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.

  • MaintenanceCosts I wish more vehicles in our market would be at or under 70" wide. Narrowness makes everything easier in the city.
  • El scotto They should be supping with a very, very long spoon.
  • El scotto [list=1][*]Please make an EV that's not butt-ugly. Not Jaguar gorgeous but Buick handsome will do.[/*][*] For all the golf cart dudes: A Tesla S in Plaid mode will be the fastest ride you'll ever take.[/*][*]We have actual EV owners posting on here. Just calmly stated facts and real world experience. This always seems to bring out those who would argue math.[/*][/list=1]For some people an EV will never do, too far out in the country, taking trips where an EV will need recharged, etc. If you own a home and can charge overnight an EV makes perfect sense. You're refueling while you're sleeping.My condo association is allowing owners to install chargers. You have to pay all of the owners of the parking spaces the new electric service will cross. Suggested fee is 100$ and the one getting a charger pays all the legal and filing fees. I held out for a bottle of 30 year old single malt.Perhaps high end apartments will feature reserved parking spaces with chargers in the future. Until then non home owners are relying on public charge and one of my neighbors is in IT and he charges at work. It's call a perk.I don't see company owned delivery vehicles that are EV's. The USPS and the smiley boxes should be the 1st to do this. Nor are any of our mega car dealerships doing this and but of course advertising this fact.I think a great many of the EV haters haven't came to the self-actualization that no one really cares what you drive. I can respect and appreciate what you drive but if I was pushed to answer, no I really don't care what you drive. Before everyone goes into umbrage over my last sentence, I still like cars. Especially yours.I have heated tiles in my bathroom and my kitchen. The two places you're most likely to be barefoot. An EV may fall into to the one less thing to mess with for many people.Macallan for those who were wondering.
  • EBFlex The way things look in the next 5-10 years no. There are no breakthroughs in battery technology coming, the charging infrastructure is essentially nonexistent, and the price of entry is still way too high.As soon as an EV can meet the bar set by ICE in range, refueling times, and price it will take off.
  • Jalop1991 Way to bury the lead. "Toyota to offer two EVs in the states"!
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