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Hemmings Motor News Blog

Hemmings Motor News has been around since 1954. We're proud of our heritage, but we're also more than the Hemmings full of classifieds that your father subscribed to. Aside from new editorial content every month in Hemmings, we have three monthly magazines: Hemmings Muscle Machines, Hemmings Classic Car and Hemmings Sports and Exotic Car.

While our editors traverse the country to find the best content for those magazines, we find other oddities related to the old-car hobby that we really had no place for - until now. With this blog, we're giving you a behind-the-scenes look at what we see and what we do during the course of putting out some of the finest automotive magazines you'll ever read.

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Open Diff: Is Any Car Universally Loved?

Posted January 27, 2021 12:00 AM by dstrohl
Pathfinder Tags: Exotics

De gustibus non est disputandum. In matters of taste, there can be no dispute. Or, if we're to translate it into gearhead speak, there's a driver for every seat.

Yet, as we take a stroll through the Internet, it seems as though the world around us has forgotten to say nothing at all if it can't say nothing nice. Everybody seems to channel their inner Jeremy Clarkson the moment they log on and figures the louder they denounce every vehicle they see, the greater the chance they'll be heard. No vehicle can escape their wrath. No engine or styling cue or interior passes scrutiny. No designer or executive or assembly line worker gets a pass.

I paint a pretty bleak picture, but it's pretty hard to find any make or model of automobile that hasn't generated reams of scorn, whether that scorn is tribalistic in nature, derived from decontextualization of the vehicle, or resulting from true disappointment.

I don't know, but I can't ever recall anybody saying anything bad about the BMW 2002. It seems to be a car that appears somewhere on everybody's bucket list. It handles. It exudes effortless coolness. It's neither over- or under-styled. If any movie villains drove one, I've never seen the flick.

Maybe somebody out there hates BMW 2002s with a passion and has good reason not to like them. If so, feel free to share your reasoning, but the point of this exercise isn't necessarily to discuss the 02 but to see if we can identify at least one vehicle in the century-plus history of automobiles without a legion of detractors. Give us your suggestions in the comments below.

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#1

Re: Open Diff: Is Any Car Universally Loved?

01/27/2021 12:10 AM

That beamer is one ugly car, and if you haven't heard anybody say that before, then you live in a cave...

Good luck finding somebody that hates this....

...or this...

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Re: Open Diff: Is Any Car Universally Loved?

01/28/2021 4:04 PM

Hard to beat either of those classics.

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Re: Open Diff: Is Any Car Universally Loved?

02/12/2021 1:02 AM

Well, you managed to find one, although hate is maybe too strong, just don't care for it... Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that nonsense. [Like a friend in my young days said (very non-PC) "A V8 muscle car is like a lady of the night - you want to try one, not own one".]

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Re: Open Diff: Is Any Car Universally Loved?

01/27/2021 7:20 PM

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Re: Open Diff: Is Any Car Universally Loved?

01/28/2021 3:56 PM

I loved the one I built in 1970, wish I still had it but then the third owner barbecued it by parking in long grass with hot extractors.

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Re: Open Diff: Is Any Car Universally Loved?

01/28/2021 5:46 PM

These dune buggies were a blast to drive around in, had one for a while...laid back ride for sure...reminded me of a Honda 50 I used to tool around on as a kid...basic transportation...

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Re: Open Diff: Is Any Car Universally Loved?

01/27/2021 7:26 PM

OK, not just anybody could buy this car, so it probably doesn't qualify.

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Re: Open Diff: Is Any Car Universally Loved?

01/28/2021 12:16 PM

How could you hate the love bug?

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Re: Open Diff: Is Any Car Universally Loved?

01/28/2021 2:08 PM

Ooh. Good one. A cousin to the Monkees dune buggy.

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Re: Open Diff: Is Any Car Universally Loved?

01/31/2021 3:45 PM

Open Diff: Is Any Car Universally Loved?

To be literal, I would have to say no.

There are many types of cars and many types of people. There are people who love sports cars, people who love SUVs, people who love classics, etc. But cars that are "loved" by some people are loved for characteristics that make them disliked by other groups of people.

We all have our own interests, likes, and dislikes, and, IMHO, no size fits all.

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Re: Open Diff: Is Any Car Universally Loved?

02/09/2021 1:41 PM

If we are talking "basic transportation", a few come to mind; the VW beetle, Citroen 2CV, Renault Dauphine, model T.

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