Growing up as enthusiasts, one of our key points of exposure to awesome cars was simply finding them in the wild. It was even better when a cool car lived in the neighborhood you lived or went to school, because it meant a chance to see it regularly, get familiar with it, and admire it.
Some of us even form childhood bonds with these cars, these roadside sculptures, these monuments to engineering. They can become our favorites, canonized in the pantheon on greats. Best of all, they don’t have to be mind-blowing to rock our worlds. Whether something exotic or something affordable yet neat, as long as it captures the imagination and inspires, it’s cool.
For about three years, I attended a school outside my immediate neighborhood, and on the way there, I’d see a Ferrari 550 Maranello that lived outdoors in front of a modest home. It was completely unexpected, and yet, there it was — the last pretty manual Ferrari used as a daily driver. The GT cars were always Enzo’s favorites for the road, and I got to see one of my personal hero cars almost every day on the way to school.
Today we’re asking you what the coolest car in your childhood neighborhood was, or any other neighborhood you frequented for school or friend meet-ups. It doesn’t have to be the most astonishing thing on the books, it just has to have moved you in some way. Who knows? It could’ve even been the beginning of something great.
(Photo credits: Bring A Trailer)
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My first conscious memory of cool cars as a child, I was about 6 years old and we lived on a military base in 1974. There was a guy that lived on the next col-de-sec that had metallic blue C-3 Corvette. I don’t know what year, but it was absolutely beautiful! …and for enlisted housing, it was definitely the coolest thing around. The owner was friends with my Dad and he took me for a ride in it.
There was no specific coolest car in my town, but there was a surprising abundance of cool rare cars in my rural, remote town of 3000 people. There were the usual muscle era brutes rolling around, and a whole bunch of early stuff that would be pulled out of the garage for shows, but the amount of unusual late model stuff stuck out to me even as a kid.
My dad had an XKE and a series of pre-war projects. His frends had a bunch of cool stuff, including a Pantera, a freaking fire truck, and an early Power Wagon. My uncle had a 70′ Rallye 350.
For years I regularly I saw a couple of Monte Carlo Aero Coupes, a Grand Prix 2+2, 5 or 6 Bigfoot Cruisers in both F-150 and Ranger size (go look those up), and a GMC Syclone that was street parked on a hill that was almost too steep to walk up. All sold new in town.
A lawyer had a barn full of Saabs. The local gun shop owner traded his 70′ Daytona and another classic Mopar toward one of the first production Vipers. A local doctor bought one of the first civilian Hummers and it was so noteworthy the local paper wrote an article about it. (Like I said, small town.)
Across the street from my elementary school was a clean Peugot 505 that never seemed to move and a mint ’72ish Challenger with the classic 70’s rake and other period mods, that also never seemed to move.
I walked home past an orange TR7 everyday, thinking it was the oddest looking car and then past a blue over silver ’86 Trans Am, thinking it was the raddest looking car. One day I saw a VW Sqareback wagon drive through town with a sheep in the back.
So yeah, there was no single coolest car, but damn there were a lot of cool cars.
Growing up in Toronto in the mid 80s I lived in a very cool car neighbourhood. Within a 3 block radius these were the cars I got to stare at on a regular basis.
– 3 E-Type Jags (one from each series and owned by one man)
-1960 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud
– Series III Quattroporte
-a tatty silver Lamborghini Espada
-Bitter SC (just learned one of only 461 made)
-Bricklin SV-1
– broken 1956 Lincoln Continental.
I promise this is all true.
The college kid down the street used to thrill us with his bone-white 1973 Mustang Mach 1. I’d see him cruising by with his (I presumed) girlfriend on the daily. I swore that I would buy one someday (the Mustang, not the girlfriend). Never bought one, but I dated a girl whose dad bought her one, so hey.
I lived in a thoroughly un-cool lower middle class neighborhood. This neighborhood snapshot would have been circa 1987:
It would have to be the neighbor’s 9th gen Caddy Eldorado. It may have been 10 or so years old at the time, but it was impeccably maintained and polished all the time. A dented/rusting EARLY early RX-7 a few blocks away was a not so close second, and an even more distant third was our Dodge Rampage.
We lived in a sea of K-cars, A- and J-bodies, rusted-out Malaise straight sixes, and base model Japanese econoboxes and Ford Escorts. Trucks, including ours, were nowhere near as common, and all of them had significant wear and denting from actually being used as trucks instead of status symbols. The only German cars around were VW Beetles (which hadn’t swung back around to “cool” yet), and maybe an occasional base-model Golf/Rabbit.
My town of 4,000 was mostly 2- and 4-door domestic iron in the 80s, and standard cab trucks that were used as trucks. Probably the coolest thing in my neighborhood was a British Racing Green Triumph Spitfire. On my paper route through another neighborhood I daily biked past a dark green 64-67 Corvette coupe (C2 but not split window) and a coke-bottle green 67 GTO. In 83, a lawyer a couple of blocks over (who was the son of the local Chevy dealer) got the first 84 Corvette in town.
The lady across the street from is got a brand new 1964 and a half Ford mustang. Lemon yellow, wire wheels, 289.
Gorgeous.
I was 11
We had a sometimes-running 1962 Chrysler 300 coupe in black sitting in our garage for years. It was originally our grandfathers, it looked like a car a hitman would drive.
…I want one now so badly
Everyone else had some pretty average shit, although all the other average shit was better than the 4 half running cars we had. Come to think of it, not sure why my folks didn’t just get one normal fucking car instead of 4 jalopies.
There was a brown Maserati Quattroporte, a screaming chicken Pontiac, and a BMW 635csi that I still covet. Everything else was vanilla.
Carroll Shelby and Ed Roth lived in my town. I never saw them but I’m going to go with whatever they were driving.
Neighbor had a Maserati 3200 GT. Growing up in a tourist region, I had a variety of interesting cars around, including 911s, BMW 8 series, S class (W126) and SL (R129), a Matra Ranchero in brown (…), and a late 80s/ early 90s Trans-Am made a big impression (buttons on the stereo wheel!).
Highlight though was a Ferrari F40 brought once a month or so to Church on Sundays.
I’d see an early 1990s new white GMC Typhoon while walking to middle school. What a looker!
The house next door actually had a pretty good run of cool cars. The first owner drove a work van, but had an old Mustang convertible tucked away in the garage.
He sold it to a couple who had his and hers Coupe DeVilles, silver and maroon. Their eldest daughter got a powder-blue Firebird when she turned sixteen.
The next owners installed carpet in the garage (!) so as not to befoul the tires of a first-gen RX7 and a C4 Corvette with mere concrete. The RX7 was wrecked, sadly, and replaced by an early FWD Celica GT.
They sold the place to a redneck couple with a GMC pickup and a blue C3 Corvette, neither of which was running very often. They got foreclosed on, and I don’t know who moved in after that, because I was away in college.
Lincoln Mark V. It was that family’s “weekend car” so very rarely got driven, but I was friends with the youngest son so I got to see it in their garage. Early burglar alarm that would go off easily.
Yeah… My neighborhood did not have nice cars. The coolest was probably a beautifully restored old F100, but I didn’t like it as a kid. Beyond that there was a fox body mustang convertible but it was the 4 cylinder… I passed a 2002 Camaro on my way to school every day, but while I appreciated it was pretty I still didn’t love it. Ooh I know! It was not my neighborhood, but down the street from a buddy in high school there was a guy who collected corvairs and mx-3s. Weird combination for sure but all 3 of his kids drove one or the other to school and I did love those. Though as a dumb kid I thought the 1.8 V6 was weird and dumb haha
Arguably the coolest car in the neighborhood would be/should have been my dads collection of obscure cars, 3 MGAs, an MG TD, an MG Magnette ZB, 2 Nash Metropolitans, a Kaiser Henry J, and an Allard L-type.
But my tastes changed constantly as a kid… having access to those cars was cool, but there was always something else to pique my interest…
My neighbor who had a 49 Cadillac coupe with original paint and interior, or his factory 1964 Pontiac GTO 4spd Tri-power convertible? Always thought those were cool.
My parents friend in the next town over with 30+ cars in his “A-Z Collection”… seriously… his collection was one vehicle that manufactures name started with each letter of the alphabet, Austin – yes, Lloyd – yes, Tatra – yep, ZAZ Zaporozhets – that too…
Later in life I developed an unhealthy obsession with the Grey Market imported E24 BMW M635CSi that lived down the street… along with, weirdly, a Yellow Mercury Capri convertible (or its Geo cousin, I can’t remember)…. I was also obsessed with my friends mom’s red on red first gen Dodge Turbo Caravan with a 5spd…
Then after a few years of having my license I thought the absolute coolest car in the neighborhood was my Grey Market imported E23 BMW 745i… no one could beat how cool that was in my eyes because it was so rare… until one day I had a note left on it, turns out someone 2 blocks away had one sitting in his driveway broken for years.
But… if I have to choose now… I’d go back to what I grew up on, and say my dad’s collection is still the coolest group of cars in my childhood neighborhood, and he still owns all of them 40+ years later.
Between when I was about 5 and 10 an elderly chap a few hundred yards away on the way to school had a Bristol 403. Later on, when I was about 15, another house further on the way (secondary school) had a Panhard Dyna Z mouldering on the front drive which sadly he cut up and scrapped. He also had a later Panhard (PL17? or 24?) but that, whilst pretty cool, looked almost normal.
I can fairly confidently say it was my dad’s cars.
e30 325e
e28 535is 5-speed
SC400
e36 M3 sedan 5-speed
e39 540i 6-speed
e46 M3 6-speed
my uncle’s E34 and W124 is what started it all for me
90s downtown albany, ny. two coolest cars on my block? SVT Cobra Mach 1 and a W140 S600
V12s are always cool
When I was in middle school (1959), one of my friends lived in the same apartment building with a family that had just bought a new Bugeye Sprite, I was very impressed and occasionally stood next to it, looking at it. Later, I bought a used
Bugeye and it was the most fun I ever had in a car. It was not very reliable, but teenagers are resilient and most are not hurt too much by being forced to take unplanned walks.
The guy down the street, a bank manager, owned an MG TF. That was probably the coolest in my eyes, although the kid across the street had a small business involving the restoration and resale of ’67 Camaro Indy Pace Car Specials, and they were also pretty damned cool. He also had a ’26 Model T at one point and a big ol’ Franklin sedan that might have won the crown had he gotten it put together while I still lived on the street.
I can’t believe that this will genuinely be my answer.
My dad’s ’96 Dodge Stratus.
Yeah, you might not think that’s possible. But I grew up in a pretty rough neighborhood (I’m mostly focusing on my street and the few adjacent) and all of the cars around us were ratted out GM garbage for the most part. I don’t even recall and old Hondas about. Just malaise era stuff on it’s last legs. Cavaliers, etc. We didn’t even have interesting crap hanging around.
This was also a small city with no luxury dealerships of any kind within a half hour drive, so the area was dominated by fairly basic cars.
So as much as my family ended up hating the Stratus for being unreliable junk, when my Dad brought it home, it was genuinely the nicest car we had ever had up to that point, and genuinely the coolest looking thing on the block. And it was purple!
A purple Stratus! Perfect Autopian reply.
I love the breadth of experiences here.
I’ve spent a ton of words beating up on the Stratus here, but this question actually managed to put that car in a good light in my mind for a moment, lol.
Honestly, as dismissive as I was of it, the 05 Stratus sxt (I think?) my daughter got for college proved to be pretty damn durable. Through 5 years undergrad & 2 MAs, I’d get it for a week each year to do maintenance. I didn’t like working on it as I was into diesel Mercedes then, but it served quite well until she gave it to her foster brother at over 100k. So I do respect them a bit
Well, my maternal grandfather restored Model T’s & A’s, and always had something fairly modern & stout around: my aunt had a purple Charger with a 6pack in college.
But the day I heard the gods snorting, then flew out of the house to see my neighbor with a black Jaguar reving it to check the carbs was when the world changed. Closest I can come to verbalizing it is how I imagine a highly possessive Puma might snarl mixed with the screams of the sentient silk it was shredding
I don’t really recall there being much in the way of cool cars when I was young in my neighbourhood.
We lived out of town (where the big rust repairs were done for Project Cactus, and where the two utes were stored prior) on acreage, and so most people just had plain Hiluxes and Landcruisers.
For a while there we probably had the coolest vehicles, a red, manual E34 525i and an OKA all-terrain light truck.
As I was finishing high school a neighbour did have a VY Holden Clubsport, so that’s probably the answer, but for me it would have been the Holden SL/R 5000 Torana in red that was parked by a workshop on my school bus route in town.
Nothing looked as cool as that, with the flared arches, spoiler, big alloy drop-tank and graphics. I’m fairly sure it also had extra-wide Hotwire mag wheels too, just perfect!
Schoolbus yearning: that’ll imprint you!
(after quick search) yep: that would do it—in spades 🙂