When I was very VERY young, I obviously thought the first car I was exposed to (my dad’s car) was cool… and that was a 1972 Ford Custom that looked something like this:
I remember riding my tricycle around it and thinking it was ‘better’ than many other cars because it had FOUR headlights (while other cars only had two) and it was also ‘better’ because it had taillights that were bigger than most other other cars I saw.
By the time I was 4 or 5 years old, I didn’t think it was a cool car anymore as other cars (such as the Camaro Z28 and the Porsche 928) caught my eye by then.
Now as an adult, style-wise, I think it’s interesting looking in the ‘throwback novelty’ sense.
But mechanically, I now know these were huge pieces of crap by modern standards and in some ways, even crap for their time. The OEM carb it came with was very crappy.
I recall that my dad often had to try starting the thing 3-10 times and until it was warmed up, it would stall frequently. Hell, even when warmed up, it would stall occasionally.
And from a performance perspective, my current Honda Fit is better in every way… way faster, way better handling, way better brakes and way better fuel economy… while also having vastly better emissions.