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!
Late to the party, as well. I’ve seen plenty of cool cars over the years, and mere exotics are like, ‘meh’. My two picks, as seen street-parked in my travels would include:
-A Bristol 401/403, street parked on a hill near the beach in Grand Haven, MI
-and a then-new Porsche Carrera GT, street parked in Carmel, CA, a couple days after the Monterrey Historics weekend.
I have a Facel product in my memory, too. In the ’80s, a gas station a few towns over had a blue Facellia spider sitting in its lot.
Sometime around 1970 a nicely patinated Bertone-bodied Alfa Romeo Sprint Speciale from the early ’60s was parked on a street in the Brown University Quadrangle, looking like something between a space ship and a Shuco windup toy designer’s dream. A few years later, I was driving in the Delaware water gap on Route 80 and a black Duesenberg Model J convertible sedan passed me doing about 75 mph. Then there was the sports car in for servicing at the local Peugeot dealer in 1990: a tattered, silver Mercedes 300-SL gullwing. Behind the plaid seats, the interior was stuffed full of theses and test papers. The shop manager told me the owner was a Columbia professor, and the Merc was his only car.
Rather late response, but when hiking at Starved Rock State Park I saw a beautiful condition Lancia Beta Scorpion convertible in a rather fetching bright yellow color. I had to go home and look it up. Turns out it was only sold in the US for 2 model years (’76 & ’77) and only 1805 were made. Pretty obscure and random for sure!
Almost forgot, there’s a guy who lives about 10 minutes from me that has and regularly drives among many cars both a Veyron and a Senna, so I do get to see those from time to time.
Actually, thinking about it, the McLaren was this one: https://www.thesupercarblog.com/chevy-cobalt-driver-t-bones-a-1-million-mclaren-senna/
I see a decent amount of exotics/high dollar stuff in my admittedly well-to-do suburb of Columbus OH. But the coolest thing I’d ever seen IMO is when I ended up following a Ferrari 288GTO around the backroads and roundabouts that abound in my community. Whoever was driving it was certainly enjoying it and I’m here for that.
Around 2006 or so I had a job that would frequently do events at a hotel. One day when I was parking early in the morning I noticed a very fancy, fully enclosed car hauler parked in the back of the lot. I wondered for a moment what might be inside, then quickly forgot as I headed inside to get to work. Later in the day I had to run out to my car to get something and I found out what was inside: a Noble M12. There was a younger guy out wiping it down so I walked over to confirm I really was seeing what I thought I was seeing. He said yes, indeed it was a Noble and pointed into the carrier to the other one that was parked inside!
I chatted with him for a bit and asked him what he did to be able to afford two of them, and what they were doing hanging out in a fairly out of the way location. His response was “marry well”, his father-in-law was the one with the money and he liked to bring him along because he was a cop and was able to talk them out of a few tickets. They were in the area just to enjoy some of the many twisty roads in the area.
Has to be the absolute unicorn I saw in my local garage when I took my car there last year: A***V6*** Perana Capri. I didn’t even know Perana had made any V6s, but they apparently did, and they’re even rarer than the V8s. Oh, and there’s a cherry red Ur-Quattro just down the road from me that looks brand new.
Berliet’s logo is actually a stylized locomotive, despite Berliet never having a railroad division. Here’s what the Berliet Fundation says about the logo (auto-translated from French with minor corrections):
“In 1905, the reputation of Berliet chassis had already crossed borders. In the United States, the American Locomotive Company (ALCO), which manufactures locomotives, wishes to diversify into automobile construction. The president of ALCO Mr. PITKIN chooses Berliet cars whose power, solidity and endurance best meet American requirements. He offered Marius Berliet the purchase of the license to manufacture 4 automobiles against the cash payment of 500,000 gold francs, the supply of cast and forged parts, the construction of a factory in the state of Rhode Island and the payment of royalties. The contract was signed on July 1 , 1905 for 3 years. This sum allows Marius Berliet to purchase and set up the equipment necessary for mass production. It is thanks to her that Automobiles M. Berliet began its extraordinary growth.
The logo of an American locomotive appears on the Berliet catalogs from 1906 in testimony to this providential contract!”
A hot pink Excalibur.
I don’t know the model, I was too busy just going O_o at it driving down Roosevelt in the Chicago ‘burbs.
Driving down the local Buy Here Pay Here bonanza road I saw a Datsun Sunbeam parked behind a shop. It was faded yellow, but still looked so cheery.
I live in Metro Detroit, so the list of random cool rare cars is long, but the most memorable for me was running across my own car in traffic. I’d sold it three years prior, and still regret it.
There it was, a 2007 Scion tC in silver, with a custom red third brake light done by my friend in another friends driveway while I helped work on a different car, carbon fiber exhaust heat shield still in tact, red TRD sway bar (set on the stiffest setting of course) peeking out from the terribly low suspension afforded by BC coil overs. I never should have sold it. Yes out of all the cars to spend decades pining over, I want my stupid Scion back……
I wouldn’t call it amazing, but it was kind of a WTF, what’s that doing here kind of moment. Saw a Clenet Series III just casually street parked in New Hope, Pennsylvania, hemmed in by Camries and Accords
A couple of years I went hiking with a friend in western Maine. On the way home we saw a Panoz Roadster parked on the shoulder of Rt. 26 in Greenwood, ME. While that isn’t exactly the middle of nowhere (by Maine standards) it isn’t anywhere where you would expect to see anything other than F-150 or maybe a Jeep parked on the side of the road. Encountering a Panoz out there was a real head trip.
Honorable mentions go to Qvale Mangusta I saw tooling around South Portland a few years ago, and a TVR Tasmin that I occasionally see street parked near my Portland office in the summer.
(I mention the locations in the off chance the owners of these wonderful machines are on here and read this.)
Lamborghini LM002
I was a huge Hunter S Thompson fan (still am) in the late 80s. He wrote about owning a LM002 in one of his books and in a couple of articles. At the time, he was hanging out in the Keys and writing about drug and gun smuggling. I was riding a bike in Key West in 1989 and saw a white LM002 in a bar parking lot with a plate that said “DOC”. I was so conflicted. I really wanted to go in and see if it was him. On the other hand, I wanted to have some respect and wasn’t sure I could trust myself not to do something stupid. I settled for walking around the having a good look while being nervous about getting shot.
My son and I recently saw a brand new Rolls Royce Phantom parked at the grocery store. That is a very rare site in my little corner of Appalachia.
Late to the party, I know…..
I have a couple though:
1) Porsche Carrera GT — I was waiting to turn on to Highway 7 near Ottawa, and saw HIDs coming at me, but at an impossibly low height, and there was the V10 carbon-fibre beast, just driving along on the not-so-nice pavement.
2) de Tomaso Pantera — I was driving along one night and the car ahead of me had really, really low taillights, so naturally I was curious and tried to stay with it. Then it turned on to a side road to turn around, and I saw this absolutely perfect black Pantera, looking very mean.
3) Assorted — I was driving home from a family member’s house when I saw a Saleen Mustang, running without plates. I found this odd until I saw a Ferrari F355, also running without plates. And then another exotic without plates. I can only guess, but I think they were out for some shenanigans (a four-lane riverside street was nearby, and they were all headed in that direction). I don’t like that (take it to the track dummies!), but it was a lot of cool yet unexpected hardware in one place.
4) I was at my cottage and discovered a wasp nest. I headed in to the local store/gas station/ice cream place to nab some wasp killer, and the Ferrari Club of Toronto was there. Lots of Ferraris. And one 350Z (the owners were former Ferrari owners who really enjoyed the club, but hated paying $600 for oil changes). Naturally, I hung around. But only one of them (a 430) let their engine wail when they left.
I drove out to Detroit from PA to see the Bullitt Mustang. It was when the original owners family was showing it off across country along with the HVA’s help. I was pissed when they sold that off to a private collector, good luck seeing that again. Hopefully the Smithsonian or The Henry Ford can pony up some money to make it public again.
Aston Martin Lagonda in the parking garage at Orlando airport.
I saw an Aston Martin Cygnet on the street in Vienna. The very elegant female owner explained to me that it came with a Rapide and was a wonderful city car.
There have been so many that stick in my memory…perhaps most were UN-special, but I filed them away in my head nonetheless. That’s one of the delights of growing up in Southern California in the 1950s and ’60s.
If I had to pick one, it would be the dark blue/tan interior Dual-Ghia that, for some reason, was parked on my suburban street once, circa 1959. Schoolboy Me really, really wanted to own it. Or at least get a ride in it. Never happened. If I had to guess, I’d say the owner was visiting the neighbor who had a dust-covered ’53 Corvette sleeping in his garage.
Also incredibly memorable, and seen but once: a couple of years before the Dual-Ghia, a friend of my dad’s came to visit one day. He was driving a Kurtis 500S. I got a ride in that one….
2 come to mind. I spotted a Toyota 2000 GT in pale yellow just rolling down a residential street near home around 1972. Naval bases always had interesting cars (I am a navy brat) being used like regular Detroit products. While stationed at a tiny army base in northern Holland, circa ’77, a Warrent Officer arrived in a CONVERTIBLE Citreon SM! Looking up my memory, I found out Henri Chapron created just 7 converts. He called it the SM My Lord.
A few years back, I saw an Enzo driving around near my office park. It was one of those moments where you actually do a double take. Ferraris around here (DC area) aren’t all that rare, so it took a second to sink in that it wasn’t just some regular Ferrari. I made a U turn at the next intersection to see if I could catch up to it and follow it for a little while, but it was gone by the time I was able to go back.
It was either 2000 or 2001 when I saw a BMW Z8 in my college town of Carbondale, IL, population 30,000. Just parked in the strip mall of the movie theater amongst the commoner Cavaliers and Neons. Wikipedia says there were only 300 in the US in 2000 and 900 in 2001, so it was definitely rare at the time. To this day, that’s the only one I’ve ever seen in daily use, not at a car show.
The office I work at is in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Austin. I’ve seen several jaw-dropper cars in the area, including seeing a Z8 a couple of times. Another time I saw a Ferrari 365 GTB sitting at a stop light next to our parking lot, in morning rush hour traffic. Another time I saw a Lamborghini Muira driving in the opposite direction on my way to work.
Oh yeah! I forgot about seeing a Z8 Alpina in random parking lot before I ever even knew such a thing existed. It looked like it was from another world.
A Citroën 2CV Cabriolet.
If car meetings count, my favorites were the 1970 Opel Diplomat CD concept by Frua and a Renault Clio V6 prototype made by TWR.
A 1965 Shelby GT350. I was on vacation in the mountains on a beautiful day and our resort shared a pool with some nearby gated community type thing, and there were several neat cars in the parking lot including a C2 Corvette convertible and a rusty Ford Model A with a donkey sculpture for a hood ornament, but as I walked to the pool I spotted the back of a mustang… with blue racing stripes. I was thinking “no way,” but as I got closer the more it looked legit, and the other expensive cars around it also suggested it was real. My dad joined me in staring at it and we desperately tried to explain to the rest of our family what made that car so special, but I don’t think they really understood.
It was a beautiful machine and I still remember it vividly.
Not exceedingly rare, but when it came out, we told our kids that the first one to spot a BMW Z8 would get $100. It was rare enough that we never thought we would ever see one. A few years later I spotted one up in the Lake Tahoe area.
Growing up in Sacramento we saw lots of what are now rare and unique cars. I do recall seeing a Plymouth Superbird drive through our neighborhood. I said at the time that it would become valuable.
At our local car show some impressive vehicles appeared: 1954 Copper Corvette with period original bubble top and matching trailer. Some folks used that bubbletop as mold to make reproductions. A Mercedes Gull wing coupe with matching original luggage. And many more rare and unusual vehicles.
Hah. Never make a bet with kids. I once bet a girlfriend’s kid fifty quid he couldn’t lick his own elbow. He looked me straight in the eye… and licked his own fuckin’ elbow. Which SHOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE.
His mom tried to get me to Welsh on it, because ‘£50 is too much for a seven year old to have at once’, but a bet is a bet.