So just came back from first ever trip to Mexico (Riviera Maya, QR) and I have to say I absolutely love the wider variety of cars and the polar opposite powertrain selection. Heavily diesel with manual trans,
Brands non-existent (or bailed out of) the US but prevalent - Renault, Peugeot, Suzuki, Isuzu.
Huge amounts of shuttle vans for the airport runs and tours and all manual trans. Rode to/from the airport in VW Transporter TDI's, both manuals. One tour was via Ford Transit (think it was a diesel) manual trans and went on a limestone backroad into the jungle in a Toyota Hiace manual trans (like the Transit I think it may have been a diesel). The Toyota was pretty impressive as it seemed it was "retired" to be the jungle crawler and that ¾-1 mile drive back into the jungle was brutal to say the least.
Lack of CUV's - SUV/CUV's were not as prevalent as in US. Seemed to be mostly sedan, hatch, shuttle vans and trucks.
Nissans - from lets say about 4-5 hours combined riding around in a various shuttle/van it seemed Nissan had a more global/continental ideal. Versa, Sentra, Altima and X-Trail (aka Rogue) looked pretty much exactly like the ones we would get in the states and Versa and Sentra seemed to be the mainstay taxi sedans. All the other automakers it was pretty much an entirely different lineup from the US offerings.
Toyotas - Hiace and Hilux all over the place. I did not see many Toyota cars or CUV's at all, I think I saw 1 Camry and 1 Prius and that was about it.
It was very refreshing to see the broader variety. I saw a few rental VW Vento (their subcompact) sedans leaving the airport and a ton on the roads driven by locals, next trip I might try to snag a rental car to experience a fun rental like a VW Vento with manual trans.
Brands non-existent (or bailed out of) the US but prevalent - Renault, Peugeot, Suzuki, Isuzu.
Huge amounts of shuttle vans for the airport runs and tours and all manual trans. Rode to/from the airport in VW Transporter TDI's, both manuals. One tour was via Ford Transit (think it was a diesel) manual trans and went on a limestone backroad into the jungle in a Toyota Hiace manual trans (like the Transit I think it may have been a diesel). The Toyota was pretty impressive as it seemed it was "retired" to be the jungle crawler and that ¾-1 mile drive back into the jungle was brutal to say the least.
Lack of CUV's - SUV/CUV's were not as prevalent as in US. Seemed to be mostly sedan, hatch, shuttle vans and trucks.
Nissans - from lets say about 4-5 hours combined riding around in a various shuttle/van it seemed Nissan had a more global/continental ideal. Versa, Sentra, Altima and X-Trail (aka Rogue) looked pretty much exactly like the ones we would get in the states and Versa and Sentra seemed to be the mainstay taxi sedans. All the other automakers it was pretty much an entirely different lineup from the US offerings.
Toyotas - Hiace and Hilux all over the place. I did not see many Toyota cars or CUV's at all, I think I saw 1 Camry and 1 Prius and that was about it.
It was very refreshing to see the broader variety. I saw a few rental VW Vento (their subcompact) sedans leaving the airport and a ton on the roads driven by locals, next trip I might try to snag a rental car to experience a fun rental like a VW Vento with manual trans.