Sunday Open Thread: What’s The Most Amazing Car You Only Saw Once, By Chance?

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We’re going to try something new here; on Sundays, instead of taking your computer or phone out to a field or lake and letting it run and swim free, what if we used those machines to let all of us Autopians talk and discuss things and get to know one another even better! Let crushes form, rivalries grow, grudges fester, facts learned, opinions proffered, mockeries attempted, all that. Who’s up to try? You are! So, here we go with our first prompt to get everyone talking: What’s the most amazing car you only saw one time, by chance?

I think for me it’d be a Facel-Vega, a Chrysler V8-powered elegant French beast I once saw street parked in West LA as I was driving by. Who is street parking and driving around a Facel-Vega? It’s like using a golden chariot pulled by winged horses as a septic tank cleaning vehicle. It’s too good for the real world, yet there it was, parked behind some beige Corolla with a mismatched door and by a driveway to a Jack In The Box.

So, what was your amazing, unexpected, chance car sighting? Tell me! I’m so very nosy!

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Mercedes Streeter

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167 thoughts on “Sunday Open Thread: What’s The Most Amazing Car You Only Saw Once, By Chance?”

  1. One time recently i actually got the pleasure of seeing a Ferrari testarossa in classic magnum PI white sitting outside the front door of a lexus dealership and i have never seen that specific car since and i wanted to stop so bad to take a picture or talk to the owner but i was picking up a coworker and we were on the clock.

  3. Airopian…

    I saw the Concorde SST flying into Detroit. Happened to be out side and heard a strange sounding jet. Look up and there it is. Late eighties prolly.

    1. There was a charter outfit that flew them out of Toronto many years ago. I was aboard a taxiing 737 (my favourite jet at the time) & saw the Concorde sitting there; what struck me was how tiny it seemed compared to modern wide-body twin jets. Pretty damn cool though, like a cold-war nuke bomber.

  5. Won’t count as ‘amazing’ to most, but I feel this site is my safest space to offer that attribution. My nomination is for an MV-1 I saw in the wild over a year ago, in rotation as someone’s personal ride, in central Wisconsin of all places.

    It was a black one parked outside of a sporting goods store.

    Not sure if it was an early VPG version with the Ford 4.6L or the later AM General version. But as sinfully ugly as they are from a form, I can only imagine they are beautiful in function, given their flexible intended purposes.

    I like to imagine them as a hipster van-life conversion…like the “Hold my beer” version of a Honda Element.

    1. I appreciate your appreciation. I’ve seen one too, run (predictably) as paratransit vehicle by my local transit authority though.

      When they were first announced as part of the running for the replacement NYC taxi, I disliked them (and was pissed at Ford for not entering the Flex, as that thing seemed born for that kinda duty)…but now, I kinda think they’d have been the 21st Century Checker Marathon. The Nissans are fine of course, but I like the idea of a cab that looks like nothing else out there.

  6. Ferrari F40, in red, on our local town roads in the late 80s. U turned & followed it to a fresh turkey farm. Guy ignored me. Couldn’t believe how low & small it was.

    Around 2009, heading East from Portland OR, a Bugatti Veyron passed us. My son wanted me to catch it, in our borrowed Honda Pilot. I pulled out and accelerated, but it just kept getting smaller in the windshield.

  8. Saw a VW Passat W8 wagon with a stick parked on my college campus last year, and more recently spotted a very nicely restored Henry J while driving around my hometown over fall break.

  9. Two come to mind. Early/middle 1960’s in a very small midwest town. For a car crazy teenager, both were very memorable. First was a Chrysler Turbine car. It just drove through downtown slowly, on the highway. Had it stopped, I’d have been all over it. Second was a 427 Cobra. I heard that one well before I saw it. He did stop, but I must have considered anybody who drove an actual 427 Cobra to be unapproachable, at least by me.

    1. Oh, I forgot that one. The neighbor behind us in Whitefish Bay WI got the one for Wisconsin. It was like seeing a science fiction vehicle, and the noise was frikken jet engine.

  10. For me it was a Bugatti Veyron. I remember it quite well. It was 2006 and I had just moved tot he US from Germany. We were driving towards Sedona, AZ to go hiking, and the Veyron was pulled over by the police on the side of the road. I can only imagine why it was pulled over… It was the black and red color scheme of the launch car. The people that I was in the car with had now idea why I was freaking out about seeing that car. I had always seen the Veyron in books and magazines, but never did I think I would see one out and about in the real world. In 2006, the Veyron was a brand new car and pretty rare, so to see one was something special. I think to this date, still one of the coolest things I’ve seen. I just happened to be on the right road at the right time.

  11. There is a yellow De Tomoso Pantera on BaT right now that reminded me I once saw one of those! It was red and must have been around a 72 or something. I was young and into only American v8s so I thought this was perfection. Mid engine. Italian. American v8. Bitchin name. I mean it checks all the boxes!

  12. I don’t know about amazing, but I saw a Cadillac Allante this summer. Don’t see rare cars too often around where I live but that one stuck out to me as especially odd to see.

  14. Every year I go to a big nerd convention in Atlanta called Dragon Con. In 2014 the way things worked out I would be in Atlanta the day before the con. By chance on a car website that ends in -nik I saw that there was a concept car exhibit at the High Museum of Art running through the time I would be there. In addition to hearing a talk by Syd Mead I got to see in person on of those cars that really sticks with you when you first see it in pictures as a kid: the Ferrari 512S Modulo. My only regret was I had been drinking that day so I don’t remember all the details. https://photos.app.goo.gl/iUEgN8mc8tygFeZEA

  15. Oddly enough recently, a Nash Metropolitan on the highway going North out of Denver on I-25, red and white, doing 55 in the right lane. It really stood out to me, just something so tiny surrounded by lumbering giants of modern make.

  17. Naples FL is kind of a car-spotter’s paradise so the bar is pretty high here. Two best were: Ferrari 250GT SWB in silver (I heard it first) and the Revs Institute’s beautiful gunmetal McLaren F1 when it was out stretching its legs.

  19. About 25-ish years ago, I was on a road trip in my $500 1988 Mustang Convertible. It was exactly as nice as you are thinking: not at all.

    In the downtown area of Philadelphia, I was waiting at light when a Roll Royce Corniche Convertible in a stunning sandstone metallic paint pulled up next to me. matching top and interior. Beige is usually “meh” on a car, but this one was perfectly gorgeous and the “meh” color only enhanced the luxuriousness of it. Driving it was the most beautiful human I have ever seen. he was equally beige as was his clothing. And I’m sure his overcoat cost many more ties what my car cost me.

    I looked over, gave him the thumbs up and smiled. He made eye contact, quickly broke is and ignored me. That was the perfect reaction as well. Everything about that was rare and perfect. Never seen another Corniche in the wild.

    (I’ve been to plenty of museums, but I don’t think any of those oddball cars count for this.)

  20. I live in Silicon Valley and I’ve been to Monterey car week a couple times so seeing very expensive and/or unique cars is not that rare (just drive up to Alice’s on a weekend morning and see what drives through).

    The one that left me a lasting impression recently was seeing a BMW Z8 at car week. I’m not a BMW person and was aware of the existence of the car, but seeing them in person I was immediately smitten.

    They are not that special in the grand order of things (definitely not with Pebble Beach Concourse going on a few blocks away) but I don’t even need to become that much richer to actually think of getting one, so here’s me praying to my new corporate overlords and the startup lottery.

  21. On a trip to Italy in 2019 I saw a Mia U electric van in Rome. One of 123 in Europe according to Wikipedia. On that same trip I also saw an orange Aston Martin Cygnet!

  22. The first one was a Plymouth Prowler parked out in the driveway of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Must have been around 2005. It looked awesome right next to my crap mobile rental I had for the week. Have never seen another in my travels.

    The second was a Lotus Europa. I was camping in CT and the owner was camping there. He had it on a trailer to get up to Lime Rock Raceway about 15 miles north of the campground. It’s still a funny looking car, but I have no doubt it must have been a blast out on the track

  23. I’ve seen many odd and unique cars, but rarely unexpectedly by random encounter. Most of the odd cars I’ve seen were both intentional and repeatedly. Going to odd marque car meets and a lot of car museums limits the single unintended sightings.

    Years ago, I was at a park near Chicago on a beautiful day and this tiny little blue-grey sports coupe drove by.

    At first, I thought it was some weird subcompact Jaguar, an odd old Japanese import competing with the Toyota Sports 800, or maybe a 1960s racing Ferrari of some kind, but after a long search, I discovered that it was a TVR Grantura or Jomar Coupe from the late 1950s or early 1960s.

    Another time, around 1990, I stopped in a junkyard for old Jaguars, MGs, Triumphs and the like, and inside the parts building was an indoor collection of about a dozen 60s and 70s E-types, both coupes and convertibles. Most were low miles and in “garage queen” condition. In the back, right in front of the counter near the cash register, was parked a spotless 1957 Maserati 3500 GT with under 25,000 miles.

    Two unexpected encounters with rare cars.

  24. Several years ago, on a trip to the UK, we went straight from Gatwick to Oxford – headed up the M25 maybe 15 minutes after picking up the rental car, I spotted an Aston DB6 (?) shooting brake. For that matter, visiting Stonehenge the next day, someone in the parking lot had a DB2/4 – either way, the car spotting was strong that trip.

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