We’re going to try something new here; on Sundays, instead of taking your computer or phone out to a field or lake and letting it run and swim free, what if we used those machines to let all of us Autopians talk and discuss things and get to know one another even better! Let crushes form, rivalries grow, grudges fester, facts learned, opinions proffered, mockeries attempted, all that. Who’s up to try? You are! So, here we go with our first prompt to get everyone talking: What’s the most amazing car you only saw one time, by chance?
I think for me it’d be a Facel-Vega, a Chrysler V8-powered elegant French beast I once saw street parked in West LA as I was driving by. Who is street parking and driving around a Facel-Vega? It’s like using a golden chariot pulled by winged horses as a septic tank cleaning vehicle. It’s too good for the real world, yet there it was, parked behind some beige Corolla with a mismatched door and by a driveway to a Jack In The Box.
So, what was your amazing, unexpected, chance car sighting? Tell me! I’m so very nosy!
1966 Mustang station wagon. Classic Remise in Düsseldorf. I expected to see some cool stuff and did, but that one caught me by surprise.
Saw a Bitter two door coupe in red, parallel parked with other plebian cars, literally had no idea what it was and had to Google it.
Nice!
There’s an entire episode of The Goldbergs about those cars (apparently, Adam Goldberg’s real-life dad bought one) and I was blown away I’d never even heard of them, much less seen one.
Many years ago, I worked at a GM dealer (in Canada), they had another location that had a Bitter CD parked for months in for service because the other figured that as an Opel, a GM dealer was about as good as it was going to get to find someone who could sort it out.
Roughly 1983, my fiance (now bride of nearly 4 decades) and I were at a shopping mall on Long Island. They had a mini car show, including cars available for sale. There was a 1937 Cord 812 Sportsman convertible – cream, with a red leather interior. We got to sit in it. OMG. Still our favorite bucket list car. At the time, the asking price was $65k. We bought our first house, a 3BR colonial in Connecticut, in 1985 for $81k, so you get an idea of just how expensive $65k was for us then.
https://blackhawkcollection.com/project/1937-cord-812-s-c-cabriolet-sportsman/
BTW, now that you guys are in California, you need to drive up the coast toward Danville and share the Blackhawk Collection with Autopians far and wide. I’ve not been there in >15 years, but it was an amazing experience, visiting after having stumbled upon the Pebble Beach Concours in Monterrey.
Well one of the perks of living in Miami are seeing nice cars when you go out.
There are still 2 memorable ones.
Palmetto south was a Buggati Veyron right when they had 1st come out in 2002 or 3
2nd was a Pagani Huayra BC a few years ago. We were stuck in traffic going north on the turnpike
Back in ’98 when I was in my day cabling career, my coworker asked if I wanted to stop to meet his neighbor who was working at a garage close to where we wrapped up our last job of the day. We were in a nice neighborhood in Allentown PA but I never imagined what I was in for. The garage housed at least 40 vehicles that would typically only be seen in museums or Pebble Beach like car events. I still have no clue who the owner was. On one end was a ZR1 powered Caprise and Buick wagon for those weekends when the owner wanted to tease German drivers on the Autobahn (yes he took his vehicles with him on vacation..the mechanic said the owner thought the Autobahn deserved American muscle but from unsuspecting vehicles…true sleepers back in ’98) and on the other end was an emerald green vehicle with polished brass oil lamps for headlights. An opened side engine door revealed an engine with no valve cover(s). It had a tray to catch the oil. I was awestruck. With the top down it looked too inviting to not jump in. I was then told someone was assassinated in it. I will let you guess who. I decided it best to stay out of it.
Nothing made sense as to why this and other incredible cars were stored there. The mechanic who worked there was actually a machinest who often had to make the replacement parts.
I really knew nothing about vintage cars, nonetheless vintage exotics. If only we had smartphones back then. I could have had some great pics and the aid of Google to tell me what I was looking at.
I went to/worked the Woodward Dream Cruise for many years, so there were plenty of sightings there.
Probably the funniest one was seeing Bill Laimbeer (newly retired) trying to drive away from a 7-11 parking lot in a (probably?) ’94 Ford Explorer 2-door. I’m not exaggerating when I say his left knee was poking up even with the side view mirror. It was exactly like that Simpsons episode but in real life.
Side note: Bill Laimbeer is as big of an asshole in person as he was as a player. (Sorry for getting negative on a Sunday, lol.)
Growing up in Detroit in the 1960s, I saw plenty of cool cars. One of the coolest was a Chrysler Turbine car that a neighbor was allowed to keep for a few weeks. I remember it was orange-ish gold and was noisy and whined like a jet! All the dads and teenage boys in the neighborhood would flock around it during the weekend while the guy, surely a Chrysler employee, washed and showed it off.
But the most amazing car I remember seeing was at Kent Lake, in Kensington Park, outside of Detroit in Milford. Our family was just chilling on the beach when a little blue car just drives into the lake and slowly pilots away. Most everyone on the beach freaks out but a few in the know, including my dad, knew it was the Amphicar! The first one shown on Wikipedia is the exact color of the one we saw that day.
Wow, to see a Turbine car in the wild back in the day is doubly fantastic, as they made like what, less than 50 of them?!
I saw one at the Amelia Island Concours about 5 years ago and even got to see it fired up and driven. Totally made the ticket price worth it.
I saw a Carrera GT in 2004 or maybe 2005. I was walking around a fairly affluent suburb of DC (can’t recall why) and a silver one went past. I absolutely lost my marbles…I never saw one in the wild again and I doubt I ever will. It was as striking in person as you’d imagine and remains a favorite car of mine, although it’s firmly in the category of “I’d probably pass if given the chance the drive one” for me.
The CGT is an absolute brute that plenty of people with exponentially more experience than me have had issues with. Leno of all people nearly wrecked one and in a recent Hagerty video Randy Pobst said driving one at the limit was unnerving. If it’s too much for a professional driver of his caliber it’s assuredly too much for me.
Either way…it’s an icon. I’m curious as to what our pal V10emous will have to say about this one-but I’m not entirely sure if I’d want to drive a Viper either for similar reasons.
Back in the 70s I saw a Toyota Corolla parked in Jefferson Chrysler parking lot.
I don’t know if you’re being serious or sarcastic, but quite seriously in the early 70’s Toyotas really were very rare outside California. As a car enthusiast (meaning that I read Road & Track every month), I was aware of them but never saw one outside a grainy black and white photo. The first time I realized they had invaded our city was when my girl friend reported that her brother’s co-worker had purchased one and she was laughing about the funny little thing. Her brother told her that it used the same size tires as the forklift he was driving for his college summer job.
Then the oil crisis hit…..and most people stopped laughing.
When we moved from Southern California to St. Louis in 1980, it was amazing the difference in car stock. California obviously was the center of imports then, so I saw a lot of Toyotas, Datsuns, VWs, etc. When we moved here, it was almost all full size American cars.
A new beige Citroën BX 16 TRS, I saw when I was in 4th grade in 1984. The brown acryllic opera windows were all clear. Never saw one again in that colour in real life here (DK) or one where there weren’t some scratches on those opera windows.
Owned 3 of them myself since, one dark wine red 14E and two 19RD station wagons in ice blue and fire engine red.
Here’s an old worn one in France, complete with those opaque opera windows. Not quite the same:
I was visiting Europe in 2016 and was in Esztergom, Hungary, a city of about 28,000 people. We were walking along a narrow street and there, street-parked with all the Suzuki Swifts and VW Polos was a Fisker Karma. With South Carolina dealer plates no less.
The Ferrari La Ferrari (still the stupidest car name in existence). Yes it was California, but it was just heading North on I-280, not even down around Silicon Valley. And it wasn’t surrounded by other million dollar cars or covered in stickers, so I don’t think there was a rally going on or anything.
And it was just cruising, not driving excessively fast (or slow for that matter), or any other shenanigans.
It was incredible how accentuated all the curves are on the thing when you actually see it in context and in person. It’s crazy.
There are plenty of cars of note I’ve only ever seen once. I’ve only seen a 250 GTO LM once, but it was at the Le Mans Classic, and is to be expected.
But when I read the question, the car that jumped out to me was one of Jerry Weigert’s creations. I’ve never before or since seen a Vector in the flesh, and this was being driven sedately around Stuart Florida’s barrier island.
This was back in 1996 and I was quite young, but I still remember my Dad coming to a complete stop in the street just to see it turn the corner. It was purple, it was flat, it looked like a fighter jet, and we joked about how out of place and ridiculous it looked.
They’ve gotten a bit more coverage since he passed, but I’ve yet to see another on the road or in person.
Sunbeam Tiger.
I’ve read about them. Shelby’s connection ensures that they’re not exactly a forgotten car. But I had never seen one in person until a couple summers ago.
Granted, it was a car show. But it was a car show at the local ribfest. I usually only see ok Mustangs and Camaros at these shows. And the guy in town that dailies a Belair. So to see a Sunbeam Tiger at the show blew me away. It made me a little sad how ecstatic the owner was that I knew what it was. He said most people ask him what kind of MG it is. Unfortunately, that was also when I realized how small it was. I’d never fit in one. Still one of the coolest small cars ever.
Walking home from high school in a decidedly middle-class area. Mid-to-late 80s.Yellow Lamborghini Miura.
On campus at high school someone visiting for an event drove a Citroen DS19.
Jensen Interceptor. Here in the States in the 1980s and NOT in California.
Was a little kid coming out of the doctor’s office with my mom, and there it was, parked in the rows.
I was immediately struck by something so clearly not from America, or seemingly even designed to be here. I later went to the library (1980s, remember) and poured over car books until I found it.
And yeah, the Top Gear bit decades later made me sooo excited b/c it nailed exactly what it seemed like to young me, a car that a British tv man of action would drive.
Great memory…..back in the late 70’s, my high school band teacher was this cool old dude, Howie Carstens. He had an Intercepter along with a couple of other neat vehicles. I always thought that Jensen was incredibly handsome with a beautiful cloisonné hood badge. He used to race Alfa GTV’s at Bridgehampton as well as Lime Rock, routinely whipping the tails of the young studs. He also had a Fiat 850 Racer with an engine from a Fiat 128 he somehow shoved into the tail.
Yeah, all these fancy racing machines can’t compare to stumbling across the Weinermobile in a suburban Target parking lot, parked as as casually as could be, knowing it ruled the land.
I’ve also seen a Weinermobile randomly parked in a retail parking lot! (it was late at night too). Free advertising, lol!
I’ve got two rare car sightings to report, both from right here in/near tiny little Evergreen, CO.
The first was back in 2015 or so when we were up near Echo Lake, at the foot of Mount Evans. We drove up to do some hiking and were amazed to see about a dozen classic Lamborghinis in a rainbow of colors. They were mostly Diablos and Countaches, as I recall. I popped over to chat with one of the owners. They were a Lamborghini club from Europe and had flown over with their cars to drive coast-to-coast. They couldn’t miss a chance at some Colorado twisty roads, so they drove over Squaw Pass road and had taken a break at Mount Evans. A few minutes later, they roared off with a riot of gorgeous engine noises.
The second was one day a few years later when my wife and I went for a drive around some nice twisty roads near our house in our Volvo C30. We were having a blast bombing around the curves when what should we come up on but a bright orange McLaren 720S! They were on the same drive as we were and we followed them all the way out to the main highway. They got away from us on the straightaways, but we usually caught up in the curves, so they must have been driving pretty conservatively. It was a blast to watch, and listen to, a real luxury sports car do its thing.
In the early 1980s I saw a Tucker 48 being driven southbound on I-5 near Cottage Grove, Oregon. I later realized that it must have been #1046, at that time heavily modified but now rebuilt to original specifications. Still, it was memorable to see one out on the road being used as a car.
That’s quite a rare sight. I was so excited to just be able to listen to #1015 run. They started it up while I was visiting the Stahl Museum a few years ago. That’s an amazing collection of cars (mostly 30’s and 40’s) and music machines if anyone is in the Detroit area, but it’s only open a few days a month. They often have someone playing the amazing Wurlitzer organ they have there too.
I’ve seen a lot of interesting and unique cars in my time. But, l remember a movie, “Young in Heart” from 1938, that featured a one off car they called “The Flying Wombat”. It was actually a prototype car, designed by Rust Heinz, called the Phantom Corsair, built in 1938. It totally fired my imagination upon watching that movie. Much later in life, I actually saw it at Harrah’s museum in Reno, totally unexpectedly. Totally blew me away that it was built in 1938. Between it and the Bugatti Royal I saw at the Schlumph collection in France, I had some great memories of cars I never expected to see in person.
It was a Lamborghini LM002 driving along University Ave. in downtown Palo Alto (Stanford-land). Didn’t know of its existence before this observation. Next ones: McLaren F1 driving in Stanford Shopping Center, and finally a Ferrari F50 parked in Stanford Shopping Center. The F50 owner was taking photos with his girlfriend. He let me sit in the car. Nice guy.
Yeah, I live in proximity to this type of neighborhood. These sightings were about 30 to 40 years ago. Now I’m surrounded by Teslas and see ‘exotics’ on a regular basis. I have located a Koenigsegg Regera and have a friend who is trying to get me a visit to this private collection.
Don’t get the wrong impression. I drive 18-year and 21-year old Acura and Toyota, respectively.
There have been many in my ife that I’ve only seen once, but one that really sticks out to me was as a kid riding in my mom’s plymouth voyager on I-5 in Seattle traffic was appallingly bad. My dad, being far more courteous of a driver then, paused to let a couple cars move into his lane, when a black Ferrari 512bbi slid over in front of us. The driver rolled down his window to wave in thanks, and my dad shouted out to him “Remember me in your will!” The guy waved again then scooted off into the city.
Not the rarest car I’ve ever seen, not by a long way since I once got to sit in an original GT40 when I was little, but it was memorable and funny.
London, 1971, traveling by back pack with my girlfriend we trained it into London from Oxford. On the actual road a guy driving an actual Lotus 7 in BRG. Gobsmacked doesn’t even begin to explain how a 19 year old from Milwaukee felt at that moment. All my matchbox dreams coming true.
Did it have the yellow nose?
yes and the roundel and the #7..
Just wonderful. I’d never even heard of them until high school when I first caught The Prisoner on PBS late night and was like 1) whoa what is that car?! and 2) of course a guy like that would drive something so cool.
Bugatti Veyron while walking past the Monaco casino.
Honorable mention goes to the 6×6 parked beside it.
Viper. Don’t know the year, ca. 2002. Was on a church youth group trip when we passed this guy on the street. Bunch of teens in a 15-passenger van made appreciative faces out the windows, and the driver motions for us to pull over. We do, and he lets us all look all over that beautiful machine.
He said that once he saw someone in a super-car, and they were total dicks about letting people actually see it, and he resolved then to always allow people to see and even touch his cars if they showed the slightest interest. Hat’s off to you, awesome early-2000s Viper guy!