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

Mr_Shiftright

I have a video somewhere of a large truck vaporizing (literally) a 2CV...it just disappears from the video and turns into dust....fun to look at, not fun to drive over 35 mph.

Mr_Shiftright

What they did was import them by putting late model (1980s) bodies on 60s frames and then importing them as 60s cars, to subvert the DOT/EPA regulations.

Mr_Shiftright

Kinda sad to think how little these cars are desired:

http://adcache.collectorcartraderonline.com/10/8/4/87181884.htm

Here's something that "might" be a good deal:

http://adcache.collectorcartraderonline.com/10/2/0/85810020.htm

210delray

Yikes...sad day for Cadillac. I wonder how much Lemko's low-mileage pristine example (1989 model) would fetch?

fintail

Maybe a good beater 126

boomchek

Those diesels look pretty rough, especially the red one. But for $500 and some time I'm sure you can piece together one decent W123 out of those two.

andre1969

called a Charleston Townabout, which I think was a small electric car that looked like a VW Karman Ghia with DeSoto tailfins grafted on. Guess that's a different Charleston, though?

andre1969

Yikes...sad day for Cadillac. I wonder how much Lemko's low-mileage pristine example (1989 model) would fetch?

I've seen Lemko's Brougham, and that thing probably looks cleaner and nicer now than it did the day he first took delivery of it!

I wonder if the engine makes much difference in RWD DeVille/Brougham pricing? For instance, I'm sure the Diesel is still a kiss of death for these cars. And personally, I wouldn't touch any of the '82-85 models, because they only came with the Diesel or the tiny aluminum 4.1 that was very troubleprone.

However, I'd consider a '77-79, which had the 425, or an '80 with the 368. And I hear that even the '81, with the V-8-6-4, isn't bad if you disable the cylinder deactivation (I think Isellhondas said it involves pulling one wire). In 1986 they replaced the Caddy 4.1 with an Olds 307-4bbl, and at some point, either 1990 or 1991, they switched to a Chevy 305 TBI, with a 350 TBI being optional.

Personally, I'd be willing to pay a premium for a model with the Chevy 350 TBI. That was probably about the time that they finally got performance on these cars back up to 1977-79 levels. And the 1994-96 Fleetwoods, with the 260 hp LT1 350's, were almost scary-fast for their size.

lokki

Worth the price of a new Mini Cooper?

Worth the price of a new 330i?

This or the Mustang?

Can you really get $7K for this?

Hey ! Showroom condition!

As compared to "Mechanic's Special"

Who gets the better half of the bargain?

Total Detachment from reality?

boomchek

Nice pics on the Viper post, need a microscope to see that. I always liked Vipers. I would think maintenance on a used one wouldn't be in the exotic car territory because of many common parts :confuse:

As for the Firebird, I always liked the first few years after the redesign with the original nose as in those pics. After they had some minor changes with the hood bulges and so on I think it spoiled their look.

Mr_Shiftright

65 Mustang--yep, prices goin' up all the time on these, although if it's a 3-speed floorshift car...yuck....If it's a GT 289 with auto or 4-speed and really sharp, (AND numbers correct!) $30,000 is not unlikely.

2002 Viper -- if you want to just go fast in a brutal, punishing car that will bite you in the butt if you do something stupid---well, there's not much on the road that can touch one. But don't put a boy in a man's driver's seat. Another universe from a 330i

57 Chevy -- well if it had AC and some kind of suspension improvements, it might be worth the price of a new Mustang, sure. But if it drives like a '57, no thanks.

Hotrod VW -- yeah, you can probably get $7,000 if the car exudes any quality to the modifications. But trashy catalog parts and corner-cutting workmanship, then NO! When I see big-bore kits on VW engines, I'm always thinking "when will the pin fall out of this hand grenade?"

2003 Cavalier -- I think "showroom condition" means "unsaleable, just like when new".

1996 Firebird-- no, that means "the mechanic IS special"....so special in fact that he won't say that you've ripped the rocker arms off their shafts by over-revving. Actually maybe not a bad buy. GM power is cheap cheap cheap, and as long as you have plenty of duct tape to cope with the atrocious build quality, you could have lotsa fun for not lotsa money. Of course, you'll have to get rid of that V-6. Hmmm...this is starting to sound too expensive already. Let's just buy a good running, perfect, pristine '96 coupe V8 for $6,000 and go home.

oregonboy

a few samples from my Puget Sound search on "wagon, manual"

unusual, at least in the States
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/car/273488550.html

for the P1800-ES lovers out there
http://seattle.craigslist.org/skc/car/274596299.html

drive a brick
http://seattle.craigslist.org/est/car/276615441.html

too bad there are no pictures, interesting (but I wouldn't want to own it)
http://seattle.craigslist.org/est/car/276515212.html

I like this, but it seems like too much $ for the miles
http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/car/275718590.html

HAHAHAHA, his "friends" moved to N.Carolina and left this for him to sell. I wonder how much they owed him when they skipped out.
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/car/275529336.html

james

isellhondas

I liked the Firebird...May need some engine work"

Gee, do ya think?

Mr_Shiftright

that ain't opportunity knocking....

Gee all you need is a new engine, a backwards baseball cap, a handgun in the glovebox and some burgler tools in the trunk and you'll all set for the good life.

fintail

Allegro...wow, that's hideous.

Actually, I think I read a blurb on that seller somewhere...he has a little compound with about a dozen freakshow cars.

isellhondas

That is probably the sound of a rod, about to be thrown.

Another story...

When I was a kid, we had an independant shop in town that kept a couple of beaters around for loan cars. One of those cars was a 1949 or 1950 Chevy. Anyway, I was in there one day talking to one of the owners when this Chevy, driven by an elderly (and nearly deaf) customer. It was knocking like mad..LOUD!! After he shut it off, it was discovered he had thrown a rod right through the side of the block. Somehow, it missed a water jacket!

Mr_Shiftright

I remember a neighbor asking me to take a look at her Isuzu Pup Turbo Diesel pickup...she said it started slowing down on the highway and making noises, so she downshifted and staggered home, and now it wouldn't crank over at all.

Well I looked around from up top, then bent down and saw a connecting rod dangling from a hole in the oil pan.

stevedebi

"HAHAHAHA, his "friends" moved to N.Carolina and left this for him to sell. I wonder how much they owed him when they skipped out.
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/car/275529336.html "

Wow, I had no idea that those "bungee cord 5 speeds" were still around... :surprise:

fintail

This might not be a bad thing if it passes an inspection

lokki

In that Allegro ad there's a classic example of why reading skills are important for the internet car-buyer:

"It's amazingly rust free for a UK car"

That's kind of like saying that the Titanic is amazingly rust free for having been at the bottom of the ocean almost a century.

qbrozen

that p1800 is reall purdy ... but I wouldn't pay that kind of money for one. Not even the nicest one on the planet.

Price of that 240 is just ridiculous. For $3500 I could get a volvo almost 10 years younger.

isellhondas

There is almost a cult following on 240's so that price just might be possible. Those were sturdy, reliable cars unlike the stuff Volvo is producing today.

I sure wouldn't pay that but others might.

Mr_Shiftright

I wonder....like most cult members, they're cheapskates. That's a powerful price for an old bucket of bolts with a gazillion miles on it.

But it would be perfect for someone who hates cars.

isellhondas

Remind me of the old VW bus people.

There is a shop in Seattle that does a thriving business working on these. They are always packed and their customers pay whatever is required to keep those bricks on the road. Years ago, there was a shop in Berkeley CA that only worked on the old Honda 600's. The Honda dealer wouldn't touch them. I'm sure that shop is long gone.

Mr_Shiftright

You can get a hefty price for a clean, totally functioning Westphalia....of course, that's not easy to do :P

IPD is great--you can actually make an old Volvo somewhat kinda sorta fun to drive....in stock form, driving a 240 wagon is like my vision of Hell as a child.

xwesx

in stock form, driving a 240 wagon is like my vision of Hell as a child.

Oh, come now, hell is not that bad!

bumpy

a BMW that's not a quite a money pit?

that was quick

just about enough to build A car, anyway

ugly car, with matching ugly paint

3.9 V8? *scratches head*

I always did like these

cheap autox beater

back when a "500" was a desirable car

rear window louvers included!

Mr_Shiftright

Yeah it is. You could fall asleep at a stoplight driving that car....noisy, clumsy, slow and ugly...that's four of the basic food groups for Hell in my book at any rate.... :surprise: What can top it? An old VW bus? A Geo Metro rental car? A white Toyota Corolla automatic with flat tires?

yeah I know..."I have 6 kids and I need a reliable old car"...okay, okay......

Mr_Shiftright

'66 Ford Galaxie: Hmmm...needs paint, bodywork and a raccoon ate the interior, it's a 4-door, and it hasn't run for 14 years....can you say wrecking yard?
For a "41-year-old classic" he sure didn't treat it very classically....so he trashes it and expects us to revere it.....go away.... :mad:

lokki

Those Honda 600 Coupe people are still out there!

Home of the 600

Of course, they were always kinda of out there :confuse: in my humble opinion.

Particularly back in 60's when the Honda 600 was the size of the average hood ornament on the cars of the day.

How did the old poem go? "Into the freeway of death, drove the 600"

qbrozen

Volvo fans are loyal ... but not stupid. The 740 was largely based on the 240 mechanicals, so even if you don't trust designs that came after that, you could still get a much newer vehicle for much less money. I bought a 740 wagon for my brother with less than 100k miles for $1100. Not the cleanest thing in the world, but it wouldn't take much work to get it there (unfortunately, in his hands, that will never happen).

andre1969

As I recall, those Lincoln LS'es did offer a 3.9 V-8 that was co-developed with Jaguar. I think it had 252 hp, and was also offered in the T-bird revival. I think the Jag S-type offers a higher-output version of it, something like 287 hp?

qbrozen

yup. Until '03 with the LSV8 was bumped to 280 hp among some other nice additions. Big update, IMHO. Much nicer vehicle.

The Jag V8, however, had a 4.0. I'm not sure of the hp numbers. They weren't very different. Just enough so they could say it was different.

xwesx

Haha, no no. I was saying that hell is not as bad as a 240. I mean, at least torture and fire are interesting.

My HS English/Comm teacher had a navy blue one, while a family in town owned one that was hideous green. They both ran forever, much to the community's chagrin, as you could hear them from 2 miles away and it took 10 minutes for them to cover that distance. But, they were reliable and safe... just not sure it was a fair trade-off. :P

Funny enough, when the eldest son of the family that owned the green 240 turned 16, they purchased a new car (cannot remember what it was, but it was a domestic) and gave him the Volvo as his daily driver. And, after he left home, they gave it to his younger brother! I doubt either of them had a speeding ticket as a teen!

texases

One more example of Ford making a pretty decent car, then killing it with inattention, like the Focus.

qbrozen

hmmm... not sure what we're talking about? Ford really has left volvo to their own devices for the most part. The first real product from any collaboration with the Ford family is the S40/V50, to the best of my knowledge.

xwesx

I think he was referring to the Lincoln LS. Attention spans are short and fickle these days. No matter how good the design, it has to keep getting better in order for buyers to stay interested. Keeping a design around for 5, 10 years, means constantly playing catch-up.

qbrozen

oh man. yeah. thanks for bringing me up to speed.

that would be me and my lack of memory today throwing a wrench in the works.

The LS suffered from a couple of problems. One was that it was a serious sports sedan that had no manual tranny in the V8 version and seats as flat as a towncar. So it didn't know what it wanted to be. Grandpa's tourer or Junior's track car. The $50k pricetag was also a big hurdle.

isellhondas

I used to really like Volvos but not anymore. As used cars, the recent ones are nothing but expensive trouble!

Audi's are even worse!

lilengineerboy

One of my friends inherited a 240 turbo wagon his folks got European delivery back in the day. He was in a baby seat in that car, and I remember sitting in the 3rd row seat waving at the people behind us on the way back from soccer practice. His dad put IPD sway bars and some other stuff on it.
My friend's son has been in that car in a baby seat. The last time I drove it, it was just north of 300k miles.

Mr_Shiftright

I don't know how this car got a reputation for reliability....they are TOUGH cars that is true, but there's ALWAYS something going wrong with them. I guess perhaps they are relatively easy to fix (as opposed say to a Saab or Audi) and that there are plenty of aftermarket parts and junkyard parts...so you can keep them going a long time. Also major components tend not to fail.

But they are really nasty with vibration and petty rattles and squeeks and clunks (what IS that bass drum they put in the rear end floorpan of all 240 Volvos? Is the transmission out of a threshing machine?) with pretty shabby build quality compared to a Benz of the same era. Interior fixtures and upholstery were really cheap stuff (the leather was awful) and the paint practically fell off in 5-6 years. There must be buckets of broken fan knobs and radio dials and directional signal switches scattered across America. And of course you'll have to pick up your muffler off the ground every two years like clockwork.

But they were hard to kill off entirely..they'd stagger, wounded and bleeding, for years....they're kind of like old drunks... :P

lokki

I saw a quote about GM cars a few months ago in a magazine that I've been enjoying throwing around.

I think it might fit your discription of old Volvos -

[Old Volvos] run run bad longer than most cars run at all.

lilengineerboy

It has taken 25 years to rust from the salt of various beach communities, and the center console is thrashed. The hand crank sunroof still works. The rear hatch hinges like to fail and that plastic panel on the inside cant take the force of being slammed shut over 25 years so its in pieces too.
His dad rebuilt the seats with one of those IPD kits so they are fine.
I don't ever remember being stranded with that car due to failures that could be faulted to the car, but I do remember getting it stuck on the sand in Pismo (our bad :P ) and getting a flat tire on the way to Disneyland with his mom driving.

texases

We didn't work on imports at the garage I worked at in the '70s (weren't many running around Cincinnati at the time), but I do remember the woman who came in with a fuel injected Volvo. It had a puddle of gas under the injector, we told her to head over to the dealer. At least I didn't smoke...

Mr_Shiftright

240s were better than 140s. Probably weak spots were driveshaft u-joints (which is why every old Volvo you drive vibrates like hell, the joints are frozen but the owners can't be bothered), the emergency brake (a joke), rear trailing arm bushings (every old Volvo thumps over bumps like a beaver tail), the rubber doughnut holding the exhaust system up (rubber DONUTS??!!) and of course most of the interior knobs handles and switches falling off in your hand----but really, that's about it for chronic "you can count on 'em" type issues.

Oh, they ping like crazy even on 100++ aviation gas. Don't ask me why, I dunno.....

explorerx4

the focus has been around for a while, but it is acknowledged to be a better handler that the current euro focus. with a 2.3 it goes pretty well. they are a good buy, too. the design is getting to be in the 'classic' territory, though.

explorerx4

great example of volvo design trickling down to ford.
the headlights on the 240 wagon like just like those on my '02 epxlorer.

210delray

You mean the "TV screens" as they were fondly called?

explorerx4

the first flat screens?

andre1969

I don't know how this car got a reputation for reliability....they are TOUGH cars that is true, but there's ALWAYS something going wrong with them. I guess perhaps they are relatively easy to fix (as opposed say to a Saab or Audi) and that there are plenty of aftermarket parts and junkyard parts...so you can keep them going a long time. Also major components tend not to fail.

I'd say that's more of a definition for durable rather than reliable, but people tend to interchange the words. To me, reliable means that if you take care of it and use it reasonably, nothing will break. But durable means that you can beat up on it and abuse it, and it can take a lot of punishment.

Or maybe reliability is more a measure of minor injuries, where durability is more like what it takes to get the final kill in?