Question: What Car Is Most Favored By Murderers?

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

Back when I was looking for a cheap suspension-donor Lexus SC400, I had a couple of friends tell me to be careful when I went to go look at clapped-out Americanized Soarers with three-digit price tags: “All worn-out SC400s, in fact all worn-out Lexuses, are owned by murderers! You’ll see!” As it turned out, none of the cars I looked at had trunks full of quicklime, shovels, and duct tape… but that got me to thinking about the “murderer car” thing. Which car available today has the image of being owned by the scariest, manslaughteringest individuals? My answer, which I know to be the correct one, may be seen after the jump.

Yeah, the Toyota Echo. American car buyers were afraid of the Echo from the beginning, for good reason; it’s just a creepy-looking car! Toyota had to recycle the chassis of the Echo in the much-less-creepy Scion xA and xB.


Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Domestic Hearse Domestic Hearse on Aug 09, 2013

    When an old H platform GM rolls down your street, late at night, one taillamp smashed out, two individuals, inside with their seats leaned all the way back, tell me you don't have an involuntary shiver. There's no menace greater than a former granny-mobile, be it Buick, Olds or Pontiac, now in the service of violence and avarice. Any H survivors out on the road today are the equivalent of the drop gun; use it, lose it. Leave it for the cops to trace to a junkyard outside of Reno, where it's supposed to be rusting away, waiting for the crusher, but isn't. Instead, it's parked in the long-term upper deck parking lot at O'Hare, reeking of decomposing flesh, leaking gas, and stale cigarette smoke.

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    • Domestic Hearse Domestic Hearse on Aug 09, 2013

      @Corey Lewis O'Hare, easy. Long term lot only requires you pull up to the entry gate, push the button, take your ticket and park. It's a couple miles from the airport, so you train it in from the lot. Because of the distance from the airport, there is no security at entry gate, but there is an attendant when you drive out the exit. The perps park the car, get on the train, get off, hop in a cab or in an accomplice's car at arrivals. Or train it back into the city. It's a body dump location that's used at least once a year. At least, that makes the news and we, the public, hear about it.

  • Reino Reino on Aug 09, 2013

    Ford Bronco...duh.

  • Dartman EBFlex will soon be able to buy his preferred brand!
  • Mebgardner I owned 4 different Z cars beginning with a 1970 model. I could already row'em before buying the first one. They were light, fast, well powered, RWD, good suspenders, and I loved working on them myself when needed. Affordable and great styling, too. On the flip side, parts were expensive and mostly only available in a dealers parts dept. I could live with those same attributes today, but those days are gone long gone. Safety Regulations and Import Regulations, while good things, will not allow for these car attributes at the price point I bought them at.I think I will go shop a GT-R.
  • Lou_BC Honda plans on investing 15 billion CAD. It appears that the Ontario government and Federal government will provide tax breaks and infrastructure upgrades to the tune of 5 billion CAD. This will cover all manufacturing including a battery plant. Honda feels they'll save 20% on production costs having it all localized and in house.As @ Analoggrotto pointed out, another brilliant TTAC press release.
  • 28-Cars-Later "Its cautious approach, which, along with Toyota’s, was criticized for being too slow, is now proving prescient"A little off topic, but where are these critics today and why aren't they being shamed? Why are their lunkheaded comments being memory holed? 'Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.' -Orwell, 1984
  • Tane94 A CVT is not the kiss of death but Nissan erred in putting CVTs in vehicles that should have had conventional automatics. Glad to see the Murano is FINALLY being redesigned. Nostalgia is great but please drop the Z car -- its ultra-low sales volume does not merit continued production. Redirect the $$$ into small and midsize CUVs/SUVs.
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