[00:01] enthusiasts are the most hypocritical and possible to please group of Yes, I said it. We beg automakers for specific cars. We start petitions. We when the automaker actually spends billions of their own dollars to build
[00:16] the exact same thing we asked for, well, we don't buy it. We complain that it that it's $300 too expensive or the steering feel isn't exactly like a 1993 Miata. So, the car dies a miserable, unprofitable death. And then, 10 years
[00:31] later, we wake up. We realize that the current market of gray, shapeless, touchscreen-infested crossovers is not what we like. And suddenly, we realize what we lost. We flood auction sites and Facebook Marketplace aggressively
[00:44] overpaying for the exact same car we actively mocked a decade ago. It's the circle of the automotive life. And today, we are taking a look at the US market's greatest delayed reactions. These are the cars that everybody
[00:56] absolutely hated when they were brand new. But suddenly, everybody wants to buy them used. And let's start with the Pontiac GTO. Yes, let's rewind to the early 2000. Retro fever was sweeping the nation. Ford had just shown the S197
[01:10] Mustang concept, which looked exactly like a 1969 Mustang that had been to the gym. Chrysler was working on the new Dodge Challenger. Everyone wanted old-school muscle with new-school reliability. Enter Pontiac. Enter Bob
[01:24] Lutz, the legendary car executive, looked over a GM Australian division, Holden, and saw the Monaro, a rear-wheel-drive two-door coupe with a rear-wheel-drive two-door coupe with a Corvette-derived LS1 V8. Lutz thought,
[01:36] "Brilliant. We slap a Pontiac badge on that bad boy, bring it to America, and call it a GTO, brother." It was the revival of the ultimate muscle car nameplate. And how did the American car enthusiast react? They threw a massive,
[01:49] collective temper tantrum. Why? Because it didn't look like a 1964 GTO. I I that like a Chevy Cavalier that had an allergic reaction to a bee sting. It looked like an enlarged Grand Am. It was smooth. It was understated and in an era
[02:06] hubcaps on everything, it was completely invisible. Enthusiasts complained that complained that it didn't have hood scoops. So, Pontiac awkwardly glued these things on on the 2005 model. It looked so good. They complained it
[02:21] was too expensive. The car was a sales disaster and died an unceremonious death in 2006. And here is the reality, guys. The '04 to '06 Pontiac GTO is secretly one of the greatest grand touring cars General Motors has ever produced. While
[02:35] they completely ignored the fact that this car had a world-class independent rear suspension, a nearly bulletproof Tremec T-56 6-speed manual transmission, and [clears throat] by 2005, the 400 horse LS2 V8 straight out of the
[02:49] Corvette. Oh, and it has some of the most comfortable supportive bucket seats ever bolted into a GM product. Hard stop. Today, enthusiasts are finally realizing the brilliance of the modern GTO. It is the ultimate sleeper.
[03:03] Yeah, 400 horses going at the rear wheels, but because it looks like a '90s commuter car, the cops don't even look twice at you at a stoplight. You can do just assume a local pizza delivery boy in a Pontiac Sunfire is having a bad
[03:16] day. The GTO, it wasn't a bad car. It was just ruined by the impossible expectations of its nameplate. And now, try to find a clean one, a manual LS2 GTO for cheap. You can't. And I've linked to all of these via Auto Tempest
[03:30] So, go check them out. And also, get entered for our next Ideal Collective giveaway for the Shelby and Supra and the $100,000 has ended. And well, the winners are being picked right now. But, we're coming back bigger and better and
[03:45] better. So, click the link in the pinned first comment because, like Rocky who won the GT-R, like Greg who won the 100K, you can sign up to be notified and get 100 free entries once it goes live. So, click the link down below, go put in
[03:58] your email, and I can't wait to show you what we have cooking. All right, back to the show. Okay, this one I have a soft spot for. I've owned two of them. In '03, Honda's marketing department was convinced they knew exactly what the
[04:10] youth wanted. They envisioned this 19-year-old extreme sports athlete named Chad or Brad chugging energy drinks, surfing all day, and needed a rugged utility carrying box to throw their muddy mountain bikes into. So, they got
[04:23] Element. It was essentially a literal box on wheels. It had thick unpainted plastic body panels covering half the car, so it wouldn't get scratched by wayward surfboards. The interior was urethane floors that you could literally
[04:36] wash out with a hose. The seats folded completely flat to form a bed. The problem? 19-year-old extreme surfers don't have $20,000 to spend on a brand new car. They drove inherited 1994 Honda Civics. You know who did have money,
[04:49] though? 65-year-old retirees named Carol who loved antiquing, bird watching, and driving to the garden center. The youth laughed at it. Car enthusiasts called it a penalty box. It was slow, top-heavy toaster that looked like it was
[05:02] assembled out of a leftover Tupperware. But, fast forward to today, have you tried to buy a Honda Element recently? It is terrifying. A 2008 Honda Element with 180,000 mi, faded plastic cladding, and a faint smell of wet dog will
[05:16] Marketplace for 12,000 bucks, and it will sell in an hour. Why? Because the Honda Element was just 20 years too early for the modern van life and overlanding craze. Today, people are desperate for practical, reliable,
[05:30] quirky vehicles that they can even sleep in at national parks. The Element is the absolute packaging masterpiece. The suicide doors mean there's no B-pillar, creating a cavernous opening to load massive cargo. The K-series 2.4 L engine
[05:43] under the hood is legendary for running 400,000 mi with nothing but basic maintenance. All those car enthusiasts who laughed at the unpainted plastic cladding back in '03, those are the exact same people currently paying
[05:55] $4,000 to wrap their Toyota 4Runner in matte vinyl to prevent trail scratches. Honda gave us the ultimate adventure vehicle. We mocked them for it and now we're all paying the price. Okay, I know exactly what you're thinking. Come on,
[06:08] nobody wants a Pontiac Aztek, but stick with me here real quick and like and subscribe because when the Pontiac Aztek launched in '01, it was universally condemned. It was the punchline of every late-night talk show monologue. It was
[06:20] voted ugliest car in human history by basically every automotive publication. Its styling was so chaotic, so violently disproportionate that it genuinely looked like it was designed by three different committees who weren't allowed
[06:33] Bad needed a vehicle to visually represent the absolute pathetic, soul-crushing misery of Walter White's early life, they put him in a pale green Pontiac Aztek. For two decades, the Aztek was the ultimate symbol of
[06:46] automotive failure, but then the industry changed. Look out your window right now. Look at that BMW X6. Look at that Mercedes GLE Coupe. Hey, look at that Lamborghini Urus. Look at the Tesla Model Y. What do you see? You see tall,
[06:59] bloated four-door crossover SUVs with dramatically sloping rear rooflines and aggressive jagged body cladding. Ladies and gentlemen, we owe General Motors an apology cuz the Pontiac Aztek wasn't a mistake, it was a prophet. It
[07:13] essentially invented the modern coupe crossover segment. And Gen Z, who have landscape, are suddenly looking at the Aztek and saying, "Wait, this thing is actually kind of awesome. It even has a cooler inside." And they aren't
[07:27] completely wrong. The Aztek was wildly innovative. The center console was a removable cooler, like I just said. You could unlatch it, carry it into your whatever you wanted out of it. It even had an optional air compressor in the
[07:40] trunk to inflate your mattresses. It had radio controls in the tailgate for tailgate parties and famously it had an optional factory fitted tent that attached over the open rear hatch turning your car into a literal EDM
[07:53] party wagon. Today, car companies charge you $80,000 for a lifestyle crossover that is half the actual lifestyle features of the Aztek. As nostalgia for the Y2K early skyrockets, clean low mileage Azteks, especially the tent
[08:06] equipped models, are actively sought after by collectors who want something ironically cool that is actually secretly unironically brilliant. Now, when Toyota unveiled the FJ Cruiser for the 2007 model year, it was met with a
[08:19] very weird mix of hype and immediate backlash. It was supposed to be a retro homage to the legendary FJ 40 Land Cruiser. It sat on a modified 4Runner chassis featuring the bulletproof 4-liter 1GR-FE V6 and looked like a
[08:33] life-size Tonka truck. But, the enthusiasts, in their infinite wisdom, absolutely destroyed it in the forums. They complained about the weird reverse opening suicide doors that trapped your passengers in the backseat if the front
[08:45] bizarre triple windshield wipers. They mocked the fake non-functional hood scoop. But, mostly they complained about the blind spots. The C-pillar on the FJ Cruiser is so obscenely thick that you could hide a commercial airliner in the
[08:59] in the FJ Cruiser without a backup camera requires a combination of prayer and sonar. Because of the quirky styling, serious off-roaders dismissed it as a mall crawler. It was seen as a fashion accessory for people who thought
[09:12] a Jeep Wrangler was just too bumpy. dwindled and Toyota quietly killed it in the US market in 2014. And then, we realized what we had lost. Today, the enthusiast market is obsessed with off-roading. But, what are your options
[09:26] if you want a rugged reliable 4x4? Jeeps are notoriously unreliable. The new Ford Bronco is awesome, but it's incredibly expensive and highly computerized. Modern SUVs are essentially unibody minivans with a 2-in lift kit because
[09:39] there is simply nothing else like that on the market. FJ Cruiser [snorts] has become a highly coveted collector's item. The 4-liter V6 is widely engines Toyota has ever built, capable of easily clearing 300,000 mi. The FJ is
[09:54] smallish but weighs in 4,400 lb. Not to mention that the 4Runner is more modern, requiring more safety equipment. It has legitimate off-road chops, an interior you can scrub clean, and styling that went from weird retro to timeless
[10:06] classic overnight. If you want proof, look at the auction sites. People are happily paying $35 to $40,000 and sometimes even 50K plus for low mileage FJ Cruisers. It is a vehicle that went from being mocked for its triple wipers
[10:18] simple, indestructible Toyota off-roader. Now, this one is the ultimate example of you don't know what you have until it's gone. Enter the URJ 200, better known as the 200 Series Toyota Land Cruiser, sold in the US from
[10:32] '08 all the way till 2021. When this massive bloated luxury tank automotive community couldn't stop whining about it. Why would anybody pay $85 to $90,000 for a Toyota? They cried. It gets 13 mi to the gallon if you fold
[10:47] infotainment screen looks like it was stolen from a 1998 ATM. Just buy a Sequoia. The US market completely ignored the 200 Series. It was an overpriced dinosaur, gas-guzzling relic in an era where everyone was moving
[11:02] towards turbocharged efficiency and massive digital dashboards. Because nobody bought it, Toyota finally just threw their hands up, pulled the plug, and didn't bring the new 300 Series to America. Instead, we recently got the
[11:14] 250 Series Land Cruiser, a much smaller 4-cylinder hybrid. Meanwhile, the new Tundra got a twin-turbo V6 that's uh been a little dicey. And this is where the panic sets in. Suddenly, the new twin-turbo V6 engine starts making the
[11:27] news. Oh wait, the new engines are highly complex. Uh they have complemented hybrid systems. Wait, some of them are experiencing main bearing failures and triggering massive recalls. Almost overnight, the entire narrative
[11:39] enthusiasts who mocked the 200 series for being a thirsty dinosaur suddenly realized that its 5.7 L 3URFE V8 was arguably the most reliable, overbuilt, indestructible engine on the planet. Who
[11:52] cares if the infotainment screen is bad? Who cares if it gets 13 mi to the gallon? It is a vehicle that will literally outlive your children with nothing but oil changes. I don't get why the Land Cruiser's, the 200 series
[12:04] specifically, exploded in popularity with car enthusiasts. People were legitimately paying 120K for the Heritage Edition trucks back in 2021. It transitioned from overpriced Sequoia to the final boss of reliability. It is the
[12:18] last gasp of the naturally aspirated V8 powered unkillable luxury tanks, and the 911 money just to get their hands on a used one. So, guys, what did we learn today? We've learned that the car enthusiast, well, is fickle, confused
[12:32] creatures. And we constantly demand things, hate them when we get them, and then desperately try to buy them back a decade later for twice the original suffering under the weight of its own name, the Honda Element arriving before
[12:45] the world was ready for it, the Pontiac Aztek accidentally predicting the entire future of the auto industry, the FJ Cruiser offering quirky invincibility, or the Land Cruiser proving that older and simpler really is better. History
[12:57] always vindicates the weirdos. But, the cycle, it never stops. Right now, there that nobody is buying. A car that YouTuber reviewers are ripping apart. A car that is destined to be a massive sales flop, only to be worshipped in the
[13:12] year 2036. [music] So, I turn it over to you. Which car always loved 10 years from now? Let me know in the comments below. Hit that million subs by the end of the year. Check out some of these Ideal vids, and
[13:25] promise me one thing, keep living the ideal lifestyle. ideal lifestyle. >> [music]