This is as predictable as the Swifts swallows returning to Capistrano: when gas prices zoom up, Geo Metros magically reappear, having been in hibernation since the last gas peak. Three young guys squeezed into a Metro? The fuel bill for their jacked up 4×4 diesel pickups must have be getting to them (diesel prices have been $5.50 or more out here on the Oregon coast).
Seriously; do some people stash away their Metros just for these occasions?
One US gallon diesel is 8.29 USD at a cheap pump station chain (OK) at today’s exchange rate in Denmark.
Apples and oranges of course, but still insanely expensive these days.
Diesel was 10,20 US Dollars per UD gallon in Berlin last week. Now due to government incentives it is slightly below 10 dollars.
And this post reminds me that my good friend Jakob was offering me his Suzuki Swift for free in 2015. In very nice condition too. And to think I declined…
Well, I have an even more frugal vehicle, seats two (one being a child below 50 pounds), has a human engine, chain driven RWD, top speed around 15 mph. I should write it up sometimes. It’s a 1999 Fahrrad Manufaktur CX100.
It’s a manual, too 24 speeds no less !
Use a calendar to clock the 0-60 time with 3 aboard.
With the price of gas so high, this will be drag racing in 2022.
I don’t have a problem with that.
Yes!!! Let’s hope they don’t have to go up any hills.
Ted Laternus and Tony Whitney were the Siskel and Ebert of Canadian car reviewers 30 years ago, on CBC. They were big fans then of the Swift. Impressed by the space utilization, and power output from such a small displacement. 7/8s of a tank rating from Tony. Full tank from Ted.
Those guys were great, loved the show. Thanks for the memories.
That YT channel has many individual Driver’s Seat road tests from the early 1990s. Plus, a few full episodes.
I am suddenly feeling quite smart (again) in my 15 year old Honda Fit. Yesterday I parked next to a Kia Soul, a vehicle that is larger/bulkier in every dimension. My Fit looked teeny. It would probably look otherwise parked next to one of these.
The inverse of this theory is true for Hummers also. They get stashed when gas goes up.
Both marketed by GM, so there must have been a corporate strategy back in the day.
Hard times flush the chumps. – Ulysses Everitt McGill
I drove a Geo Metro convert for a day when our daughter’s friend wanted to borrow our Ramcharger, it was a fun little car and decently competent imo, but I just don’t feel safe in a car that small and light, especially with so many bro-dozers and Suburbans running around now. You can’t repeal the laws of physics. CU once advised that you shouldn’t buy a car weighing less than 3300 lbs for safety reasons. It might be somewhat less these days with advances in body safety, but still…
Real simple answer there:
Get the bro-dozers off the road.
I’ve been fed up for quite awhile with all the drivers overcompensating to whatever it is they don’t want to admit to.
And just who are you to dictate to anyone else what they drive? I have no problem with anyone driving a huge truck or SUV if that’s what they want and really don’t care what the snowflakes want.
I have no problem with what they drive, it’s how they drive them. They are jacked up to intimidate and don’t even pretend that they are are not. Most could use a lesson in common courtesy too. Granted there are some exceptions, but they are the exception.
I don’t have a problem so much with what they drive, but how they drive them. The Billy Big Rig wannabes drive what they drive to look intimidating, and don’t pretend that they don’t. I drive commercial trucks and I drive a subcompact car to get to them. I have noticed an enormous difference in attitude from the bro-dozers depending on my ride. Speaking generally, they are not the most courteous and thoughtful drivers out there. I haven’t even gone into the ignorance of rolling coal, which I’ve only seen exhibited by the drivers of exactly one category of vehicles. ?
…large numbers of illegally bright lights deliberately aimed at other drivers’ eyes and used as weapons, too.
(but yeah, it’s all about glorious, marvellous, unfettered freedom of vehicular choice and stuff, fer sher.)
And just who are you to dictate to anyone else what they drive? I have no problem with anyone driving a huge truck or SUV if that’s what they want and really don’t care what the snowflakes want.
“Snowflakes” didn’t care about aftermarket tuning companies selling software to improve performance and economy in gas cars until the brodozers used the same software to tune their diesels to roll coal with and get eyes on the industry and nearly ruin it for the rest of us with modified EFI cars.
I had to jump through hoops making phone call after phone call with tech support to take an online course last year to retain my access to the $300 licensed software I had used responsibly for 10+ years, every single question was about diesel emissions of which has zero pertinence to me. That dictate that wasted my time was a direct result of their childish irresponsibility.
“Just a car guy
Posted April 16, 2022 at 8:37 PM
And just who are you to dictate to anyone else what they drive? I have no problem with anyone driving a huge truck or SUV if that’s what they want and really don’t care what the snowflakes want.”
My problem with them is they’re oversized, take up much more room on the road and in parking lots. Bumpers at shoulder level of someone in a car, dramatically increasing the risk of severe injury or death or just severe auto body damage. Lights way up in the air, never adjusted optically, blinding if stock and worse if aftermarket. The headlights are so high they have to use fog lights to see anything in the first 50 feet ahead of them. The “rolling coal” syndrome which is profoundly anti social and probably thousands of times the emissions of something typical for the year. The consumptness of them drives up gas and diesel prices, and all the other unstated costs of building a vehicle.
I would have far less issues with them if they had bumpers and headlights at normal automotive levels, but that would diminish the appeal of them to the masculinity challenged who drive them to compensate.
Shall I go on further? I can.
Yeah, I avoid telling someone what they should or shouldn’t drive, because I don’t want others dictating what I drive. Soon enough, one way or another, most of the internal combustion engine cars will be made difficult to own and operate than for other than the wealthy.
I don’t expect an outright ban; what will push most of them off the road is when the auto companies have all mostly converted to electric vehicles, and tie their old pensions and other liabilities to their old combustion-engine manufacturing facilities, spinning them off to keep their new electric divisions unfettered by legacy costs. Eventually the tooling will be disposed of and parts will simply no longer be available. Combine that with decreasing availability of fuel and it’ll be a wink-wink non-ban that gets most folks out of their gas cars.
When you put it this way, it makes it sound almost like these kinds of choices we make affect everyone else.
We’re all thinking it…
My first ever $100+ fillup, which didn’t even fill the tank completely, stung a little bit. But a full tank lasts me 4-6 weeks, so I’ll survive.
Traded a gas guzzling pickup truck(toyota tundra) for a gas guzzling Lexus ES350 sedan. 24-25mpg putting around town is pretty good, considering the car is a V6 with the power of a V8. Clocking 80mph it does 30mpg, not too bad, but thing is you can buy a Prius that has similar room and that does like 50mpg, over double lol
Id buy the Prius if I had some hellacious long distance commute, but work is about 8 miles from my house.
8 miles would be an easy commute for a used Leaf and your terrific sounding ES350 would be perfect for trips. I saw a ES300 last weekend and told my fiance’ ‘see that car, it’s from the 90s and it looks brand new!’. Lexus is now on her short list for her next car.
In the right context these are excellent, but I always remember a girl I was friends with who nearly slashed one in half in a relatively low speed accident involving a light pole. Luckily
She was fine.
I haven’t noticed any increase in Metro/Swifts here, but we have at least two Think electric cars in town, which I hadn’t seen on the road for quite a while. But I’ve now seen both of them, more than once, in the past month.
Wow, there’s a car I hadn’t heard about in a long time (much less seen, particularly in northern Indiana where 150 of them were built in the last five months before the company went belly-up).
There’s even an upcoming cars and coffee event at the Studebaker Museum. Maybe someone will bring one of those Think cars since a local EV club will be featured.
That Metro made the trip from Arizona, too.
I routinely reserve the cheapest rental cars when traveling. In many years of flying into San Diego, I became accustomed to always getting a free upgrade – often several classes up.
That changed in 2001. When the rental agent handed me the keys to a Metro, I casually remarked that this was the 1st time ever in San Diego that I was actually getting the economy car I reserved.
The rental agent smirked and said the company had gotten a deal on a whole fleet of Metros and that from now on, they had plenty of cars for guys like me. I don’t think she actually used the word cheapskate, but her meaning was pretty clear.
Although rental car fleets continue getting older, I doubt any of these cockroaches still exist in rental fleets – thank goodness. I was OK with a Metro in places with slow moving heavy traffic, but these cars always scared me a bit during California freeway driving.
Always wanted the covertible version of the Metro!!
I’ve got one!! $2G’s
Any interest out there?
It’s in north Florida.
4 doors plus hatch, 3 cyl, auto
No dents, no rust.
Why not stash one away for hard times? I had one, a ’93 bought new for my girlfriend. Every option on the sheet except the automatic transmission.
For all the time we slag them as ‘penalty boxes’ they were damned good cars for what you paid for (I seem to remember a sticker of around $9000.00 back then), reliable, reasonably fun to drive up to their 85mph top speed (on the level), and a car I fondly remember. It went with the girlfriend when we broke up.
A very, very underrated car.
I had a 1995 Pontiac Firefly SE – 1.3 liter 4 cylinder model. Great little car for city driving and could haul a lot of things. Had it from 95-08 and I typically got 600 km per tank of gas in city driving only. I miss that car sometimes. But as others have said was a bit scary to drive on the highway with semi trucks around you.
Truckstop price for diesel on saturday here $1.34per litre I put 230 L in my work vehicle usually its more but only a short run that day 15 litre Cummins engine it is not economical
A friend drove a 600 mile round trip to buy a 3-cyl 5-spd used Metro sight unseen. (This was years ago, haven’t seen him in a while). Not sure how his math worked out for saving money on gas. He did have a long commute, so maybe it did work out.
I rode in the thing once. Normally I’m a car person vs. motorcycles, but I didn’t feel much safer in that thing than I feel piloting a motorcycle.
Small car stories…
A few yrs ago, a young mother & her daughter were heading out of state, the Daytona they had died. She found a Geo Metro, I gave it the once over, changed oil, got it ready. Good thing it was getting trailered to TX, the 3 cyl would not make it out of state.
The latest small car for me is relatively new, a 14 ‘Fiat 500 Sport. Was given to me as a project, actually running, but with a caveat: the deadly P1069 miss. But in the meantime, she runs decent, avoids feeding the Cherokee & a 2500 Ram on the 1 hr 1 way daily commute.
I remember those who had these tiny cars loved them beyond all reason .
I like small cars but never quite managed to drive / ride in one .
-Nate
I’m totally seeing dusty metros popping up here in the Boise/Treasure valley area. Cheap wheels when gas is really spendy? Sure! Why not.