When Was A Time You Used A Car For Something It’s Not Really Good At? Autopian Asks

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Many vehicles are designed with a specific goal in mind. Maybe it’s a pickup truck designed to be a tow beast, an economy car designed to be absurdly cheap, or a little lad of a city car meant to make city parking easier. Sure, you can make these cars do things outside of their mission, but they aren’t great for it. You won’t be setting lap records hustling a Toyota Tundra around a track just like a Porsche 911 isn’t going to be towing your Airstream. But some people make their vehicles do tasks they weren’t really built for all of the time. I want to know about that time you used a car for something it wasn’t built to excel at.

One of the greatest joys I get in life is doing something unexpected with an unlikely car. Most people take Jeeps and pickup trucks off-road, but one of my favorite off-roaders was my little 2012 Smart Fortwo. I started off-roading Smarts before it was cool and along the way, I learned these little cars are pretty darn good at it. I mean, you have no overhangs, a tiny wheelbase, and a narrow body. A Smart is basically a side-by-side that you can drive on an interstate. The cars are also so light that the thick plastic factory belly pans take some glancing blows before they break.

Sure, it’s unlikely that Smart’s engineers in Germany ever considered “Gambler 500” as a use case, but the little car, which was designed to be a sort of city supercar, is pretty fun in the sticks.

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Add a lift kit and all-terrains and you’ll get anywhere a person with a rear-wheel-drive pickup is going. Towing is also not a part of a Smart’s mission, but I’ve used my little car to fetch countless motorcycles all over the Midwest. Yes, U-Haul installed the hitch, too. The rental giant seems to think Smarts tow 2,000 pounds.

Of course, I never do anything normal with cars, so when my wife and I went on our belated honeymoon Route 66 road trip in February, we didn’t take one of my comfortable German cars. Instead, we hopped into her Scion iQ, a car only marginally better at being a car than a Smart Fortwo. We drove the car 4,000 miles in a little over a week and you know what? It was a great road trip companion. This was a car sold to city dwellers, not couples racing their way across America. Yet, aside from tiring road noise, the little car was fantastic. We even managed to average 30 mpg despite revving the piss out of that 1.3-liter engine and climbing the Rockies.

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Sheryl and I loved the first trip in the iQ so much that when we drove to a friend’s wedding over the weekend, we took the iQ for the ride. Sure, my new-to-me Volkswagen Phaeton would have been perfect for the trip, but it’s hard not to root for the little city car. I still have to write about the experience of taking the tiny car across America, but know that it was a blast.

Here’s where I toss you the microphone. When was a time you used a car for something it wasn’t really meant for? Do you make poor Geo Metros into rally cars or Chevy Suburbans into track cars?

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135 thoughts on “When Was A Time You Used A Car For Something It’s Not Really Good At? Autopian Asks”

  2. For legal reasons, I’m not going to answer your question. I just came here to say that your decision was clearly masochistic. If the only car I owned was a Scion iQ and I wanted to take a cross-country trip, I’d call Avis and get something suitable. I rented a Hyundai Kona last week for a 500 mile round trip drive and it was acceptable and got 40 mpg.

  4. I once moved 5 goats (a mama and her 4 babies) in the trunk of a dodge journey. Put a piece of cut up cattle panel to divide the back like a dog divider and they traveled in ac luxury.

    Also moved a bathtub and 30 bags of mulch in a Tesla model 3 at different times.

  5. “Add a lift kit and all-terrains and you’ll get anywhere a person with a rear-wheel-drive pickup is going.”

    I don’t think you understand how little you are saying for the Smart’s capability right now. I have never once driven a vehicle that is worse off-road than my 2wd pickup. This includes a slammed Honda Accord and a dump truck. Really, the time I most egregiously I missed a vehicle is the times I have attempted to off-road a 2wd pickup.

    I once flat towed an f150 with my Accord, which didn’t work hard at all. Honestly it would be a decent tow rig. I also load that thing to the absolute max on the regular, despite owning a pickup.

    I have a friend who used to tow a 16′ boat behind his ’71 Celica all the time. He also used to tow a 24′ ocean boat behind an XJ Cherokee.

    1. Weird, the last 2WD pickup I had (a 1997 Ford Ranger) did pretty darn good for something that didn’t have 4×4. One of my friends also gets really far in an old Toyota. But I reckon not all 2WD trucks are built the same.

      1. They aren’t all the same, and I think what matters most is cab and bed configuration.

        My 1995 f150 single cab long bed 2wd has extremely little weight on the driven wheels and extremely little traction, plus very heavy front wheels that sink in. Short beds and extended cabs both move weight closer to the rear axle and improve traction. Smaller pickups will also just always be better off-road than a fullsize.

        Of course that doesn’t explain why my Expedition with plenty of weight in the back also has dreadful rear wheel traction.

      2. I had a 97 Ranger 2wd, 5 speed, 2.3 or whatever the base engine was. It could not pull itself out of its own way off-road. It did have truck tires, but no knobby off road type of tread, I am sure that didn’t help. Loved that truck though.

  6. I towed a popup camper through the Adirondacks with a Hyundai Ioniq hybrid last year, and also once simultaneously moved a lawnmower and 4 scrap air conditioning units in a Mustang

  7. The days when my friends and I used to take the family’s dark metallic brown Plymouth Satellite station wagon out on Friday nights to try and pick up girls. Sure, you could load in a bunch, but sadly it was not an effective lure. Or maybe it was just the driver.

  8. I once crammed 12 27″ monitors, 6 desktop computers, a server, a MFP printer, a 11×17 format printer, switch, firewall, APs, 2 toolbags, network cables, all the mice and keyboards, an apple TV, and a cart into a 2008 civic coupe.

  9. Not me, but I have a friend who used his Supra Turbo to tow his jetski (this was back in the late 90’s). Weird sight since the Supra had the big wing, but it worked. Sadly he sold the car; should have held on to it, given the current prices.

  10. I drove a Dodge Challenger into the mountains east of Albuquerque around 15 years ago. Much of this driving was on poorly maintained gravel or dirt roads, and I also drove off road a few times. To make things worse, it started snowing heavily when I was up there, and I had to drive through 8+ inches of unplowed snow at times. The car handled all of this well, although it did bottom out frequently. Somehow I managed to avoid getting stuck in the snow, although I had numerous close calls. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I got some odd looks from other vehicles on the road at the time, most of which were Jeeps or modified pickups or SUVs.

    In hindsight, taking the Challenger into the mountains was probably a bad idea, particularly considering it was 15 degrees that day and I didn’t even bring a winter coat with me. While a Challenger was a poor choice for that drive, that particular Challenger was a slightly better choice as it was a rental and I had paid extra for the damage waiver. I don’t think I caused any damage to the car, but it did need a hell of a car wash when I returned it.

    1. I replaced the exhaust on a Camaro twice due to some roads in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee that it probably wasn’t supposed to be on. And that also lacked bridges over certain rocky streams. Have a used CVPI with knobby all terrains on it now that seems to do a lot better with that stuff

  11. My first car (63 Galaxy 500) was my man’s boudoir. Living at home in high school, I did all my entertaining in that car. Later, my 95 Yukon GT was a mobile bar. I would drop the tailgate, set up an ice chest, blender, mixers and commence to making daiquiris. Vehicles have always been a supplement to my lifestyle.

  12. The Saturn Vue I just sold got used nearly all the time for things it was not good at.

    (Honestly it was OK at everything it did)

    It had ok-ish ground clearance but was 2wd with street tires. But I still took it through the woods (literally) on a seasonal road in the wildes of Michigan. We barely made it (but made it we did). Ruts be damned. So much for that short cut.

    I hauled my two boys, 20 12″ concrete paving blocks, 4 60 lb bags of stone, a walk-behind vibratory tamper, wheel burrow, plus shovels, sledge hammer, and a 6 pack 20 miles home from Lowes. I think this is when I broke the bump-stop off the rear suspension. But we got er done.

    Sure it has a class 2 hitch, Put the whole family in it, our gear, and towed a 17′ boat across the state. Was probably at the limit on towing and weight. But handled it like a champ.

    How about if you lay all the seats down (including the passenger front) Do you think you can fit an entire pallet of laminate flooring in it? Neither did the dudes at Home Depot. But we did it anyway. (I did keep it under 50mph for the 25 minute ride home). Maybe this is when the bump stop actually broke off?

    Pull shrubs out with a chain? check.
    Stump grinder towing? Had to find a pintle hitch but OK.
    Where do you put 3 doors when your family is in the car. On the roof rack of course.

    I should have bought a truck much sooner.

    1. Honorable mention. An entire pallet of cinder block (whole cube) into the back of an Astro Van (seats removed). Dude on the fork lift was like WTF, but thankfully I think he was a few beers deep and ultimately just did what I told him to do.

    2. Fun fact: in a 2003 Vue, if you fold all the seats down you can fit 2′ x 8′ plywood without interfering with the shifter *and* you can close the liftgate normally. The front passenger seat had a hard plastic back (instead of softer seat material) and was designed to be used as a desk, which definitely helped.

      On one trip I bought a half dozen sheets of plywood, had the nice folks at the store rip them in half lengthwise, then stacked them in the car with some composite decking on top and I forget how many bags of landscape stone in the free spaces. It was a dumb thing to do – the suspension was nearly bottomed out just sitting – but the Vue did not let me down. Subsequent trips were more sensible. 🙂

  14. I once pulled the seats out of the back of our Mazda MPV, put a massive blue tarp in it, and filled it with as much dirt as I could from the garden centre. Who needs a truck when you have an MPV?

    1. I regularly see someone shoving wood chips into the trunk of a Malibu and someone else filling garbage cans in the back of a mini van (old voyager I think). I’ve seen them both, multiple times. It’s awesome to see people using their cars at 10/10ths.

      1. Same for a Sienna. Completely renovated a main floor bathroom (demoed down to the studs), same for a basement (demoed to the cinder block walls), all materials old and new, including old and new bathtub, transported carefully in the back of a Sienna. Fall leaf drop off, loaded with wood chips, recycling center runs, dump runs. The interior still looks decent too thanks to use of 1/2″ plywood on floor and when needed interior sides along with a tarp.

  15. I moved apartments using a 328i convertible. With the top down, there’s plenty of room in the back seat for long items oriented vertically. I had bed frame, rolled up carpet, and workbench in there, with room for boxes in the trunk.

    The back seat of a convertible is basically a truck bed turned 90 degrees. Just don’t try going more than 25mph.

    1. Nice. I’ve done the same with my ’02 Mustang (coupe). They’re long enough that folding down the rear seats makes it possible if you drive with the trunk lid open.

  16. I drove the Z4 about this time last year *rimshot*

    Just after Christmas, I took the bike and saddlebags to go get coolant and two gallons of distilled water after finding a leak on Christmas Day

  19. My Honda Insight for a Costco run. I was about to call my spouse to bring the minivan but I put some stuff on the passenger seat and I was able to fit the big packs of toilet paper and paper towels.

  21. I took my E30 convertible with removable hard top on a canoe trip. Yes, I put the canoe on the roof and tied it down with rope from a dollar store

        1. When I learned how, there was a guy in my group who did it in a more or less stock ’65 Mustang convertible. He was always first in my mind.

  23. It’s always moving. I strapped a recliner to the roof of a Plymouth Aries once, and have hauled an astounding amount of stuff in my tiny hatchback. The twenty dollar U-Haul price doesn’t include mileage, and I am a cheap bastard.

  24. I flat towed (using a tow strap) a 1960 El Camino from Amarillo to OKC with a 1980 Ford Pinto hatchback. Actually, my Dad did the towing, and I rode in the ElCo and somehow didn’t rear end him, turning us both into a fireball.

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