A familiar German visage greets the casual onlooker. “Ah yes, this is a Vanagon,” the American viewer thinks to himself. But once the eyes have scanned beyond the upright frontage and to the side of this white rectangle, a problem comes to light. Those eyes dart to and fro in disbelief. What should be there — the rest of the Vanagon — isn’t.
That’s because this is a Doka, and it’s the verboten manual diesel van-truck of your dreams.
Open the wood paneled glove box lid to find familiar fine-grain Italian leather driving gloves. Fingers twist a small, delicate key to ignite 4.7 liters of displacement sitting under the long, gleaming hood. Eyes are met with a proud golden trident, embedded in navy inside the three-spoke wheel.
Select “drive” with the polished wooden gearshift; it’s time for a grand tour.
Our last Rare Ride was a little blue Lancia Scorpion. Suffering from an identity crisis and a recently regulated America, the Scorpion was inherently compromised from the showroom floor. The Scorpion’s tale was a bit depressing, so today we take a look at a different sort of Italian coupe. This one’s a Spanish market import, from a time before the sort of regulation that ruined the Scorpion.
It’s the Maserati Mexico.
A pleasantly desinged Pininfarina body carves its way up the Amalfi coast in Italy. The sun shines down through the targa roof, highlighting your gold-rimmed aviators. Dropping a gear, you put all 120 mid-engine horsepower to use. The back of your car says MONTECARLO, and you’re winning.
But things in reality are a bit different, because this is America and we have regulations. I give you the Scorpion, by Lancia.
Today we step back in time over 50 years to check out a little beige truck. Imported across the sea, it fell right into the hands of a caring buyer — one who cautiously stepped away from the American pickup truck norm. What we have here is the very beginning of a Japanese manufacturer’s truck offerings in North America; a 66-horsepower genesis moment.
It’s a Toyota Stout, from 1966.
Great handling, two seats, sporty styling, and coupe lines. No, we’re not talking about a Corvette Z06, because it’s another Malaise Day here at Rare Rides — and our topic of discussion is a shockingly orange Ford EXP.
I always thought those letters stood for EXtra Powerful, but maybe I was wrong. Let’s find out.
Struggling for decades, Marcos Engineering produced very few examples of its flagship GT model. This excellent condition restored example recently made its way up onto the eBay auction block, which presents a good opportunity to take a look at this stylish British sports car.
In the long and varied history of the Dodge Charger name, the model has had many different forms — often completely unrelated to one another. For a short while in the 1980s, Chrysler Corporation added a little Shelby badge to the Charger name.
Let’s check out some glossy L-body goodness.
From the most malaisey part of the late 1970s comes a model which would have been a Rare Ride sooner, had your author known about it. It’s a little Pontiac two-door wagon with sporting pretensions.
What awaits you is a Pontiac Sunbird Safari Wagon from 1978. Prepare your polyester jacket.
Long before Dodge would apply the Durango name to its midsize SUV offering, Ford used it on a very limited production pickup as it considered a replacement for the Ranchero.
Come and check out a beige, two-tone, Ford Fairmont Futura Hack-job Durango pickup.
Today’s Rare Ride is a nearly-new example of the very limited production Volkswagen XL1. Equal parts efficiency and rarity, this is the first Volkswagen product featured in our Rare Rides series, and probably the most efficient vehicle we’ll ever see here.
Come check out what 260 miles per gallon looks like.
We’ve featured a Maserati previously in our Rare Rides series — a bespoke Quattroporte shooting brake which drew mixed styling opinions from the informed and gracious peanut gallery of the B&B. Today though, we step back in time to something closer to the traditional two-door, sporty exotica that makes up much of the brand’s history.
Presenting a Maserati Merak, this one decked out in special SS trim.
Subaru is presently in the midst of a sales boom. As Tim Cain pointed out last week in his Subaru Question of the Day, the company has found fairly recent success selling what are essentially three different variations of the exact same all-wheel drive crossover formula. Customers just go into the dealer and say whether they’d like the extra small, small, or medium-sized version. But long before today’s crossovers, and even the quirky Leone and XT which preceded them, there was Subaru’s genesis.
And the little white Kei car you see before you is the very genesis of which we speak.
Earlier this week, we brought you a Rare Ride straight from the Eastern Block. The Skoda 120 was Czechoslovakia’s answer to the middle-market family sedan. Today we keep it Communist and look at Russia’s answer to the decadent and capitalistic Jeep Wrangler and Land Rover Defender, the UAZ-469.
This four-by-four can really do some work.
Late last week, on our Rare Rides entry for the Renault Alliance GTA, commenter scott25 alerted me to a Skoda he spotted on Kijiji (which is what eBay is called in Canada or something). As most people in North America have likely never seen a Skoda, this odd little sedan should do nicely as today’s Rare Ride.
Come along, comrades.
Today we bring you a very special, semi-complicated Rare Rides. It’s an unusual little sports coupe bearing a French diamond on the front, a Wisconsin-made sticker inside the door, and red GTA badging on the sills.
Come check out the Renault Alliance GTA.
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