Car Stuff: Oddities

Today was supposed to have a new Fantasy Garage, but my brain is still in holiday-week mode so I'm choosing to postpone it until next week. I saw a purple Ferrari this afternoon but it passed too quickly for me to get a photo. It got me thinking about other weird and unusual cars that I've come across. I have been able to get pics of some of them, so I might as well start posting those.

I was in Medford Square on a Saturday afternoon a couple of months ago when I spotted this. It's a Toyota Yaris, which is the smallest, least expensive Toyota. It's understandable if you've never seen one, as I don't think Toyota sells a lot of them in this country compared to its other models. If you have seen one, chances are it was the four-door version, which sells better. Subcompact two-door hatchbacks are nearly extinct in the US (Hyundai has dropped the two-door Accent, which competes directly with this car), unless they are specialty models like the Mini Cooper (and even Mini has given in and started offering a four-door version of the Cooper).

I thought it was a little odd that someone would get a car with such a low starting price and then spend money on aftermarket wheels. There was a time when most cars came with wheel covers, and if you wanted your ride to look sportier you bought a set of chrome wheels for it. Today almost all cars come with alloy rims, though it seems the Yaris may be an exception to that. And after looking at this photo more closely, I think these may in fact be wheel covers, of the sort you can get at Pep Boys or Advance Auto Parts, and which would cost a lot less than alloy rims. So I stand corrected; whatever the reasons for choosing the Yaris (certainly not looks), thrift does seem to have been a factor.