Volvo C202.

And you�re saying, �Postwood, this means nothing to me. I can�t see any of these cars.� That is because you are lazy. Open another browser and go to Google.com and search for them. The C202 is worth it alone.

It�s unlikely that I�ll ever see the C202, because it�s a European thing. In the US, we were using the M-37. Oh, and the M-37 is a beautiful thing.

Another COE truck that I really like, but it would be hard to find, is a Subaru 360. There is a car by that name also, but I�m talking the truck.

Other trucks that interest me that aren�t COE are the Subaru Brat, Dodge Rampage, and El Camino. I don�t really think I�d ever get a Rampage since they were a little cheap when they were made from 1980 to 1982. The El Camino is less likely to become a car of mine than the 1971 Riviera. But the Brat�Oh, I could handle a Brat.

The brat was not even considered a truck. Subaru added those two seats in the bed so that it would be considered a passenger car.

But the order of the day is small Japanese cars. I love �em. Top of my list is the Honda Beat. It isn�t available in the United States, but it is a mid engine convertible that is just a little smaller than the 1980s Toyota MR2. And that MR2 is on my list, in a big way.

The MR2 from the 1980s with the supercharger has 145 hp and the same weight as my Saturn SC2. Think about that next time you see one. It weights the same as the much wider SC2. But small is what I�m after.

In the UK, there is a car called the Ka. Ka is Japanese for mosquito. I really like the Ka and there was a prototype Ka Convertible. There was some initial noise about bringing the Ka over to the US, but that will not amount to anything. After all, the Aspire was stopped.

Everywhere in the world except for the US the Aspire is called the Ford Festiva. We had the Festiva from 198something to 1993, and it was a great little car made by Kia. In 1995, the newer version of the Festiva was released in the US as the Aspire, but the weight had grown and the engine had stayed the same. Now the Festiva/Aspire is dead.

Or is it? The Festiva is now the Kia Rio. I�ve driven one and they are quite nice for the micro econobox. The handling, as is the Festiva�s legacy, is remarkable for a car so tall.

And speaking of cars, in my attempt to start anonymousizing the Stuffo, I have a nickname for the SC2, The Portabella. In the game Top Gear Dare Devil, they call the Lotus Elise the Portabella, mainly because they didn�t get licensing rights.

The Elise is another car that I wouldn�t sneeze at. I�m also fond of the new Toyota MR Spider. I�m a fan of the early 1990s Mitsubishi 3000GT, especially in Fiji Blue Metallic. Any Eclipse GSX is good. And it�s a crying shame that the Middle 1990s Celicas, the ones with those great headlights, were never given more than 130 hp.

But it is a nice thought that I can blow every single one of them away.