30th Jun 2011, 22:51

Aesthetic and design is nice, but engineering wins the day.

You dismiss the Roadie because the interior is 'plasticy'. Not exactly a crushing indictment, but OK. Whatever. Looks about the same as everything else coming off the line here in the year 2011.

All anecdotes about your aunt's Roadmaster or your 1955 truck aside, you will notice that there is little (to no) meaningful criticism about this model from a long term reliability standpoint. As I type this, I have open another window of someone selling a Roadie Wagon with 285K miles on the clock... and still running like a top (or, at least that's what they say in the ad). I've seen tired, old Roadmaster warhorses in parts yards with 200k, 250k, 300k on the OD (and those are miles, not kilometers).

If you don't like the "looks" of the car, no worries. Move along to something else that 'looks good' to you. If you want a vehicle that offers damn near everything else, and will run deep into the 200K and beyond range with proper care, this is it. Considering you can still find very well maintained sub 100K examples in the $3K or $4K price range that may have another 10 years left in them, one could do *a lot* worse in an inexpensive used car.

And just out of curiosity, are there any other cars here on Carsurvey that have pretty much UNIVERSAL positive reviews like the Roadie does? Disregarding those that only have one or two reviews... I mean, even the reviews with the little :| or :( faces are still pretty much glowing.

The consumer feedback record of the Roadies speaks for itself. All 'theories' or blowhard ideas aside, what you see here on Carsurvey under the Roadmaster heading says everything that needs to be said about this car.