Ask any of my friends I went to college with. I’m a former GEO Metro owner. Despite the feeling I was in a very small tin can, this car got me where I needed to be and usually with a little fun. Be it sitting at a stop light rocking the car back and forth like we would tip it, to crossing 10′ or so of mud my other 3 passengers thought we would surely get stuck in, or trying to climb dirt hills that only 4x4s could go up it never missed a beat. I even remember a time that all too late, Eric and I realized there was a 6″ drop from grass to parking lot with a granite curb. Darn Bangor Bestbuy and mall traffic! Stupid idea really to go between parking lots over nicely groomed lawns. Good thing the Metro contained a unibody with everything above the frame rail! What a great off roading car it could be with a little work. No, seriously.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be in a car that does not require the nightly feeding of squirrels. A car, that when one places an 8″ sub in the ‘trunk space’ you can fit something larger then a tissue. But when I read that someone successfully evaded the cops in their metro, I was shocked! I used to rev the engine at the light beside fancy cars and give the “lets race look” but never did I think I had a chance! Usually passenger and I would rock forward and back in the “lets help this thing up the hill” manner and give said fancy car drivers a good laugh.
I found a photo of ye olde metro for the slide of one of my 3d art projects where with carefully scaled foam kayak, I made my car out to be a truck and drove it around for several days. OMG, I had forgotten the deer ‘blood’ on the crash bar. Good times. And Dave and Eric, if you still have the footage of the metro tackling the hill in front of 16 york, hook me up!
I LOVE IT!!!! I always find myself watching “Cops” and rooting for the “bad” guys to get away. The best part was that they did it in a Metro!
Seriously though… I totally agree that having a nice, cheap, rugged car is the way to go! For me it’s an equasion… Most number of miles driven for fewest number of dollars spent.
Man, how would you like to be that cop. You’d be in line at the bank or something and some little old lady would say something like “Oh dearie, didn’t I see you on the news the other night?” and somebody else would say “Yeah, they’re the one that got outrun by a Metro!” and stifled laughter would ensue.
Seriously, when you think of “cars that would outrun the cops”, a Metro is somewhere near the bottom of the list most days. The only things worse that I could think of would be a Yugo or an old Ford Fiesta. (Link included for anyone who might think that I was referring to the Festiva, although I doubt either one could outrun much more than a turtle.)