Most of us can relate to the sheer teenage anticipation of finally having your own set of wheels. Once you have those keys, a lifetime of motorized fun awaits, taking you over highways, byways, freeways, and one-ways with the thrum of an engine or the hum of an electric motor as a soundtrack. However, like all lifetimes, it will have to end someday.
There will be a point in life where each person buys their last car, truck, or motorcycle. Hopefully, it’s one of those things that happens in old age, but it’s something we aren’t escaping. By the time I’m old, I’d be ripe for a GT car of sorts, something fast and comfortable that gets the blood flowing while soothing my aged bones. However, I can’t help but feel this unnerving horror that reasonably lightweight, involving sports cars might not have a future on new car showroom floors.
By the time I turn 80, more than half a century will have passed from the time at which I’m writing this. Is there any chance the cars of today will be viable as classics, what with all their embedded software and even the question mark around fossil fuels? I’m hoping they will be, which is why I’d want my last car to be a Lotus Evora GT. With the confidence of Toyota’s 2GR-FE V6, a curb weight of 3,112 pounds, and a manual gearbox, it’s a solid recipe for driving nirvana.
So, what do you want your last vehicle to be? Whether a touring bike like a Honda Goldwing, a classic squarebody Chevy truck, or some moonshot like an Aston Martin DBS or a Donkervoort, I’d love to know what you see yourself growing old with.
(Photo credits: Lotus)
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I want my last vehicle to be a brand new 2073 model year anything, since that would mean I am alive and healthy enough to drive at 90, as well as wealthy enough to afford a new car decades after I retire.
I guess I’m not too picky about what my last car as. I just hope it isn’t one I already own!
A brilliant red Barchetta from a better vanished time.
Basically I’ll be the uncle with the country place.
That’d be rad.
Oh my goodness, I love the Autopian comment section community.
Found it.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b1/2d/2e/b12d2ea9b80dbd974c89894b46321ca5.jpg
(if the link is dead or doesn’t work–it’s a Nissan NV (van) hearse.)
In whatever my last years of driving are, what better than something big, comfortable enough, and usable after I can’t drive it myself anymore?
I mean, I hope when I’m old I still get excited about buying and fixing rusty old shitboxes. Not sure if the looming EV apocalypse will allow for that future, but I’m hoping to keep buying crappy old ICE vehicles as long as I can.
I started to write down that I agree with you completely, but then I thought of the Emira. I think that would be mine.
1959 Cadillac Coupe DeVille convertible.
I plan to be old, so I want something comfortable. I’m an extrovert, and there isn’t a much more look-at-me car.
An electric conversion Citroen DS.
The outgoing generation of E Class Convertible.
Red with cream interior please – but no 4Matic or AMG nonsense.
Old me wants a Caddy. If that were today I’d be convincing medicare to rebuild my knee so I could do the 6 speed ct5v
“What (and who) do I see growing old with (when I’m 90)?”
A Ferrari with a 25 year old side piece.
If she dies, she dies.
80 is far enough in the future that I’m not sure,what vehicles will be around. I definitely want something more interesting than my parent’s last cars, an Audi 4000 and a Honda Accord. My in-laws have an equally boring Audi Q3. Perhaps I should drive to my grave astride the BMW R100S I have owned since 1990.
The next one. Always the next one.
I don’t really have a good answer for this, but it makes me think of a great old joke: “I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like Grandpa, not screaming in terror like the passengers in his car.”
I loved the silvery wedge that was my Subaru XT. The thought of one turned BEV has been percolating for awhile—and the inadequately healed toe on my left foot occasionally reminds me that one-pedal driving should not be dismissed out-of-hand.
I blame/thank Toecutter for this 🙂
I’ll take a Bugatti Chiron It’ll stay parked in the garage for me to look at. All the while I remind my son this will be yours to do with when I die. LOL
You’re urging him toward patricide?
LC500 is always the answer
A future Lincoln Continental.
A sleek sedan, easy to access, enough space for anything an old guy would need to transport, with classical Lincoln equation of understated style + big engine (of whatever sort) = undeniably American.
if Ford ever gets around to building it, it will be a Maverick hybrid for me.
what I wanted it to be was that black 1960 Thunderbird from a couple of weeks back,
https://www.theautopian.com/cool-early-sixties-cruisers-1960-ford-thunderbird-vs-1962-dodge-lancer/
pragmatic to the end..
I’m gonna buck the trend and make it about my kids.
I hope that, in about 25 or 30 years, I’ll be driving a practical, affordable EV that gets at least 400 miles of Interstate range. And I hope there’s a charging network that makes it a piece of cake to drive cross-country in this vehicle. And I hope that it, and the other EVs and charging options within the market, make new ICE vehicles economically obsolete.
This is the correct answer.
I read your first sentence and couldn’t help but think: “you want a C5 Corvette with an automatic?!”
“I don’t want this.” “What are you crazy?! It’s a Corvette. Look how shiny it is and low miles. It’s gold I tell you GOLD!”
It’ll probably be a Miata, assuming I can still contort myself in and out of it.
Interesting question today. My dad, who is getting up there in years and is a lifelong Alfisti, decided recently that his next car was going to probably be his last. He wanted it to be an Alfa, of course, and he now drives a Stelvio. In Alfa Rosso, of course, because as everyone knows red is the correct color for an Italian car.
But… this is actually his second “last” car. Because the first Stelvio did what Alfas do and broke.
I dislike getting in and out of a Miata now, at 40. I cannot imagine trying to do it in old age.
Keeps you young, although you do develop new methods. To get in, I now put in the feet and slide my back down until my bum hits the seat. To get out, I either lever up with windshield and console or if the top is up, roll left ending up with my right knee on the floor (not elegant!).
I’ll be 70 later this year and still have my ND Miata. Yes, climbing in and out gets harder every year. These days I wait until no one is around to witness it.
No problem with it now at 50. Dad can’t do it at 77 no matter how hard he wants to, hence the Stelvio and not a Spider.
If I needed to do it or wanted to drive a Miata enough, I could probably keep getting into a Miata until maybe 60. But I’d complain about it throughout my 50s. But it’s not the worst. I got into a GR86 exactly once and decided there was no way that was worthwhile. I can definitely see why Corvettes (well, at least the C6s I’ve been in) are the stereotypical fun car for the older fellow (at least us American fellows). A lot more comfortable to get into.
A raw car is the opposite of what you need in old age. A car with as many anticollision and driver assistances options as is legal and reliable. I would prefer it be a bus or a light rail, but a self-driving car would be great for the elderly.
Today’s question is not about need, but want.
At some point your wants and needs will converge.
Eh, maybe. I suspect it’s more accurate to say that my wants will become more and more unrealistic based on my needs. I’ll always want stuff I don’t need.
It’s what I would want so I could still be independent. That would be much more rewarding that my knees aching from sitting in traffic pushing a clutch. Get your fun car while you can enjoy it, not your dream car but something you enjoy.
Valid point. As a recovering Catholic, I’m not happy unless I’m suffering in some way.
No, we’re not talking about the old people you’re annoyed with driving in the left lane. We’re talking about YOU, when you’re old but not too old to drive yet, and enjoy driving.
You want to be 80 years old trying to get in and out of a Lotus? There’s being a masochist, and there’s being an 80 year old Lotus driver.
I would take a 70’s C-10, for which there will forever be parts, and which I could happily bust an 80 year old knuckle on while wrenching. I could grandpa the shit out of one of those
Just about anything that I can buy new in 2070 because that means: (1.) I’m a ripe-old age, (2.) yet healthy (3.) and wealthy enough to drive a new car.
I want to say a hearse, but I don’t really care what anyone does with the husk once I’m gone.
So I want my final vehicle to be something comfortable that I am still capable of properly driving at whatever age that happens to be. That probably means something smallish with good visibility without a lot of neck turning, assuming a lose some mobility, but not enough to stop driving.
What’s more important to me than my final vehicle is that I get something that is both comfortable and engaging soon.
If everything goes according to plan, it would be a hearse.