I started autocrossing out at Bremerton Raceway in 2010. I had worked a race back in 1998 as a cone-shagger, a volunteer detail for the NJROTC unit I was attached to in high school, and what it entailed was doing wind sprints because an MR2 couldn’t hold a line for half a day, followed by Christmas in September for yours truly. Riding around in LT-1 powered Impalas, Mustangs that’d spin on a dime, a Shelby CSX-T and one of the first Mallett C5 Corvettes found anywhere at that point left me wanting to do more than straight-line drag racing. Problem…out of my entire history of cars I’ve owned, I can count maybe two cars total that would be fun at an autocross: the 1973 Comet GT that was a handful but could turn in and be throttle-steered at a moment’s notice, and the 2005 Mustang GT that performed flawlessly so long as you ignored the automatic transmission’s infuriating shift logic. What did I start out autocrossing? A 2006 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS…a front-drive, V8-powered, nose-heavy lesson in understeer and plow if there ever was one. I’m still amazed that car didn’t straight-line itself into a thicket of Scotch broom bushes. But there was one car that was even more out of place.

I watched it run many passes, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Picture an early Saturn SL2, the four-door sedan in Band-Aid beige, hubcaps and all. Now picture it with it’s four-banger beating the redline into submission before going so nose-low under braking that you were looking for a trail of plastic dust where the bumper cap was ground into submission. The driver beat that Saturn like it was his ex-wife’s car and he had some issues that still needed to be resolved, and he was turning times that Subarus, Evos, and whatever else was out there were actually nervous about. For him, a “don’t give a F!” driving style worked. If I tried that crap I’d be picking blackberry vines out of the wheels for a week.

So today’s question of the day: what’s the most out-of-place vehicle you’ve seen race, AND do well at? For inspiration, check out the video of Mr. Regular from Regular Car Reviews as he hot-laps a 1997 Buick LeSabre around a road course. This is the stripped-down, POV view, not the normal review. You’ll get to hear his excitement…and worry when he is told that the brake fluid is the same junk that came from the factory!