Unlike the last time when I talked about vehicle sales figures in Mexico (29 March 2007) and quoted statistics, this time I will look at the cars I saw when vacationing in Puerto Vallarta and my opinions. This is definitely a tourist city as well as a retirement destination, so the vehicle count and variety likely will be different from a central poorer city. In Puerto Vallarta, one can easily spend more than a million on a condo or villa. It is not a city, however, where tourists rent cars to drive around. This is mostly because the things to see and do are quite close together.

The roads in Puerto Vallarta really are pretty good, but in the downtown area and "Zona Romantica", which is kind of like old town, the roads are all cobblestone. I'm not sure if this is for historical accuracy, or just to keep speeds down. They are very well maintained. It is very rare to see a stone out of place. This also means that there are few bicycles or motorcycles. The only motorscooters I saw were for pizza delivery from Dominos or Pizza Hut, and both those stores had a dozen parked outside.

There are plenty of taxis. I mean that it's almost like New York City. It is just that in Puerto Vallarta, the taxis are almost all Nissan Tsurus. Never heard of a Tsuru? I hadn't either. It is an older Nissan Sentra. You do see some labeled "Sentra", but likely those come from the U.S. It also seems like the Tsuru taxis were all made about the same time. Did all the taxi drivers by them at the same time? From a very small statistical sample, it seems that about half of the cars are driver-owned and the other half owned by a taxi company. Most of the taxis are yellow like the one in the picture.

These taxis are all very basic models. A driver told me that Nissan really promoted them to taxi drivers a few years ago, but doesn't do that anymore. They probably will buy different cars in the future -- when these wear out, and some seem pretty close. I did get to ride in a brand new Nissan Sentra taxi. This one even had electric windows and air conditioning. It wasn't yellow, though. I wonder if this is the future.

The other vehicles on the road are about half trucks and half cars. There are even more trucks there than here. Since I'm not really interested in trucks, I won't talk about them here... except for the cute little pickups. There are three kinds, mostly new. There aren't a lot of them on the road, but they aren't too hard to find either. They are a Chevy Tornado, Ford Courier, and VW Pointer. These are unit-bodied and quite small. As I said before, if you remember our old Rabbit pickup, you know about these. The name "Courier" on the Ford is interesting because it is the same name that Ford used for their original little pickup here in the United States. And the name for the Chevy, the Tornado, is evocative of the Oldsmobile Toronado, but his time they spelled it right.

Okay, now to the cars. You don't see many big cars in Puerto Vallarta (you do see big trucks). I guess that this is because they are expensive and that parking is difficult. There is on-street parking, mostly filled and very limited off-street parking. Some of the condos have it and few hotels have it. I saw two parking structures. One downtown (on the ocean!) charged $1.40 per hour. The Europeans have the big car market, however limited. I saw exactly zero Lexus or Infiniti cars, also zero Cadillacs. I remember two Jaguars, one old XJ and one S-type. There were just two Mercedes that I saw, a new SLK and a quite new E-class. There were also no Audis to be seen, even with the huge presence of Volkswagen in Mexico. There is no BMW dealer in Puerto Vallarta. The nearest one is in Guadalajara, which is a long two hour drive away. There were a few BMWs on the road there, however. A couple of Z4s, a couple of X3s, at least one X5, and a couple of 3-series cars. Actually that is a lot for a brand that isn't a Volkswagen or Nissan (or just plain very old).

There were a lot of cars that you don't ever see here. Most of them are either A-class or B-class cars. Those names come from the European terms for the smallest and next-to-smallest cars sold there.

How about a Chevy Monza? No I don't mean the ancient one that was built on the Nova chassis. I mean a modern B-class car. I assume that it is made in Mexico.

There was a Dodge Attitude parked in the garage of my condo. I've never heard of this one and suspect that it probably isn't made by DaimlerChrysler. I would guess that it was a rental car, given the "Alamo!" sticker on the back.

Another mystery car for me was the Fiat Palio. I've never heard of a Palio in Europe. Maybe it is a car specifically for Latin America.

There were two Fords that clearly came from Europe. The Fiesta is a mass-market car there and is a modern design, unlike the Focus here. It is a size smaller than the Focus. And in the size class even smaller than that is the hyper-cute Ford Ka. I saw several of those. It is ending its life in Europe these days and soon to be redesigned. I hope they maintain the cuteness because it is very clear that cute is a primary selling factor. The most common Ford is the Explorer in many different ages. I suspect a lot of these came from the United States.

From the looks of things the Japanese had better beware of the Koreans in Mexico. Hyundai has a big presence there now. I saw more Hyundais than either Toyotas or Hondas. In fact the only Hondas I saw were either Odyssey minivans or CRVs. The Toyotas were all Siennas. Yes, minivans are popular.

Back to Hyundai, I saw several Atos cars and one mysterious "Hyundai Verna by Dodge". Look at the picture. That's what it says. I don't know what it means.

There were two of the "exotic" Peugeot 206CC convertibles to be seen. These are small hardtop convertibles that are quite reasonably priced in France. They'd be perfect in Puerto Vallarta. Alas, both of them were parked with the top up when I saw them. That was probably for security reasons.

And how about a Daewoo Matiz? That isn't so strange, but apparently it was made after the acquisition by GM because it had a Pontiac badge on the front. I guess it makes it a Pontiac Daewoo Matiz.

I didn't see any of the French versions of cute, the Renault Twingo, but there was one Renault Clio parked in Zona Romantica.

Volkswagen's marketing approach in Mexico seems to be as strange there as it is here. There were no Audis to be seen, nor were there any Skodas (Volkswagen variants made in the Czech Republic). There were a few Seat cars, though. Those are Volkswagens made in Spain. Oh, yes, Spanish is spoken in Mexico and it is in Spain, so why not bring Seats to Mexico? Right! The most common were the Alhambra and Cordoba.

The last times I've been in Puerto Vallarta, I saw several Smart cars. This time I saw just one and it was a rare 4x4. It is the perfect car to park -- and this one was parked almost at the corner of an intersection downtown, right on the ocean front.

What about Volkswagen? There are lots of them running around Puerto Vallarta. The newer ones are usually Pointers or Jettas, but I did see one Derby. I don't think it is made in Mexico. The Pointer is a very cheap (in every sense of the word) Latin American smaller-than-Jetta sedan. The weirdest VW I saw was a "Van" with no commercial markings. It wasn't a van at all. It isn't clear from the photo (taken in traffic from a moving taxi), but it is a little Golf-sized vehicle with a front hood, but a great high blob on the back. I suppose it is the right size for commercial hauling around the narrow streets of Puerto Vallarta.

The last times I've visited Puerto Vallarta there have been Volkswagen Things driving around. Some in good condition and some pretty rusty. I guess rust has caught up with them now because I saw just one -- and that had Texas plates on it. I sure wouldn't have wanted to drive that from Texas. What really was strange was an Intermeccanica Kubelwagen. It looked quite new and a clear copy of the Thing.

What are the drivers like in Puerto Vallarta? This observation comes from walking and riding in taxis. They seem to be very courteous. There were very few cell phones anywhere. The obvious one was a blond woman driving a Jeep Cherokee (with Mexico plates). I thought I was back in California! The only thing that might not be so different from here is that a "stop" sign is a guide, not that a mandatory stop is required. It's more like a "yield" sign here. You do observe signals, however. Also as a driver, you need to watch the road surface because there are speed bumps on the roads outside the places where there are cobblestones. There were some in front of a school on a main road and others at a hotel on a main road.

Puerto Vallarta is an interesting place to see some cars that you don't see in Los Angeles. They're mostly inexpensive cars. But it is much better to forget the cars and relax on the beach.