QOTD: Can You Build an Ideal Crapwagon Garage? (Part I: The Hatchbacks)
Today is the start of a series of related Question of the Day posts. Each Wednesday QOTD for the next few weeks will be dedicated to selecting vehicles for a different section of an ideal Special Crapwagon Garage you’ll be compiling.
Up for Part I in the series are hatchback and liftback vehicles. Start your brains.
The reason we’re focusing on building a crapwagon garage is simple: It’s what we always end up talking about in the comments. An article on a new truck gets us chatting old trucks. And a new Golf has us chatting about the quality item which was the MkIV Golf. Right now I hear you asking, “But Corey, what makes for a crapwagon? What does that mean?”
Glad you asked; there are rules.
- A crapwagon must be a vehicle which is relatively easy to find and purchase using an internet.
- All vehicles in the crapwagon garage must have been sold as new, in the North American market.
- Said vehicles must be obtainable to the casual crapwagon collector (CCC). This means in clean, running condition each one asks $7,000 or less on a normal day.
- Your suggestions must fit into the vehicle category of the week. If you don’t like the category, that’s tough. We’ll get to a category you like eventually.
- There are five rules to this garage game, and that’s the maximum number of vehicles you may submit for each section. Cinco.
This week we start with hatchback and liftback vehicles. Whether they be hot or lukewarm (like mine would be) they need to have a hatchback or liftback on their rear end, and must not be an SUV or wagon. I’ve got a couple in mind for my personal garage which would be well within our $7,000 budget (three others are undecided).
Sterling 827 SLi
The Sterling 827 liftback version, in high-zoot SLi trim makes my Crapwagon Garage. I’ve always liked the looks, and how it’s sort of an Acura Legend and sort of ruined, plus wood trim.
Mazda 626 5-door
Mazda’s 626 5-door always worked for me as well, particularly in fancy GT trim with these polished alloys. I was always fond of the smooth, continuous window line and general aero shape. And the utility here surpasses a normal sedan easily.
Give us your Special Crapwagon Garage hatchback and liftback selections!
[Images: General Motors, Sterling, Mazda]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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Man $7000 is a tough price point for the cars I like in this catergory, as the few nice ones left are really going to push that budget. They all tend to be owned by the hat backwards/cheetos/weed/mt dew crowd that have $2 to their name and beat the piss out of them. 1. 1992-1996 C4 Corvette. These had the 300hp LT1 V8 and much nicer interior vs the 80's ones. 2. 1998-2002 Camaro Z28/Firebird Formula- has the LS1 V8 stock, still fast by today's standards, burnout city time. These tend to be either really nice or really trashed by the meth/juggalo crowd. 3. 2001-2006ish Acura RSX, preferably Type S with the bigger engine. Base model is fun too if you avoid the automatic 4. 1993-1998 Acura Integra GS-R- I was going to say 1992-1996 Prelude, but you stipulated hatchback. 5. 2003-2013ish Mazda 3 hatch, 5 speed of course. Great handling, probably the easiest one on the list to find a nice one.
'07 Mazda 6 V6 Sport hatchback '85 Dodge Daytona Turbo Z '88 Mitsubishi Starion TSi '87 Honda Accord LXi And just to be absolutely, utterly, weird: '84 Volkswagen Quantum Coupe (which was actually a hatchback). Then update it with the Syncro 4WD/I5 setup from a later Quantum sedan or wagon. And for good measure give it the '85-up facelifted front clip. This could probably all be done for under $7K but finding a 3-door Quantum in the first place would be an absolutely monumental task as they seem to have sold about 12 of them total.