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What is the most underrated overrated car?


Inspired by another post. “Overrated” is a term that’s thrown around so often these days that a lot of genuinely good cars catch youtube and reddit flak from people who haven’t ever sat in them let alone driven them. So, in your opinion, what cars are so hated for being “overrated” that they’re now underrated?

I’ll start with the GTR (I can only speak for the R35 but I imagine this is the case for most other GTRs); forget the speed, the handling, everything. The launch in an R35 GTR is simply unlike anything that has ever had four tires. The sheer force that the thing squishes you against the seats felt as close as I would ever get to being in a space shuttle launch. It is a technological marvel and the pinnacle of Japanese engineering that has rather unfortunately been smeared by everyone calling it an old piece of crap, never having even experienced one themselves.

The A80 Supra also comes to mind, the automatics in particular. It’s a twin turbo six cylinder coupe, that alone makes it a special, and the engine has infinite torque once the boost kicks in at around 2200rpm. The ride is plush (“adequate” by today’s standards imo) and with the automatic I can absolutely imagine comfortably driving this thing across the autobahn at a steady 150mph for miles upon miles.

I’ll finish this list with the Alfa 4C. While I’ve only ever briefly driven this car, it was the most feline (for the lack of a better word to describe it) car I have ever driven. Unbelievably light on its feet and agile beyond human comprehension. It’s the first Alfa Romeo that *truly* drives like an Alfa should since the 105 series. A $70k price tag for a four cylinder turbo with a crap interior that’s impossible to live with is difficult to understand until you drive one on an empty b road.

by FizzilessChampagne

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7 Comments

  2. Slight_Ad_1474

    i had always been skeptical of the R35 GTR launch cause I was always saying “it can’t be THAT strong”. and then i met someone that had one, and rode with him one day. holy. shit. i know electrics are quicker, and that’s true. a plaid put me in my seat harder. but the GTR was a different animal. i swear to god the noise made it faster, and putting into account, aside from some minor interior and exterior changes, the platform hasn’t been touched since its release in 2008. that type of launch was possible 14 YEARS AGO. i cannot imagine what reviewers were thinking when they hit the gas.

  3. preludehaver

    Corvettes. Feel like they hardly get acknowledged or even mentioned outside of corvette-specific communities, and even when it is it’s being compared to cars like the Mustang and Camaro despite being in a completely different class

  6. Potato-god1

    If you want any underrated car 1971 Mach one

  7. axelguntherc

    One I think about a lot is the STI (especially the bugeye, blobeye, and hawkeye). For recent generations this has often been a “car guy” “awakening” for a lot of kids and consequently gets insane hype, whether in cafeteria conversations, mall parking lots, or more often endless tiktok “rally” edits to MGMT songs or eurobeats. I’m barely into my twenties but I remember in middle school and highschool this was basically the car we all aspired to own, not unlike kids in the last five or so years with supras, GTRs, and 911 GT3s  

     After the shock of the STI’s cancellation wore off it seemed like the hype died down a lot, and recent popular culture developments like Donut media’s WRX fiasco and the unpopular design choices on the new models pretty much leveled the pedestal so many youths had set the car upon in the previous couple of decades.

      All that said, the cars really did accomplish a lot, offering an affordable option that really could run with the best of them while staying simple, reliable, and easier to modify than what one might believe today.   

     I have had a few chances to drive an 03 WRX wagon and it’s a wonderful car to drive, the drive train clawing you out of corners and rocketing you forward on straightaways. I don’t think I’ve been more thrilled by a car than hurdling down a logging road made of frozen mud and ice well before dawn in the peak of winter, hearing the whistling, hissing, and screaming of the machine at ten tenths for the first time around six years ago (it was probably irresponsible to bring me along as a passenger, but I will be forever grateful).

      They’re far from perfect, and today an older model is going to be even rougher than when it was new, but I think that goes for all cars – I drive a DSM, I know what an unreliable, beautiful, piece of shit looks like.

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