Before we get into our Question of the Day, I’m gonna geek out a bit. Bear with me. This requires some setup.
I was reading this article on Kotaku this morning about the crowdfunding effort behind a “spiritual sequel” to the PlayStation game Mega Man Legends and how it’s not going well. The creator of that game, the man behind the Mega Man games, has another Mega Man-ish game he’s working on, but it’s not out yet either.
I loved the Mega Man series on the NES when I was a kid (it took me years to figure out it was the same fucking game over and over again except with different bad guys and music) but that fanbase has been all but completely abandoned by the games’ creators over the years. That’s kind of a shame. I guess it’s a shame, anyway. I don’t really care that much anymore.
But this got me thinking: What’s the most neglected culture, or fanbase, in the car world? It can be because the automakers stopped filling those niches, or because buyers’ tastes moved in other directions, or any reason, really.
It has to be Saab, I think. Saab is totally the Mega Man of cars: heroic and badass back in the 80s, started slipping in the 90s and 2000s, and is basically nonexistent today. Saab is not coming back, kids, no matter what the Chinese EV company backing them says these days. The Saab fans are just gonna have to make do with their old turbo 900s.
Maybe there’s an even more neglected car culture out there. What do you think it is?
Contact the author at patrick@jalopnik.com.