QOTD: What's Your Pick at the Cheap '80s Metal Buffet?

Imagine for a second you’re living in Canada in the mid-‘80s. The Edmonton Oilers have brought the Stanley Cup back to Canada for the first time since 1979, and it’ll stay in the Great White North until the next decade. A broad-chinned lawyer was just given a landslide victory to lead the country and the Tunagate scandal meant one could no longer enjoy tasty canned fish for supper.

That Detroit barge in the driveway is looking a bit haggard now, especially with the copious amounts of salt being dumped on the road every winter. Sure, we’re in the go-go ‘80s, but who wants to blow all that dough they’re charging for Hondas and Toyotas? A couple of new dealerships have set up shop in town, filled with cheap Eastern Bloc and Korean cars. But which one will you choose?

For half a dozen years in Canada (nearly the length of one average winter), Skoda foisted its wares upon the public. That’s right, above the 49th parallel, one could buy a new Skoda 120/130 fitted with a rear-mounted water-cooled engine and a sideways-opening front trunk. Displacing 1.3 liters, the four-door sedan used 55 Cold War horsepower to motivate its sub-2000-pound weight. Acceleration was not death-defying but surviving a front-on collision would be, as there was nothing but an empty trunk and a few pounds of Czechoslovakian metal to keep that roadside moose out of the passenger compartment.

To the Lada dealership then, where the Ruskies were peddling a 75 hp 1.5-liter Samara. Brittle interior plastics and t-square styling might send some customers scurrying, but real Canadians knew – from experience with that Niva across the showroom – that the mechanical bits were relatively solid. Available initially as either a 3- or 5-door hatch, this front-driver was advertised at $4,995 (about $9,600 in 2017 dollars). фантастика!

What about that funny little new dealership across the road? Hun … Hon … what? Hyundai? Well, let’s see what they’ve got. This rear-drive, 5-door Pony looks like a good fit. A 1.4-liter Mitsubishi-derived engine makes about 70 hp and is priced a few hundred dollars more than the Eastern Bloc machines. Fitted with windows and doors and not much else, its switch blanks are labelled, so you know what features you don’t have, ya cheapskate hoser. It’s at least a cheap way to roll in new wheels with a warranty. Plus, you’ll get to learn how to use a manual choke.

So what’s your choice? Will you write a cheque for a rear-engined Czech? Plop down some rubles on the Samara? Or saddle up with a Korean Pony?