I had never seen one of these before until I moved out west in the mid-90s. I  see one from time to time.

As someone who owns a 1G Mazdaspeed6, the 2G Mazda6 looked great when it came out but I don’t think it has aged well. It looks bloated, and it was clearly trying a bit too hard in the segment dominated by Accords. It only looks good in full-tilt form, and I think the transition period away from Ford left them with…

I would add the original SRX V8 to this. Those are quite hard to come across. I thought the step down in size on the 2G one was a bad idea, but clearly I was wrong. I still like the size of the 1G SRX better.

Ya, these are still quite common. Far better looking than its Grand Am platform brother.

Not that flat. It had 2 generations, and was one of the prettiest cars on the road at the time. I think the 1G Aurora was prettier than the 2G.

It may be my area, but these are pretty common.

Uh, wow. I never knew such a thing was made. I see gasser Aspens all the time though.

The 03-04 M45 beats the crap out of a Town Car.

Not sure if these are forgotten so much as just less visible due to time passing.

Ooh, good one. Ya these are really rare.

The absolute final crop of Pontiac rebadges are extremely forgettable:

G3 (Aveo rebadge)

G5 coupe (Cobalt rebadge)

Torrent (1G Equinox rebadge)

GM reverted to major 80s-style badge engineering for these 3. The Torrent was the most different-looking of the 3 though. The G6 wasn’t bad (had a 4-door one as a rental once) and…

The reason the road trip idea and the resulting pics don’t quite work is because the Continental simply isn’t a road trip type of vehicle. Not if your road trip means reclining in the rear seats, shutting the window shades, and sleeping away a few hundred miles. Not that a GT can’t be using for tripping, but that’s…

“Spoiled little shit.”

OK, nearly everything you listed has nothing to do with the engine, and this was far from the only car with the oil filter in a bad place.

The only consistent issues with the 2.8/3.1 were heater core failure and I think a water pump issue. Otherwise, it’s a simple, reliable runner.

I also love the look of the sporty Berettas, even the GT with the cross-lace wheels. The Berreta also had all those different performance versions: The Indy, the GTU, the GTZ, the Z26, and the GT.

The top-end Sunbirds were really rare cars even back then. I’ve only ever seen a few totally outfitted ones, but those were sharp too.

I agree, I loved how these look and still do. Ya, they weren’t great drivers, but then, what 80s cars were compared to literally anything from the last 20 years?

HA! I’ve been eyeing this one on AT for a little while. I used to own an 87 Z24 and loved the heck out of that boisterously loud but slow and kinda sloppy thing. I’d totally love to have a cherry one as a car to rock every now and then, but for me, not the convertible model. Otherwise, a nice, cheap-to-fix oldie to…

HA! I was taking another look at this one the other day. This one’s been on AT for a while. I actually would prefer the normal hardtop car, but as a former V6 Z24 owner, I can’t turn down a well-kept 2.8 EFI-powered oldie.