#CollectorCars

Long before Opel became a donor for the badge-engineered Cadillac Catera and Buick Regal, the then GM-owned company shifted its own cars on North American soil. Today’s Rare Ride is a very early example of such a North American offering: It’s a two-door Rekord sedan from 1960.

Today’s Rare Ride has brown paint, a tweedy tan interior, and super rad 1980s Italian design. Think you can control your Impulses?

Okay, no more puns.

Saab was always a fan of the number nine, and it proved its dedication to the special digit by using two nines for their pre-900 era compact executive car.

Let’s take a look at a little blue Saab 99.

The occasionally sane group of people known as Car Twitter elevated the new Suzuki Jimny to superstar status recently, as soon as it debuted in its home market of Japan. Immediately, it received the Forbidden Fruit Award, followed by the Why Can’t We Have blue ribbon. It’s not coming here, though, and that’s really all there is to it.

But don’t lose hope, because today we take a look at a couple examples of the old Suzuki Jimny — which you can buy in America right now.

Imagine you’re an American auto executive in the 1980s, looking on in desperation as all the youthful and wealthy customers head almost solely to BMW showrooms for their sports-oriented sedans and coupes.

Now imagine you work at Ford, and you’ve decided to do something about it. By the way, you’re Bob Lutz right now.

It’s Merkur time.

Today’s Rare Ride is what happens when you take the generally British idea of a shooting brake and combine it with some designers in Michigan who had big ideas.

It’s the 1985 Trans Am Kammback Concept. It’s real, and it is spectacular.

Rare Rides has featured a couple of Peugeot vehicles before, like this 106 from Canada or this 405 from The America. But both of those were sporty cars from the Nineties. Today we have a look at a Peugeot from the Seventies which is most definitely not sporty.

It’s a stunning 504 with a diesel engine, from 1975.

Today’s Rare Ride fits squarely in the I Didn’t Know About This file. It’s a military-grade Volvo from the 1950s, which the company transformed into a civilian vehicle nearly three decades later.

Presenting the C202 Laplander.

What do you get when you combine the sporty personality of Porsche with all the comfort and luxury of a Mercedes-Benz sedan?

The answer is this E500.

A two-seat roadster produced by a short-lived Michigan company, the Kaiser Darrin was a case of grand aspiration meeting with minimal success.

Our recent Rare Rides entry on the Bugatti EB110 quickly sussed out a couple of mid-90s competitors in the comments section. Today, we’ll visit the trio and pick one to take home.

An entrant each from France, England, and Italy; all of them failures in their own right. Which big money flop will it be?

Not just any regular old Achieva, the SCX was a cut above its siblings. In adding actual performance to the SCX trim, the Oldsmobile brand had one last hurrah with a performance coupe.

And someone’s taken care not to drive this one much at all.

Long before Bugatti released the record breaking Veyron, it produced a slightly less famous supercar. It’s the angular two-door which was simultaneously the beginning and end of an era in Bugatti’s history.

It’s the EB110, from 1993.

The Rare Rides series has explored once before what happens when a Japanese manufacturer designs a modern car with retro appeal, when we covered the little-known Toyota Origin. Today we take a look at something else in the new-but-retro category. It’s a Nissan Pao, from 1990.

Just two Subaru models have graced these Rare Rides pages in times past. The first was a very beige Desert Fox edition of the midsize GL wagon, and the second was a clean example of the very first car Subaru ever offered in the United States: the tiny 360.

Today we combine the characteristics of both of these prior Rare Rides and take a look at an Eighties hatchback, one which represented the smallest North American offering of the time. It’ll Justy take a moment (ugh).