Project Cars--You Get to Vote on "Hold 'em or Fold 'em"

british_rover

What do you think of this.

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=116481

I know before you had mentioned how a MG built in america by a chinese company would be a [non-permissible content removed] vehicle. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on it some more.

Mr_Shiftright

Alfa 164S --- yes, it does look like a stickshift---it had better be, as the automatics in those cars are dead in 30,000 miles (if you are lucky).

Might be an okay buy at $1,500, but not for $3,000. Ball joints, AC, brake calipers, electrica problems....this is going to start adding up. Still for a FWD large sedan, it's fun to drive and the V6 engine sounds great when you romp on it. Beware of leaking head gaskets, slow synchros, and a hard clutch pedal.

qbrozen

a fun car just invites spirited driving, though.

It was bad enough that I figured out I could actually slide sideways a bit in my jeep with 33" tires! Then I found out what a vehicle with a low center of gravity could do when I hung a 180 in my Merc Zephyr! Kids do stupid things when they first learn to drive. If the car has limitations (and is very cheap), the better off they will be, IMHO.

Think of it like playing Gran Turismo. You start off with the cheap, slow, and poor handling cars while you learn the driving dynamics and track layouts, then you start winning races, then you start buying faster and more dynamic cars.

qbrozen

I've wanted a 164S for many years. I just can never find the right one at the right price. Its bad enough I have one Alfa that I can't find the time to keep up with.

andre1969

Think of it like playing Gran Turismo. You start off with the cheap, slow, and poor handling cars while you learn the driving dynamics and track layouts, then you start winning races, then you start buying faster and more dynamic cars.

I guess that's better than thinking of it like playing Grand Theft Auto, where if you don't like the car you're driving you just drive around until you see a nicer, faster one and then jack it! :P

qbrozen

maybe not better, but at least safer. Never know when the cops will start shooting.

Mr_Shiftright

Well I agree with you there...you'll never have to worry about fun in a Volvo wagon.

RE: The NEW MG -- the "suit" in the interview likens MGs return to America in terms of the new MINI's success, but this doesn't ring true to me. The new MINI has a LOT in common with the old MINI, in terms of looks, driveline configuration, and even the accessories. There's a lot of historical reverence here.

The new MG has nothing to do with the old MG in any form. It won't look like it, drive like it, sound like it or even honor it. And while the MINI inspired at least some consumer confidence by being made by BMW (confidence, as it turns out, not always justified), the new MG comes from.....China?

To me, the new MG is just a marketing concept with no connections whatsover to the old car...it's a "badge rip-off".

If it succeeds or fails, it won't have anything to do with the MG tradition one way or the other.

qbrozen

Aren't they still going to build the last generation of MGs, though? Or did I get that wrong? I didn't think they would build whole new plants with whole new car designs, etc.

Even if that's true, though, I guess that wouldn't matter much here in the US since most of the public hasn't seen an MG design since the 70s.

Mr_Shiftright

I thought they were going to build that quasi-modern MG that came out a few years ago....but we'll see.

Actually the last generation MG would be the worst possible choice if you think about it.

ALFA 164S -- finding the right one at the right price is a LOT of work for this type of car. Most of them, being cheap to buy, have fallen into the wrong hands and are just about beyond redemption with too many needs. I'd rather see someone pay a premium price, even over Blue Book, for one that has been gone through by a specialist. A $5,000 or $6,000 "overpriced" 164 is way better than a bargain $2,500 one.

I'd like to have another one someday but not as a primary car.

lemmer

I prefer the 944 coupes to the convertibles, but I wouldn't call a Silver Cab ugly. I also would not have painted those little rock guards.

MGB - unique moonroof hardtop that needs some clean-up. Uh, i bet that is a nice piece of work.

Somehow the Reattas become even less interesting to me as time passes.

qbrozen

yeah, that's the MG I meant. Sure, its probably garbage, but could we technically call it Chinese?

qbrozen

I'm not a real porsche person. Is that was the 944 cab usually looks like?? What the heck are those black things in front of the rear wheels? And what is that rear lip under the bumper? Is that factory? Looks like an aftermarket piece that doesn't quite fit right.

I don't typically like the 944s, but I think (aside from those issues I just pointed out) its better looking than the one where the headlights and fenders were like one smooth piece ... what was that one? the 924? 928?

found it... the 928. Very ugly car, IMHO.

lemko

Heck, if I played that game I might just keep the "Fifth Avenue." I knew a guy in high school who was on his third new Camaro after totalling the first two. His parents owned a huge furniture store that is now out of business.

fintail

I see nothing wrong with a Volvo 240 kinda thing for a first car. Good car to learn on, hard to get hurt in it and if it gets smashed, no crying shame. I too knew kids who had stupid parents who bought them new cars, and probably more than half of these got smashed within the first year. It's just not smart.

Mr_Shiftright

Well a stickshift coupe 240 would be a lot better than a wagon. I think the debate was not so much about it being a 240 wagon, but about it being a shabby 240 wagon....I mean, talk about rubbing it into a kid.

On the other hand, a shabby 240 wagon would be a great PUNISHMENT for a kid who cracked up his Camaro. I could get behind that...."see what happens to BAD drivers?!!"

qbrozen

hehehe.

come on, though. We can think of FAR worse cars to punish a kid with.

lemmer

That thing under the rear bumper was put there by Porsche. In fact, people like to retrofit those to earlier cars. I am not sure why. It does look particularly odd on that car. Maybe it got reinstalled crooked or something.

The black thing is a piece of normally clear plastic that was to protect the rear wheel flairs from rock chips and such. They usually crack and yellow over time. Most of the time they just get removed. Painting them black is clearly not the answer.

The car with the headlights flat in the top of the fender was the 928. Some people love them, some hate them. I am somewhere in between. Shifty recently sold his. I don't know how he felt about the looks of the car.

qbrozen

Maybe if I ever get a 70s 911 targa, I'll learn more about porsches.

lilengineerboy

I dunno, I didn't mind the 240 so much. It was rear wheel drive and could be provoked to fish tail. A friend had a 240 DL wagon then got a 240 Turbo wagon then got a 740 turbo wagon. Eventually he got an E36 3 series (seems to be a trend with my friends) and the 740 became the loaner vehicle for my group of friends (in case of break-down, accident, or being grounded from primary ride). I could hold a lot of mtn bikes (as could the previous group loaner, an 80s Toyota 1-ton with like 300k).
I swear I saw some lady driving that Volvo around last time I was in California.

fintail

So what does "DSM" mean anyway?

One for lemko, maybe andre

I suppose you could haul a lot with it

british_rover

DSM equal Diamond Star Motors I think and refers to the Eclipse/Talon/Laser triplets.

fintail

Ah that makes sense. I knew they were related, but I wasn't having good luck with the acronym.

Mr_Shiftright

Every old lady is given a Volvo in California on her 100th birthday.

fintail

It does look nice, but stop with the diesel greed

This looks decent, like those Euro lights

jlflemmons

I love it: "Adult Ownership"

Like a kid would drive a MB wagon!

lilengineerboy

DSM = Diamond Star Motors...joint venture between Mitsubishi and Chrysler that brought us the Eagle Talon, Plymouth Laser and Mitsubishi Eclipse, and then the Galant and Seebring I believe.

lilengineerboy

The Peugeot 505 TD (stood for turbo diesel but we said it stood for turd) and the 300 TD wagon used to duke it out for the best smoke screen in my high school parking lot. Just get the wastegate to open and all the old school diesel soot comes out

lilengineerboy

I saw this on eBay...84 Volvo Wagon Diesel

fintail

The Volvo diesel wagon is the slowest car in my 1981 Consumer Guide, with a 0-60 of 25.8 sec

"it could be one of the most admired cars on the road."

stickguy

I'm thinking that the dude that is trying to sell it should apply for the lost title before he tries to pawn off the problem on a buyer!

Reminds me of years ago when I bought an old Corolla from my Mom's co worker. He lived in NYC, but had it registered in NJ. Well, comes the day he was supposed to bring it to the office so I could pick it up, and he can't locate the title. He had to take a day (maybe a half) off to drive to Trenton to wait on lines to get a replacement.

Actually, that is one of the cars I wished I kept longer. I even bought it sight unseen, based on how he described it to my mother (only asking $600 helped too). Great little car, kept it a year and sold it for $900, only because I got a job post-college and couldn't wait to buy something new.

ghulet

...even if by some remote chance (like every other car built before 1980 disintegrating) something like a '75 Fury becoming a 'classic', this one is a four-door sedan....in brown...with an off-white vinyl top. I just don't see it being 'admired' all that much.

jlflemmons

how do you link an html to a word or phrase?

such as "look at this pile of excrement" linking to a particularly offensive rusting hulk.

jlflemmons

http://austin.craigslist.org/car/194750958.html

Let's see, here, "All original" except the engine swap!

Me thinks $1K buck is about $950 high.

jlflemmons

http://austin.craigslist.org/car/194744092.html

With all being perfect this one is $10K above book. And with a new "spec 3" clutch, whatever that is, you know it has been babied by an "adult owner".

snort. :P

lemmer

When you put in the url, you replace the words "link title" with your phrase.

andre1969

I like that '75 Fury. Even in brown. Even as a 4-door sedan. Normally I don't like brown cars, but that one doesn't really bother me. I always did like that front-end, with the quad headlights and the tall, fine grille. Sometime in 1975 they went to a clumsy looking front-end with single headlights and a tall, rectangular turn signal. Looked like this.

I'm not sure exactly how they transitioned over, but I think in 1974 they all had the quad headlights. Then in 1975, Plymouth took their midsize lineup and started calling it "The New, Small Fury: the car a lot of people have been waiting for". For 1975 they called all the big ones Gran Fury, but I think the top level was called Brougham, and it had the goofy single headlights. Then in '76-77 I think they all had the single headlights. For 1978 the line was dropped completely, along with the big Dodge Royal Monaco, leaving only the Chrysler Newport/New Yorker to carry on that final year with a slightly larger, heavier version of this body style.

In the earlier years, they offered a 2-door hardtop that I thought was pretty attractive. Here's a pic of a 1974 Dodge Monaco, which is almost identical. Unfortunately, in later years it seems that most of them were given that fixed opera window landau roof treatment like what that Gran Fury above with the single headlights is sporting.

Dodge also did something similar to Plymouth in 1975, offering an upscale version of the Monaco called the Royal Monaco, which had a different front end with hidden headlights. It came off better looking than the Gran Fury's goofy treatment, though. For 1976, I think they all went to the hidden headlight treatment. Then for 1977 I think they called all the big ones "Royal Monaco", while the midsized Coronet got renamed as Monaco, in a lame attempt to make you think that Dodge was giving you two choices in "full-sized" cars...traditional and downsized. Ford did something similar back then with the LTD and LTD-II, which was a reskinned Torino.

qbrozen

you may need more directions than lemmer's.

When you paste the link, you then have to highlight it in your message and click the "Url" button that is among the formatting buttons that is located under the window you are typing your new message in.

This will add in the html tags. In the middle of those tags appear the words "link title." Just overwrite those words with what you want to appear as the linked text.

i hope that's all coherent.

Mr_Shiftright

Ah, another poor soul who hasn't faced the grim reality that you get back ten cents on the dollar for every modification you put on a late model car.

So you spend $40K on say a '95 Mustang with stroker block, suspension mods, Tremac 5 speed, supercharger, cobra wheels, blah blah, wing, pod instruments, this n' that....and you'd be lucky to add $5,000 to the Blue Book price.

These sellers have to understand that putting race gear on your car spells "RACED AND ABUSED" to the buyer.....

jlflemmons

It's a really good car down in Mexico, I promise

qbrozen

well, it just makes no sense. if they can't bring it to texas, then that means they want someone who is in mexico, but has a car in texas, to trade. What are the odds you'd find such a person?

Mr_Shiftright

A classic case of taking something simple and turning it into something as complicated and doomed to failure as humanly possible.

fintail

Could be neat, could be a nightmare

Something is really off about this (not just the spelling)

Rare model

ghulet

Right: why not do something like...sell the car you own in Mexico, take the money and buy something in Texas. Amazing! Doubt it's anything like the crummy pesos-to-dollars ratio coming into play, right?

ghulet

Uh, on that 560SEL, coupla things right off the bat: it's NOT a 560SEL, unless they've performed the highly unusual convert-the-newer-car-to-the-older-look thing (it has U.S.-spec non-composite headlights, for one), new paint, replete with the wonderful painted bumpers, always a red flag for 'I got a sub-half-assed paint job', especially on a Mercedes that isn't supposed to have them. Even if this thing were super minty fresh (and I don't buy the 110k miles for a minute), it's just not a $7000 car....it's twenty-one years old and gets 13 mpg. They want to trade for a Honda Quad (what's that?), shocking given $3.50 gas.

And funny how owners of old Audis always suddenly have 'too many cars' when they want to dump the Audi off a cliff.

lemmer

My guess: Audi 3000 = Audi 5000 running on 3 cylinders.

lemko

Doesn't the ad for the 560SEL say it's an '86? The car doesn't have the flush composite lights that I believe Mercedes started using that year.

fintail

Good eyes on the 560SEL stuff. That front bumper is also Euro, which really clashes with those lights. The air dam looks odd too. The paint looks awful....I can't tell if it is a smooth sided 86+ or an older car with the grooved trim removed. I suspect a grey market 500SEL or a real hack job of a wrecked 560. I have never heard of a grey market 560, as that was the car to make the grey market stuff redundant.

Audi 3000 = 3 cylinders...I like that.

A Honda Quad is a 4 wheel ATV

qbrozen

I really like this MX6 ad. OK, let's see... emaculate [sic] body = bad paint, dings, and a nonmatching mirror. So I REALLY have to worry what "pretty good" interior means to this guy!

nothing suspicious here!

OH! And here I though BLING meant something else!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!! What a great sense of humor!

Straight from the showroom! .... that is, if it came with the droopy headliner from the showroom.

I'm not pimp enough to even talk to this guy.

This guy needs a better accountant. $20k invested and it still has a I6 and mismatched body parts!

lemmer

Clearly the MX6 owner meant 'emasculate' as he went on to explain that someone stole his head unit.

jlflemmons

sooo, if that '96 Mustang is a Texas car, where is it's Texas title? You can get shot down here for trying that sort of thing. Probably a flood car, or just outright stolen.