We recently returned from a family vacation in Mexico. While it was not ideal for car spotting I did manage to take a in flavor of the automotive market. My son and I managed to take a wrong turn after exiting the Tulum ruins site which resulted in us almost missing our ride back to the hotel but did allow for significantly more car spotting opportunities than expected.
One of the first vehicles one sees when arriving via an airplane is the large number of buses and passenger vans ferrying tourists to their resorts. This Toyota HiAce van is a very popular choice in the van category.
At least in the Cancun/Riviera Maya area we stayed there were very few older cars with the exception of a handful of air cooled Volkswagen Beetles. These are prized classics in Mexico.
A more typical private vehicle is a small sedan or hatchback like this Volkswagen Polo.
Size wise it looks rather like a Golf from a few generations back.
Pint size SUVs are popular as well.
This is one is a Volkswagen Crossfox. The matching rear mounted spare is a nice touch.
When I think Beat as a model name I immediately think of the Kei class Honda Beat but in Mexico it is the Chevrolet Beat.
This one appears to a brand new one destined to start life as a rental car.
The Cavalier name is gone from the current US/Canada Chevrolet line up but it lives on in Mexico.
A little older is this thinly disguised Opel wearing Chevrolet Corsa badges.
Quite a bit of badge engineering on display as this Dodge Attitude (Mitsubishi Mirage) shows. The previous generation Attitude was a Hyundai.
I was happy to spot a few Nissan Tsurus (B13 Sentra) which are popular as taxis.
I sure wish we could get a genuinely small pickup truck like this Fiat based RAM 700.
This similar in concept Ford looks to capable of handling a decent load.
There was plenty of small displacement two wheeled transportation on display as well. This Suzuki Thunder 125 had vaguely classic Universal Japanese Motorcycle look to it. It is still sporting drum brakes at both ends like my old Honda Nighthawk.
This Italika WS 150 is sold as an all terrain moped with 149.6cc engine and a top speed of 90km/h. Plenty of Mexicans ride these on the highway next to large buses and trucks often two up.
These Mercedes powered buses transport tourists to local theme parks. A more familiar sight lurks behind it.
This late model Dodge had stickers indicating it was on a trip from Argentina to Alaska. The couple’s photos on http://lascordobas.com/ looked fantastic. I was shocked when my wife indicated some interest in doing a similar trip in a few years.
The Chinese are making inroads into the Mexican market with one example being this BAIC D20 sedan. The styling apes the Mercedes B-class but surprisingly these are based on the Smart Forfour platform instead. The wheels appear a tab undersized from this angle to my eyes.
Another Chinese product is this FAW Jiabao V52 van.
The Ford Figo is a size smaller than we would see in a Canadian or American Ford sedan. The Figo is based off the European European Ford Fiesta hatchback and manufactured by Ford of India. This example is second generation Figo which is globally sold with either a 1.2L gas or 1.5L diesel engine.
Since the world is SUV crazy here is a Ford EcoSport.
While we got a Chevrolet Aveo (Daewoo) rebadged as a Suzuki Swift while Mexico got the real thing.
Not a bad looking little hatchback.
This Ford based amoured vehicle is a little different my local flavor.
A very solid looking Volkswagen van. I did not see any of the later ones with the awkward looking radiator placed up front which were common when the wife and I visited this area almost twenty years ago on our honeymoon.
The massive rear wing along with the large and modern wheels are not to my taste but this Bug looks to be well cared for.
A Mexican hippy van?
A pair of Beetle to close out. I hope you enjoyed a little tour of some of the Mexican automotive landscape.
Related: The CCs of Tulum, Mexico in 2012
Why am I not surprised with the abundance of vintage VW Beetles (Type 1s for you sticklers) over there in Mexico? Apparently, these things were referred to as “Ombligos”. That roughly translates to “belly button” because everyone has one!
Not sure I would call it an abundance but they are out there. They were much more common when we went 19 years ago.
I was disappointed to see a total of one VW T1 in Tijuana last year, and no T2s.
I had a feeling that many older cars there had been bought used in the US.
Nice, we spent a week just north of Tulum a few years ago. Did you visit the cenotes?
Not the PN style strenuous and adventerous vacation, but sometimes you just want to swim, lie around, and climb a mayan pyramid 🙂
We did years ago but not any big ones this time around. We took the kids to the outdoor water park XelHa. https://www.xelha.com/ There are some cenotes there as well as mangroves. It rained was a little cold on the day we went but we still had fun. We also visited the Tulum ruins.
We’ve had that kind of vacation too. 🙂
Been to the area twice. The first time did tun into quite an adventure, as hurricane Wilma (a monster) hurricane hit. We were working our way down the coast in a rental car, and had to go inland, which was actually a nice place to explore too. But getting beck home, with the airport at Cancun destroyed, was an interesting challenge.
The second time we just rented a house near Tulum for a week and invited my three kids and their SOs along. That was as low-key as it gets. 🙂
Mexico seems to have a much wider variety of cars than the US. Pretty much all you see in the US are generic crossovers.
Mexico allows cars that meet either American or European design regulations, which opens them up to a larger variety of vehicles.
That purple-highlighted VW van isn’t hippy; it’s just got a wide undercarriage.
Nice photos David. Glad you enjoyed a break from the Alberta cold.
It’s not hard to see the struggle that car makers have creating unique and attractively designed small cars given the constraints of homogenized corporate global car designs, and how aerodynamics can create somewhat generic shapes. There are some pretty nondescript designs here, that could have been released by any company. The Dodge Attitude sure looks like a first gen Toyota Echo on steroids.
I’m in the market for another 2nd hand car at the moment. Don’t need a big four door saloon anymore so thought I’d find a compact 2 door coupe that’s not an out and out sports car.
Any out there? Nope. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Bugger all.
Instead are these insanely tiny ‘kia cars’ that somehow manage to hack four doors into their tiny bodies; and expect five adults to squeeze into their tiny interiors. No wonder people are buying SUVs’. They at least give a better impression of survivability in an accident.
Speaking of sports cars – I saw exactly one – a Nissan 350Z.
The Chevrolet Beat is interesting, it’s the previous model Spark with a facelift to make it look like the new one. There’s a sedan version too, and the new-style Spark is also sold in Mexico.
The classic air-cooled Bug was built for the Mexican market all the way up until 2003, so some (most?) of the ones you saw were probably from the 80’s and 90’s.
Some interesting finds. That Ram pickup with the camper is not exactly late model as it could be no newer than a 2009, so about 10-15 years old. But I understand, as I still think of my 97 Miata as a late model car. 🙂
And that one looks like one of the Cummins diesel versions. My brother in law the farmer has a couple of this generation and really likes them.
The last time my wife and I visited Mexico, we flew into Mazatlan and took a bus from the airport to the hotel. During the ride, my wife spotted a Ford Ka (a small Ford not sold in the US). She thought it was cute, and asked me what is was.
I innocently replied, “Oh, that’s a Ford Ka.”
She immediately punched me in the arm and said: “I know it’s a CAR, what kind of car is it?!”
Always heard these described as a K A with each letter sounded out. Never heard of them being called a “kah”
Word, not initials.
Jeez, Dav-o mate, never come to ‘Straya coz yer arm’d be black n’ blue – every bastard alive calls every car a “ka.” *[transl. below]
*Mr Skinner, I would consider it inadvisable for you to travel in Australia, given your spouses’ penchant for causing you a bodily injury (upon hearing what it seems she took to be a patronising remark vis a vis the Ford Ka), as the local population universally employs the pronunciation your spouse impugned. (As the untranslated quote shows, this should be unsurprising amongst a populace that is chronically unable to pronounce the name of their own country correctly but will insist, uninvited, on either shortening or lengthening your given name via an “o” or “y”).
Nice vehicular montage, David! Tomorrow I embark on my first trip to Mexico (Guanajuato & San Miguel), and I hope to stumble across a few automotive oddities absent from the rest of North America.
San Miguel de Allende is stunning. I loved it! There are some classics to spot – we drove past a Citation, for example, but it had sadly gone when I tried to find it again later.
I was down there last year and like you, was very observant of the local cars and trucks and found it very interesting. Thrift was the number one consideration it seemed. I had several rides in the HiAce Toyota Vans. I was amazed at the room and the amount of passengers they could shove in there in relative comfort. All were diesels and all were manuals, and got out of their own way very well despite running two AC units. They could get into tight spaces with ease. I’m sure with the cab over design it wouldn’t pass our crash tests, but a very interesting, well built and useful vehicle nonetheless.
Just a little correction: It’s BAIC, not BIAC.
Thanks for the correction. Updated.
Mexico used to have a law that basically required that if a car was to be sold there new, it had to be made there, so when I first went in 1999, there were lots of battered Aspens and volares and Mavericks and Aries and novas as that was what was made there, along with newer topazes and cieras and lebarons. There were some elderly AMC products too. I suppose if there are Chinese made cars then that must have changed. When I visited yucatan in 2016 we had a rental Jetta, which was superb, as it was a comfortable size, handled the roads and traffic well, had plenty of room for two plus luggage, and had a very solid feel to it. Then in 2017 we rented a Renault Logan to visit chichen itza, and it was. . I’m happy we didn’t need it to go more than to chichen itza and back and there was no doubt as to where Renault had cut costs and how they stamped it out cheaply. It was probably a better car than any really bottom scraping car had ever previously been but it was noticeably cheap and much less of a car than the Jetta.
The Logan is a Dacia, and badged as such elsewhere. It uses old Renault mechanicals and is very much built down to a price, including limiting any styling flourishes to cut down on manufacturing costs.
Doing very well in Europe, and they are remarkably cheap.
Mexico very, very quickly moved past the beetle. It was still popular when I first went in 1999 but rapidly vanished and was replaced by the tsuru. I think some people keep them as curiosities or for tourist display but Mexican cars tend to be small, inexpensive, functional, and practical and there doesn’t seem to be much if any of a collector car culture. Mexican cars tend to live hard and brief lives.
I was talking to a Mexican Tsuru-driving cabbie once, he told me tires generally make it 9 months, a set of struts, one year. Walking around a Mexican wal mart, in the auto section, the Tsuru-specific tire is readily available and advertised front and center. I got a huge kick out of my time down there, would love to come back.
Really interesting stuff here.
God knows why anyone would copy the Merc B-class, surely amongst the most awkward-looking modern cars out there, and compound the oddity by grafting on a trunk. A boil on a gargoyle.
I’ll confess to being quite distracted by the stunning photos of the Cordoba-seeking couple, and their journey. Seems there really is a caravan headed north after all. Actually, their site is a little confusing because it appears they’ve already got a Cordova in Alaska. Anyway, thanks for this post, and that link.
Ah, makes me miss Mexico! I got to travel to Puerto Vallarta for work three times, and as I car guy I was absolutely fascinated. In the area I was in (nights in the Hotel Norte area, days in the rural outskirts NW of the village of Ixtapa), the most common vehicles seemed to be spit between obsolete Nissan models (D21 and D22 Nissan trucks, B13 Tsurus) and used American SUVs and pickups. 2nd gen Explorers and ZJ Grand Cherokees seem to make up the largest portion, although 1st gen S10 Blazers, 1st gen Explorers, XJs are all present in large numbers. Tons of older F150s and Chevy and Dodge half tons. What I’ve been told is that a lot of folks that came up to the US for temporary work would use some of the money they made on the job to buy a used car in America, then drive back and either keep it or resell it with a nice profit. So not surprising that the mix of used vehicles basically correlates to the most popular American SUVs of the time. Looking around, it’s like outlaws of the C4C program!
Aside from the cars, I fell in love with the fresh seafood, especially the raw ceviches and aguachiles, and the home-style “comida corrida” hole in the wall lunch stalls: 60 pesos for the best tasting food I had on the whole trip!
Dodge Attitude? wouldn’t it make more sense if they called it Dodge Colt? since it’s based off the Mirage.