Carspotting In Mexico City, The Small Car Capital Of The West

School is back in for this Jalop — in a manner of speaking. I got the chance to visit Mexico City this past Memorial Day weekend to see about Ph.D. programs at a couple of universities in and around the heart of the republica. I flew down to meet with professors and ask about tuition costs, but I happily stuck around for the tacos and, of course, the cars!

While there, I got the chance to drive the 2024 Chevrolet Aveo, which is almost the car of Mexico City par excellence. It seems like the Chevy Aveo didn’t really die; it just moved abroad. That review is forthcoming, but in the meantime, here are some of the coolest and most notable cars I saw over the four day weekend:

This is not a car, it’s a piece of pan dulce known as a concha, which means “shell.” I guess you could put four of them under a food tray to use them as makeshift wheels since they’re light and fluffy and full of air. The point is conchas and cars are both huge reasons to visit CDMX. Now, onto the cars...

I saw this Toyota GR Yaris while shopping for souvenirs for my fellow Jalops. It’s no coincidence that I saw this GR Yaris in one of Mexico City’s ritziest neighborhoods, known as Polanco.

It’s basically the Beverly Hills of the Mexican capital, hence the very bright, very loud and, likely, very expensive GR Yaris bombing around the avenue. I nearly fainted when the green seared my retinas and it dawned on me that I was truly gazing upon a mighty GR Yaris.

I ran across this VW pickup/car hybrid or coupe-ute after running into about, say, three or four hundred others. The Saveiro is very common in Mexico, and not just the city, but the entire country. The thing is when you’re usually driving within inches of other motorists who are less defensive and more offensive, then a small maneuverable car is best. Or, at least Elmo seems to think so.

Two wheelers are king in the city, but you’d be surprised how common it is to see small-displacement motorcycless — and I do mean small, what with the Honda Navi’s top speed of 50 mph. The thing is, you’re not going that fast in the city, and during rush hour it’s best to weave through traffic on something as small and friendly as the Navi than it is to sit and wait in traffic in a proper car.

A trip to Mexico would just not be the same without running into a Nissan Sentra, or Tsuru, as it’s known in Mexico. These rolling deathtraps — and, again, I’ll take a moment to say while these cars are objectively unsafe, 40-60 kilometers per hour is about as high as speed limits go throughout the city; there’s not enough room to get into head-on collisions at high speeds. The Nissans are still beloved in the city, as this very blingy working Sentra shows. That’d be my taxi of choice, thanks.

Or if you’re more into Uber for the convenience they bring, then maybe you’d be more interested in this BYD D1, which ferried me to the airport on my last day in the city. I didn’t request an Uber Green or anything of the sort. I beckoned an Uber X and got this little Chinese EV. The driver told me there are 1,000 D1 EVs in the city, split into two fleets working for Uber and other rideshare apps.

They cost quite a bit more to buy than the usual economy cars you’ll see driving for Uber, but they also cost about $70 pesos per day to run, often not even requiring a recharge during an entire shift working in the city. Compare that to the $700 pesos or so my Uber driver said it takes to fuel up a compact car, and you start to understand why there are currently 1,000 BYD D1s around the city.

Speaking of working cars, here’s one of the other popular pickup options in the city — an ancient full size single cab pickup that’s been outfitted for work duty, but has seen better days. Trucks like this one are all over the city. They may not always be Dodge Ramchargers, which are actually SUVs, though this one is going topless, but the vibes are the same and, yes, the vibes are immaculate.

Even though old Volkswagens, including the vans pictured here and the original VW Beetle, are no longer produced by VW in Puebla, Mexico, old Volks models are still a common sight in the city. This honest little VW Bus charmed me with its wide eyes and surprised expression.

What’s a list about Mexican market cars without the Suzuki Jimny? The little off-roader has become somewhat of an avatar for all forbidden fruit south of the U.S.-Mexico border, but I’ve come to realize the Jimny is not as common as I would think. There are certainly fewer of these Suzuki models roaming around Mexico City than I would have guessed. Then again, there’s not much hardcore off-roading in one of the biggest and most sprawling urban centers on Earth.

Given that there’s no great need for hardcore off-road capability in Mexico City, it’s no wonder that there are more faux-by-fours than actual four-by-fours. But that’s not a jab against the Volkswagen Crossfox, which is easily one of my favorite VW cars of the last decade or so. Besides, that little bumper bar and the crossover stance is incredibly useful in the rough and tumble world of parking and potholes in CDMX.

I don’t normally like to include a dealership in carspotting, but I’m going to make an exception for the Chinese MG, or Morris Garage — for all the hardcore British car fans. These new models have little in common with vehicles that have shared the MG badge in the past, but they are still becoming incredibly popular in Mexico. If you ask me, it seems that BYD, MG and many other Chinese carmakers will be extremely influential in the auto industry of the West. And they’re going to get there by winning over the Mexican market.

I’m going to almost close this off with the wonderful Volkswagen Jetta Clásico, AKA Bora, which gives the fourth-generation Jetta a facelift but keeps most of what made the little Jetta such an appealing car: clean lines, a small frame and wonderfully symmetrical A- and C-pillars. Also, the classic badge is kick-ass.

That’s all for Carspotting: CDMX, but, as is customary, here’s another Nissan Tsuru and a great big Mexican flag found in the famous city square known as the Zócalo.