In 2009, I bought a beater. I paid $650 for a 1981 Dodge Mirada that, upon first sight, just about everybody I knew disliked in some way. It was old, ugly, cheap. The interior was 1980 Chrysler quality control in one whorehouse red picture. The paint was shot, the vinyl top was torn, the rear taillight filler panels were beginning to deconstruct, and the dash was sticky…not like “spilled soda” sticky, but more like a chemical was starting to separate out from the padding sticky. The car was kind of gross, worn beyond hope, gutless…and I loved it. From the start, the plan for the Mirada was an all-out assault on senses, mainly my own. I wanted a car I could do whatever the hell I wanted to do, without reprecussions, without regrets. Thus was born the car that retroactively was named the SuperBeater. In the nearly four years I had the car, I had a ball with it. Burnouts, powerslides, jumps, off-roading fun, road trips, and more conversations about the car from strangers and friends alike more or less helped kick-start the job that has me at the computer writing right now. If the Mirada’s torn roof hadn’t leaked water in for years, turning the metal between the rear quarter window and the floor into rusty junk that was breaking up like a graham cracker, it would still be around today.
People are too quick to dismiss cars as junk. I’m guilty of it…the 1979 Camaro that my ex-wife left in my lap was a steaming pile of nope in my eyes and I couldn’t get rid of it fast enough, but in hindsight some body work, some scrubbing, and a transmission seal for the automatic and that straight-six rubber-nose car would’ve been a badass daily driver. I can think of many cars that I’ve looked at that I could’ve pulled the trigger on…one in my head was the 360-powered 1979 Chrysler Newport that nearly became a party car for a group of friends to drive from Fort Hood to wherever we wanted to go that weekend. $1,200 would’ve bought us one of the most frightening Chryslers we’d ever seen, but it’s 1970s stinkbug stance and slot mags would’ve been the start of some bitchin’ stories.
Pretty paint? Meh. Perfect engine bays? If you insist. But if you keep worrying about the perfection and aren’t enjoying the car as you can, what’s the point? So what if the interior’s still a bit of a mess and it’s in primer. Go take it out one night. Just drive it. That’ll refresh your desire to finish it up if you insist. Or it’ll just make your week. Either way, it’s worth the time.
Why do people refer to these as beaters, other than as click bait?
When compared to built show cars, perfect restorations and those whose noses are turned up towards the sun, any car that doesn’t have perfect paint, perfect interior and an engine that threatens to reverse the Earth’s rotation must be a beater. Would you call that a show car? What would you call it?
utterly love it! Soo resonates with what I think of my own car. XB 73 Aussie Falcon, hot 302, 4 speed, satin black paint. i’ll be the first to say its rough – but it stops people in their tracks. People want to photograph it, point it out to their friends, chicks dig it! I wish we could include pictures with these comments!
Superbeater is the perfect term. I’ve had more than a dozen of these over the years and wish I had almost all of them back.