On the second anniversary of The Autopian, we made you readers a promise: If 200 of you became members of this website, I’d buy a Pontiac Aztek and live in it for a week. Well, more than 200 of you became members/upgraded your membership, so it was time for me to hold up my end of the bargain. Earlier this month, I ended the victor of a bidding war on a beige Pontiac Aztek on Cars & Bids. Now that machine has arrived, and, well, here’s a little teaser of how it looks.
I won’t lie: $250 to ship a car from Phoenix to LA seems like a smoking hot deal, but that’s what the buyer hooked me up with, and now the Aztek is here and, while there are some problems that I’ll tell you about once I dig into them a bit more, for now, let me just show you how this thing looks.
On the outside, there are a few dings, and there is some missing trim that I’m definitely going to want to find, but overall it looks really good — so good, in fact, that within an hour of driving the car for the first time someone asked me if they could take a picture of it:
Inside, though, is where this machine shines. It’s gorgeous. Even the shipper told me he was impressed by just how new that cabin looks:
Here’s a short video of my initial thoughts:
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But cars aren’t just about looks, they’re about function, and, well, the Aztek arrived with what seemed like serious issues that I wasn’t expecting. I’ll get into that soon, but for now, just know: This thing looks good.
It’s glorious, in the beigest shitty GM way possible, and I for one am all for it
I believe the deal was that you would live in it for a week. In the video you said sleep in it. Yes, in your 1st paragraph, you write “live in it,” but now you have two different statements and I just want to be sure you (we) get the full experience. :^P
serious issue #1: Its made by GM in a dark era
I wouldn’t consider the early 2000s a dark era. All kinds of experimentation and creative proposals abounded. Horsepower figures were climbing. Reliability was improving. Technology was mostly being used to improve efficiency, reduce operating costs, improve reliability, rather than nickle and diming the user.
I consider post 2015 the new automotive dark age. Composed of equal parts government interference and corporate greed.
I’d call GM in that era dark- awful interiors, half assed everything outside of the truck category.