Rover’s attempt to build a thoroughly modern executive car in the 1960s produced something wonderfully strange: a unit-body structure with bolt-on exterior panels, De Dion rear suspension, four-wheel disc brakes, and eventually the aluminum V8 Rover acquired from Buick.

This one is a NADA-spec 3500, one of fewer than 2,000 built for the North American market. It has the 3.5-liter V8, twin SU carburetors, and Borg-Warner automatic, along with the usual assortment of federal-market changes intended to convince Americans that buying a Rover instead of a Mercedes was a perfectly sensible thing to do.

It runs beautifully, has excellent oil pressure, and recently stopped idling at 2,500 rpm after I persuaded the carburetor and choke linkages to participate in the same mechanical system. We are still getting acquainted.

Buying a high-end EV from a company that had already gone bankrupt seemed questionable enough to become irresistible.

The Ocean has dual-motor all-wheel drive, over 550 horsepower, a 360-mile range, California Mode, a rotating screen, and some of the strangest software decisions in recent automotive history. It is also airy, distinctive, comfortable, hilariously quick, and far better to drive than its corporate obituary would suggest.

At this point, ownership support is largely a collaboration between independent shops, owners, and people on the internet who know considerably more about Fiskers than Fisker ultimately did. Somehow, I still really like it.

One of the cleanest designs of the 1990s, from the era when Mercedes still seemed to build cars on the assumption that somebody might want to keep them forever. The R129 is heavy, complicated, and wildly overengineered in exactly the right ways. The 5.0-liter V8 helps.

A right-hand-drive GT that has slowly absorbed the best mechanical bits from the other MGB. It now has the rebuilt 1973 engine, Moss supercharger, and header, paired with the 1978 overdrive transmission. It is tiny, loud, surprisingly economical, and currently the MGB most interested in actually being a car.

Imported from Japan with a 2.8-liter turbodiesel and five-speed manual, this remains one of the most fundamentally useful vehicles here. It is modern enough to be comfortable, old enough to be understandable, and slow in a reassuring sort of way. It will happily go almost anywhere while using an amount of fuel that makes the trucks look embarrassing. Too bad diesel is $9/gallon.

Transportation from an era when “well equipped” could mean it had a heater. This one also got the larger 225 Slant Six, one of the great engines for converting gasoline into modest forward progress for several geological epochs. When the weather cooperates, it remains an excellent daily driver.

The workhorse. This is an extended-cab, short-bed GMT400 K2500 with a Vortec 350, 4L80E, and the heavy-duty chassis and driveline underneath. It gets about 11 mpg whether it is empty or towing something enormous, which is almost impressive in its refusal to care.

It has hauled campers, towed trailers all over the West, and accumulated enough miles that replacing it would probably be more sensible than continuing to improve it. Naturally, I keep improving it.

Thud was built around comfort, capability, simplicity, and the idea that a solo trip into the middle of nowhere should not become exciting for the wrong reasons. It has a Chevrolet Performance HT383, an extremely stout TH350, 55 gallons of fuel capacity, 15 gallons of potable water, and redundancy built into most of the systems that actually matter.

It is very capable, very difficult to surprise, and has exactly the correct amount of rust.

A naturally aspirated, manual RX-7 that recently crossed 100,000 miles and remains almost completely stock. I knew the original owner and have had it for around 25 years, which makes this one of the rare vehicles in the collection whose history I actually understand.

Keeping an old rotary mostly stock may be the most controversial decision on this entire page.

Purchased for $500 in 2017, this is the longest-serving member of the fleet by a comfortable margin. There is not a single major component that has not injured me in some way.

It tried to burn down Tahoe National Forest with an exploding battery, smoke-bombed Death Valley when both catalytic converters failed simultaneously, and has left its mark, mainly 10W-40, on dirt roads and remote campsites all over the West.

Through all of it, the stupid thing has always gotten me home. I trust it to take me almost anywhere in the country and, more importantly, bring me back.

The final year of the TJ Wrangler and its wonderfully agricultural 4.0-liter straight six. This particular example is probably best known for stranding us outside a restaurant in Mendocino when the key abruptly decided it no longer trusted us.

Otherwise, exactly what an old Wrangler should be: simple, useful, and only moderately committed to comfort.

Triumph took its enthusiastic three-cylinder architecture, stretched it to 799cc, and put it in an adventure bike. The result is perhaps more eager to rev than an adventure motorcycle strictly needs to be, which is also why it is so entertaining.

The original owner flew in from the UK, bought it in Southern California, rode it around the country for a few months, sold it, and flew home. I respect the commitment to the assignment.

The final year of Volvo’s wonderfully odd little C30, complete with the turbocharged five-cylinder engine that gives it far more personality than a practical Swedish hatchback really needed.

The glass hatch still looks fantastic, the five-cylinder sounds fantastic, and the whole car has the pleasant feeling of something Volvo built because somebody internally managed to get away with it.

Possibly the best long-distance car I have ever owned. The seats are absurdly comfortable, Pilot Assist takes the edge off endless freeway miles, and the sound system is good enough to make sitting in traffic almost defensible.

I enjoy driving cars that demand involvement. The V90 is wonderful because it demands almost none.

These are also vehicles. They have done nothing wrong.

1999 Jaguar XJ8L

1997 Toyota Tacoma

2018 BMW X3

2000 Toyota Land Cruiser