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Yes, that's the California Roof; it was a special edition model at first, then it became a separate option.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Maybe she faked it to see you. School kid fantasy. LOL
80s for me, what a horrible time for car enthusiasts. :sick:
I wasn't in to muscle cars because I'd watched my dad waiting in line to fill up his '72 Buick Electra and his Z28 T-top. The latter was fun but I wasn't going to wait in line, and emissions strangled those V8s back then.
So I looked to smaller cars. A neighbor has a Fiat roadster that he was restoring, that was the sort of car I wanted.
Dream car? Watching rally made me crave a Lancia Stratos.
Funny thing is I've never owned an Italian car.
On the chronic buyer theme, I looked at bikes yesterday. Didn't buy, but maybe moved closer. sat on a low miles SV650 - didn't feel right somehow, maybe being the half faired version that looks odd to me. Also sat on a new Ducati Monster - liked it a lot, felt really good in size and weight. Also tried on a couple 2013 model sheep in wolfs clothing Ninjas (300, 650) - nice, too.
I had to fix that for ya.
Yeah, it sucked for the most part, but there were some bright spots. The Japanese sportscars come to mind.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
It wasn't all bad. Yeah, I really liked cars the 280/300Z, Supra, RX-7, and of course BMW, and VW Sirocco and GTI etc. I had a wide range of tastes. I always liked the 308 and 328 Ferarri along with the 911 and 928 etc.
I could go on and on.
I did like the Mitsu Starion turbos. Top Gear had a fun segment with one.
RX7 was cool back then, I liked those. A buddy took me for a spin in a 944 Turbo and that was a rush.
A friend had a GTI and I liked that, and his buddy had an Omni GLHS, which was quick but I still couldn't like it.
There were a few bright spots, but mostly it was an era of OPEC hangovers.
Had a neighbor that lived across the street who bought a new black Omni GLH Turbo. IIRC it was in '85 or '86. It sounded cool, never drove one of those though.
It only had a 318 but it was pretty fast. By 74 the punch had been taken out of the 440s due to emission standards. The Charger was about as fast as the 69 Plymouth which also had a 318.
If I had gotten the 69 Hemi Charger (426) back then I'd probably never have lived long enough to get the 74. Sometimes things happen for a reason.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
Those engines were finicky, though.
The Omni guy switched to Hondas, and my buddy went from GTI to Shadow to Jeep Wranglers. Go figure.
I forget how many miles it had on it when he bought it, but he sold it to me in 1995, soon after I got married, so the wife could have something semi-modern to drive. It wasn't a bad car until around the 90,000 mile mark. That's when we had the timing belt done, and they also did the camshaft and crankshaft seals, and something to do with the FWD, like CV joints or something?
Anyway, after that the car went downhill fast, but fortunately we were separated by then, so it was her problem and not mine! It went from decent to total junk in the next two years and 28,000 miles. Some sensor fried, causing it to over-rev. The a/c broke. Power antenna broke. Trip computer started telling bald-faced lies about how many miles you had to empty. Paint started wearing down to the primer in some spots, although it was mostly still shiny.
Then, the head gasket blew. Turns out the head was warped, as well. My ex wife and her mother found someone who put on a used head and a new gasket, but it still wasn't right. So I talked her into letting me take it to my mechanic, and he got it sort of running for $75, but said to not put another dime into it. Whoever put it back together made a mess of the wires and vacuum hoses, and that was part of why it was running so bad. But, the mechanic also found out that the turbo was shot, and compression was really bad in two of the cylinders and low in the other two.
In the end, we limped it to my grandmother's house, and I gave her something like $80 or $90 for it so she could buy two tickets to see Faith No More at the 9:30 club in DC. I pulled out the stereo in the hopes of trying to fit it into the '79 Newport I had at the time, but the wiring was all different so I didn't. Ended up selling the car for parts. I think I got $700 or $800 for it...can't remember now. And the radio's still in my grandmother's garage somewhere!
It's a shame though, that the car crapped out like it did later in life. It really was a nice car before it went downhill. We drove it cross-country on our honeymoon, and it did fine. I got about 28 mpg when I drove and the wife broke 30 a couple times. Not bad for a turbo and only a 3-speed, non-overdrive automatic. I thought it was a good looking car, too.
Oh, I should add that it did get stolen a few times, so it's possible that could have been the cause of its problems later in life. I'd like to think that the joy-riders took good care of it, but I'm quite that naive!
Funny that Dodge's small car was a 2.2l turbo, Ford had the Escort and went with a DOHC 1.8l engine, and Chevy stuffed a V6 in the Cavalier and called it the Z24.
3 diverse strategies.
In later years, Chrysler started putting 3.0 V-6es from Mitsubishi in a lot of these K-car variants, so I guess they took a cue from Chevy. And while Ford's Escort was always 4-cyl, Ford did take the Tempo and start stuffing their Vulcan 3.0 from the Taurus under the hood.
I always wondered if that 3.0 Tempo was much of a performer? The Cavalier Z-24 wasn't bad for the time, and neither were the 3.0 Shadows and Sundances.
I got a 91 Escort GT. EPA mpg was 26/31, not the best but WAY better than the V6 compacts of the era. It was light so it was fun to drive.
Ford is using small displacement again, deja vu? This time turbo, though.
I remember debating at the time between an Escort GT and the '90 Civic Si I ended up purchasing. IIRC, the Escort was a bit more expensive, so that made it a little easier to go with the Honda.
At the time, I also really wanted the Isuzu Impulse, which at that time was mostly a rebadged Geo Storm, but with "Handling by Lotus."
2025 BMW i5 - 2017 911 C4S - 2025 BRZ - 2025 MB GLE450e - 2024 Genesis GV60 - 2019 Cayman
That's kind of what my old Windstall did. It hit 80K and had been OK - more repair than I was used but in acceptable range - and then it flew downhill in a big hurry and was gone within 10K. I know we never saw it hit 90K. That was in 1999. I still have its replacement.
I paid $10,792 out the door, so decent bang for the buck. List was $12.4k.
My experience was the opposite of yours - I remember markups on Hondas back then, at least at Ourisman Honda in Bethesda, MD. I'm talking $14k sticker, $16k on the window, though who knows how far they'd deal down.
Do you remember what you paid for yours?
Friend of mine had an Impulse, he removed the Isuzu badges so it only had the Lotus badges. LOL
Those had a good 130hp but I seem to recall they had basically no torque. He had to rev the daylights out of it.
My Escort has 127hp but more torque then the Impulse. The Si had less of both but I'm sure it weighed less.
To be honest I was more interested in the CRX Si.
If you bought a new Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep or Fiat "special edition" model in the past year or so - or if you are a dealer who sold one - a reporter would love to hear about it. Please email PR@edmunds.com no later than Wednesday, October 10, 2012 with your daytime phone number and a brief description of the car and your experience with it.
There was also a Charger S/E, basically a clone of the Cordoba, and an Aspen S/E, although I think in later years they called the top trim level "Medallion".
I think those SE badges went away in the early 80's, but they resurfaced around 2001. That year, Dodge took the base Intrepid and called it "Intrepid SE"
Remember how Gulf War I drove gas prices up to (gasp!) $1.50/gal? I did ... first wife and I were driving an '88 Isuzu Trooper at the time and it was costing $30 a tank to fill up.
Ouch!
Plus, we had an Isuzu P'up and a 2 year old, so we decided to replace both cars within a few months of one another.
I don't remember what we looked at, but wife settled on a '91 Mazda Protege LX (the one that looked like a baby E-class).
When it was my turn, I too looked at the Protege - a stick vs. her automatic, and light blue instead of her dark blue.
Thought it would be silly to have two of the same make and model in the garage, so I passed.
I looked at the Hyundai Scoupe (remember those?), the Nissan Sentra SE and the Civic Si. The Hyundai was ruled out pretty quickly. I really, really, really wanted a Sentra SE-R, but it was just a bit too expensive for our budget.
So, it came down to the Si or the SE. When I talked to our insurance agent about which was cheaper to insure, we were told the Nissan.
Bought it .. don't remember all the details, but I think we paid somewhere between $10-11K for it.
Nice car, but I really wanted the SE-R or the Si.
Oh, well.
{here we go...}
I drove down to Atlanta and got gas for $0.86. Least I ever paid!
Came back to DC and $0.99 was EXPENSIVE!
My Escort had the same engine as the Protoge ES. Ford and Mazda shared a bunch of stuff back then.
I test drove a Scoupe! Funny! It was basically an Excel with nicer styling. I passed, of course. Those were so cheap, the disposable car.
The cool Sentra was the SE-R. 140hp was great for the class back then, but it cost a bunch more than my Escort.
SE-R was another car that carried mark-ups around here. I can't imagine how many buyers dealers scared away with those dealer markups. Funny thing is I never even test drove an SE-R or a Civic Si for that precise reason.
Wish we had services like TrueCar and no-haggle dealers back then.
I don't remember if the SE-R had markups in CA, but the Hondas sure did. Weren't the voluntary import restrictions still in place at that time? Those really messed with the supply and demand curves.
Plus, owning a Honda dealership at the time was pretty much a license to print money.
some of which you had to kickback to the American Honda sales executives - see the book "Arrogance and Accords" for more details
The SE-R, IIRC, was about a grand more than the SE. Still had to pay extra for a stereo and A/C on either model. Not sure if power windows were even available.
The SE had 110HP from 1.6L. Mine was a red 5-speed with a spoiler and 13" (!) alloy wheels. The SE-R had 14" wheels, which looked so much better.
My dad bought a '92 Scoupe new for my brother and sister to share. My brother quickly found a nice used RX-7 to drive. But that Scoupe lasted until my sister graduated from college with nearly 130k miles, the trans died that summer which obviously ended it's life as an automobile. But it withstood 7 years of her abuse. I don't know how many curbs or guardrails she hit with that car. At the end, I don't think it had a body panel without a dent or scratch.
I drove it a few times, man was it slow.
The least I ever remember paying was maybe 31 cents - but that was in the early 70s.
I remember prices dropping below $1/gal in 1999 ... we owned a Ford Expedition at the time and it was nice to fill that beast up with such cheap gas.
Yeah those gen SE-R are somewhat legendary. I have an uncle that's only 7 years older than I. When he graduated from college he bought an '87 CRX-SI. I remember he was on a waiting list to get it.
For a while, I've had a fascination with station wagons (anything before 1979). Found three on Ebay yesterday. One in particular, a 1976 Buick Estate wagon with the clam-shell tailgate was just beautiful. I grew up with station wagons so I think that's where it's coming from.
A guy in my car club has a 1973 Pontiac Safari wagon with the wood paneling, vinyl top, luggage rack and all the goodies.... car looks really loaded and it also has the clam-shell tailgate. GM made them from '71-76 on their large wagons.
I'm not going to scratch that itch until I'm finished motorhoming.... don't want to put too many irons in the fire.
Mark156
Wow, it's amazing what a few years of inflation can do to your wages. My Granddad retired at the age of 60 in 1974, after 35 years on the railroad, and he was only making $5-6 per hour!
I definitely rode the wave while it was good but I'll tell you one thing, you have to love what you do or a job feels like a prison (never been just assuming, LOL!). I would rather live a lower lifestyle rather doing something I hate.
Mark156
To stay on topic, the very first car I purchased on my own was a 1972 Dodge Charger (in 1977), dark brown, tan vinyl, front half black vinyl top, 32,000 miles for $1,400. 318 engine, 12 mpg city.
Got way less than I was counting on when this process started (good thing for the wife we bought than sold, otherwise she would now be buying a CRV!). But it is gone, and I can stop dealing with the flakes and loonies from Craig's. And cars.com was probably even worse, they just came from further away!
Time to move on, and wait for the time to get something for me. Most likely not soon, since we will be sharing 2 cars for the 3 of us until the bank account recovers. Hopefully my son has a job when he graduates, and can get a new car and I can just repo the TL from him in June.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Now, before y'all get on me about slipping yet another one in, I drove my Mom and stepdad to the train station on Friday, and while they're gone, I'm "babysitting"...so that one misfit isn't mine! :P
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Mark156
I kinda hate that car, partly because I think it's ugly, partly because it's not very comfortable to me, but I have to confess, it's been a good car for my Mom and stepdad. It did eat a transmission around 35,000 miles, but it was replaced under warranty, and the car now has about 340,000 miles on it.
Seeing it in my driveway does give me a bit of a bad vibe, too. I have a recurring bad dream (not quite a nightmare), where my Mom and stepdad run into financial problems and move in with me! :surprise: So, seeing their car in my hard is a bit like an omen...
From the pic, it still looks like it's in good shape. 340k on any car is impressive.
a white 1998 Altime GXE, with ~80K on the clock at the time. I think they wanted $3,100 for it. My son was not fond of it (chick car!) but for the money, it was a steal. Even with some smoker smell in it ...
much better than the Contour I got instead.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
I don't see how that can be right, though? It actually runs great for its age, no squeaks or rattles or anything. The check engine light is on, my stedpdad says that's because the EGR valve keeps clogging up and it's hard to get to. It has a big tear in the carpet on the passenger side, where it looks like one of them has been rubbing the side of their shoe. But otherwise, it act like a car with 1/4 the miles.
But still...at 340K miles, it's like a 96 year old man in perfect health. There are only so many more mornings that he's going to wake up, no matter how healthy he is.
I just can't see something like this being worth much more than $500-1000, tops, at that mileage.
I'd be surprised if they got $3K for it but I wouldn't be shocked.
In 2002, they sold me the Silverado for $1200. My grandmother was a bit miffed at that, as she GAVE the truck to them. But admittedly, Mom and stepdad did put some money into it. My original plan was to pay them $100 per month. But then, she ran into a problem where her cats started disappearing. She found out her neighbor's father was trapping them and turning them over to animal control She bailed three of 'em out, but I think one or two others got put down. Anyway, she asked if I would take one of the ones she bailed out. Naively, I said yes. At that point I had only paid her $200, and since I took her cat, she said don't worry about the rest.
Well, first off, that cat taught my other car how to shred furniture. When we moved from the condo to the house, it reached out from the carrier and dug its claws into the armrest of the Intrepid, and left its mark. In early 2004 I got a new kitten, and her cat started peeing down the furnace duct in the living room in protest.
In 2005 we got a dog, and in retaliation, that cat peed on my bed. The second time it did it, that was the last straw. I had sold the condo by then, had some money, so I paid Mom the remaining $1,000 for the truck. And then on Mother's Day 2005, I crated that monster up and gave it back to my her!
So, needless to say, I'd be afraid to see what kind of strings would come attached to this Altima!
Oh, back in the spring, they were thinking about getting rid of their 2008 Altima, as well. In an attempt to reduce their fleet. Right now they have a 2011 Prius, 2008 Altima, 2002 F-150, the '99 Altima, and a '98 Expedition. They were thinking about killing two 'possums with one rock...get rid of the Expedition and the '08 Altima, and replace it with an Escape, which they think is still strong enough to pull their boat.
I had thought about it, as they'd probably give me a good deal. But, the more I thought about it...if anything happened to that car, they'd still gripe about it. And, I'm not taking any more critters!
I like the clamshells a lot too, the cars were nicely designed for something of such mass, and the rear gate is very cool.
Now, I just have to remember where the heck I saw it...
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Some people are just suckers. No wonder the execs were getting kickbacks. I'm sure it was the most crooked dealers that got the most cars and could charge those markups.
Insanity.
Speaking of the Sentra SE-R, do you guys remember the NX2000? It was the ugly duckling hatch model, the one with the T-top optional. Ugly as it was I wanted one of those. Same 140hp in a lower, sleeker package.
American turbos were all finicky back then. The 2.2 put out between 146 and 174hp depending on the tuning. The more powerful version must have been pretty fast for the time in a 2600 pound car. The ES Shadow dropped the 2.2 turbo when the Mitsubishi sourced 3.0 became available.
Here's one that caught my eye just because you don't see them anymore and it's a convertible.
http://albany.craigslist.org/cto/3297972541.html
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
There was an engine in between, also. Early models had a 2.2l turbo, but then they had a 2.5l turbo for a year or two, before the V6 came out.
To give you an idea of how that turbo held up, my Escort GT was totalled, and my buddy still wanted to get my Escort to replace his Shadow. I just took money from insurance and ran.