Like most people who have made it to their 40's I have been exposed to quite a few cars over the years. Since I am a frugal person, only one of the cars I ever owned was a new car and even that was a very sensible vehicle (Toyota Corolla.) This was a stock standard reliable and fuel efficient car. It also had zero style.
This was a good car but it was not the most indestructible. That title goes to the first car I bought in Thailand, my Suzuki Caribbean
These cars used to be everywhere in Thailand and for the most part their owners tended to be foreigners as often as they were Thai. This is because it is difficult or impossible for a foreigner to finance a car, we have to be capable of purchasing it outright. Mine was around 100,000 Baht (at the time this was around $2,000) and by American standards, this is a suspiciously low price for a car.
The interior of a Caribbean is very simplistic. Everything is manual and subsequently easy for any mechanic to work on. Mine was already really old when i got it so I inherited a fair amount of rust with my car and this was fine. There eventually ended up being unintentional floor drains which was handy because rain came through other parts of the car also.
The offroad capabilities of this thing are incredible. The vehicle is lightweight but only has a 1200 CC engine. I know people with motorcycles that have bigger engines than this. However, this thing was unstoppable offroad and I have helped several people out of the dirt in their fancy soccer mom SUV's that cost well over 1.5 million baht. They weren't laughing at my car after that.
I once drove my car through a flooded creek-turned-river and the water inside the car rose over my legs and up to my chest. You see the air intake intentionally has a "snake" extension on the Caribbean and you are meant to pull that out of the front of the car and put it to the top. I put mine above the open hood where I could see it. Now I know that the only thing i have to do is keep that from going underwater and everything will be fine. I made it through the river and carried on my way.
source
you can purchase a "snorkel" for your ride if you want, but I only ever went underwater the one time, so once was enough.
People tend to enjoy being passengers in a Caribbean because the back seats feature giant safari windows and the back seat is raised so that you have a view of everything that is unobstructed by the seats / head of the people in front of you. I didn't often find myself in the back seat of my own car, but I do know my friend's kids quite enjoyed riding back there.
There are a few bad aspects of this car though: the main one being that it is pretty terrible on fuel economy. For a 4 cylinder engine, this this was a gas guzzler. I have no idea why this was the case but I do know that almost any mechanic could easily work on the thing and it was loud - these are good signs of antiquated technology such as pretty much any car in the 60's and 70's in a time when anyone could work on their own car but no one was concerned about MpG.
The Caribbean is also extremely slow. I struggled to get mine up to 100 km/h and that was pretty much the top end. The speedometer didn't go very far beyond that and there was a good reason for this.
I ended up selling my ride to my mechanic (whom I didn't have to visit very often, by the way) for a mere 40% less than I paid for the car and this was nearly a decade later.
Sadly, they stopped manufacturing these in Thailand around 20 years ago so you are seeing fewer and fewer of them on the road and in my mind that is a shame. It was an inexpensive and reliable car that was also a lot of fun. They are rarely seen on the roads anymore.
