Here Are The Most Interesting Cars I Saw In Aruba

Every few years my family does a vacation in Aruba. The weather is perfect, the food is good, the flight is reasonable and the people are friendly. It's not an adventurous vacation but it's great for two kids under 12. We go to the beach, we hang out at the pool and I drink too many local beers. I also will spot pretty interesting rides, some of which would not normally be found on American roads.

Aruba was once a Dutch colony so you see a lot of European-style city cars, it's also right off the coast of South America so there is no shortage of affordable compacts and old trucks as well. I was surprised how many EVs there were cruising around this time. However, EVs make perfect sense for the lower-speed city driving on an island that is only about 70 square miles. I saw at least a dozen or sow VW ID models mostly used as taxis.

Whenever we were strolling around I would try to find some kind of unique or interesting model. My kids were often confused about why I was so excited to take a picture of what looked to be a very ordinary car to them. Here are some of my favorites from Aruba car spotting.

The Peugeot RCZ is a like funky French Audi TT, it's one of the few cars I saw that my son thought was "cool."

This looks to be an 8th-generation Honda Civic Touring with the steering wheel on the right, one of many excellent JDM wagons.

Another JDM Honda wagon that resembles an Accord. According to my research, this car is known as the Stream. While the TSX Sportwagon was great, we really missed out on the Honda longroofs.

We all know and love the Honda Fit (or Jazz in other markets) but this metallic pink is the perfect color for an island car.

This menacing-looking sedan that I originally thought was a Mercedes C300 is a Toyota Mark X. It's basically the Camry's more interesting cousin that was available in rear-wheel-drive.

You don't really need to rent a car to get around the island when most things are an easy walk or a short taxi ride. But you can do some off-road adventures if you do forget the Wrangler and rent Jimny!

We never got this generation Scirocco in America, and it would have been a hard sell as a more stylish GTI, but these still look great.

Among many old Tacomas and Frontiers was this Changan Hunter! Neat truck...great name.

Aruba is definitely worth a visit, and not just for the cars.