Seeing an unfamiliar car for the first time is one of life’s most underrated little pleasures, like watching the sun rise over the ocean or being on the same Zoom call as someone from Michigan. What fairly common car have you somehow never seen in person before?
Allow me to backtrack. Yesterday I was doing a little research on Mitsubishi’s history upon the news that the Japanese automaker was bringing Ralliart back. I knew Chrysler used to sell a lot of Mitsubishis as captive imports, particularly during the whole Diamond Star Motors affair. But when I recall the products of that partnership, my mind typically goes straight to sports cars like the Eclipse and 3000GT. What I didn’t know was that the Mitsubishi L200/Triton compact pickup was also offered as the Dodge Ram 50 from 1979 to 1994.
More critically, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Ram 50 in the flesh. At least, not that I can remember. Surely they were out there when I was really young, I just never knew to pay attention. But I can say with certainty I have not happened across a Dodge-branded Mitsubishi truck in my travels over the last, say, 15 years — or else I wouldn’t have been so surprised to learn this yesterday.
That brings us back to today’s question: What’s a reasonably common car that’s somehow avoided you at every turn, whose existence you’ve never been able to validate with your own eyes?
DISCUSSION
Camry without the Camry dent, should be some out there, BMW with working turn signals?
In actuality for most Jalops, especially those of us who are over the hill, it’ll be impossible to answer as we know when we see a unicorn or holy grail and can sit and ID every car on the road and tell you the engine and transmission options, trim level, etc... on even mundane stuff. If it’s “common” we’ve seen it.