When it comes to choosing a used car, one of the reasons most people play it safe instead of going for something left-field is that many of them can turn out to be problematic. Case in point: Rob Corddry’s choice for Top Gear America’s future classics episode.
Pitted against Jethro Bovingdon in an BMW E46 330Ci and Dax Sheppard in a fox body Ford Mustang V8, Corddry opts instead for a Saab 900 Turbo. A hipster choice if ever there was one – and one that he suffers for.
As laid out in a behind-the-scenes featurette, Corddry suffers many, many problems in his Saab. Sadly, or perhaps smartly, he doesn’t reprise his Arrested Development persona, Frank Wrench, and lets the mechanic at Chuckwalla raceway take a wrench on his car instead.
Turns out there’s a turbo issue that doesn’t appear to get fixed. It likely wasn’t the mechanic’s fault since the Saab got towed there behind an RV, suggesting that the problems with this particular future classic went beyond what any mechanic was likely to be able to fix in the hours before a track day.
The Saab wasn’t the only one suffering. The 330Ci, although its faults weren’t enumerated in quite the same way as the Saab’s, was also apparently falling apart. The fox body Mustang, meanwhile, was apparently mechanically sound.
That may come down to the budget, which appears to have been $6,000. I guess you have to spend more than that on a European future classic to get something you can drive away in.
Top Gear America premiered on Motor Trend on Demand on January 29.
