If you’re like me, car spotting is worth getting excited about, especially when you see something that wasn’t originally sold in your country. There are few things more fun than seeing a really cool, really rare or, in some cases, really weird car that may have no business being in the U.S., snapping a few pictures, sending it to your other car-loving friends and saying something dumb like, “The automotive gods have looked kindly upon me today.” Maybe that last part is just me, but you get my point, and it’s what brings me to today’s question.
I want to know what your weirdest non-U.S. domestic market car spotting moment is. What car that was never meant to be driven in the U.S. made you stop dead in your tracks and take a few photos when you saw one Stateside? The thing is, I’m not asking for the time you saw some sort of supercar over here that isn’t technically sold in America. No, I’m looking for boring, strange and otherwise mundane cars that no one in their right mind would bring to America, but someone in their wrong mind did anyway.
What I saw
The inspiration for this question is a vehicle I saw over four years ago and still think about almost every day. I couldn’t tell you what I was doing in Bethesda, Maryland, at 10 a.m. on June 14, 2022, but it’s a time and place that’ll live in infamy, because that’s where and when I saw an utterly unremarkable Škoda Roomster traveling along one of Maryland’s many roads. Other than the fact its standard Virginia license plate was zip-tied onto the European license plate bracket, there was nothing about this Roomster that would give away that it was something weird to the uninitiated.
It’s one of the few times I’ve ever pulled my phone out while driving, because I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It’s not like Škodas are even sold in Mexico or Canada. Whoever brought this over brought it a very, very long way, and I thank them for their service. Again, I can’t remember what I was doing, but I remember being in enough of a rush that I couldn’t stop to ask the driver what their whole deal was — something I’d otherwise do — and it’s a regret I’ll live with forever.
Anyway, that’s enough for me. How about you all drop on down below and share your weirdest non-USDM car spotting moments? I’ll be handing out bonus points to folks who can provide photographic evidence of their findings, Big Year birding-style.
