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Comments
Incidentally, that's a really nice looking New Yorker, andre. It seems to define luxury on a budget, and without worries. Heck, eliminating the worry factor is a luxury in itself.
http://indianapolis.craigslist.org/car/544063011.html
:lemon:
I like your $500 beater contest but lets keep it in this discussion. I am looking forward to what everyone else submits. I will be looking at a $500 Caddy Seville this weekend should I buy it I will send pics and details for your contest. However, the coast to cost part of the contest will have to remain a theory since I don't have the time to undertake a long road trip at the moment.
This may make for a good reality tv show, a low low low buck Cannon Ball run.
1991 mazda 626 4-dr - $500
And it's got a BLUE interior! :shades:
Now it's okay for a car to leak something since we will be stopping for gas and we can fill up the power steering, transmission, whatever. And of course cigarette burns, smashed fenders, seats that don't move----NO PROBLEMO.
But without headlights and with bald tires, no, that's not a $500 car anymore.
The $500 CANNON BALL -- a great idea but how can we monitor it for honesty? That would be tough, unless WE pick out the cars and assign them randomly to the drivers on the morning of the race start. And we can be kept honest by collecting $500 from each contestant for the car we give them. Drawing by lot.
You know, there WERE one or two cars on that list that *might* make it.
A Mazda 626 with a new (yet another) head gasket? I don't THINK so....
Tires are important, You have to have tires.
I guess maybe we would make an exception and put a $100 cap to correct ticket-able offenses, such as bad brake lights, broken lenses, etc. But again, the supervisors of the race will buy the cars and make the corrections prior to distributing the cars by random lot.
The idea is to reward courage (or folly) and fortitude, not mechanical ability or the size of one's wallet.
This is in the spirit of the "Age of the Iron Men" (or Women) who raced in the very early days. Tires? Heaters? Windshields? BAH. FEH!
I'd like it to be a little dangerous and risk-prone, but not fatal of course. It's about adventure, not winning, although there will be a sizable purse.
But better schedule it for spring or fall, so no one dies of hypothermia or heat stroke when the inevitable breakdowns occur in the middle of nowhere.
I'd like to be able to have people buy and prep their own cars, but it's so hard to make it fair. Providing cars to the entrants solves that problem but takes away some of the anticipatory excitement, regrettably.
Can't we just trust people not to cheat?
No.
Godfather of the Fit
Climb every hill, ford every mudpit.
Remind yourself why '70s cars sucked.
Pocket V-8
Domestic nondepreciation.
Instead of blowing three grand on a paint job, Lemko could get this reminder of the '80s or a spare Brougham.
That 87 Eldo has a very amusing interior. No wonder Caddy was in deep doodoo
I remember Dad backing into a pole with it, which left a crease in the rear bumper, and I think it got the edge of the trunklid as well. After my Mom & Dad divorced, Dad moved to Florida and took it down there. I think it finally threw a rod or something, which seemed to be a recurring theme with him. Back around 1971, he had a '66 Impala SS396 hardtop, which threw a rod on a lonely country road, and he just left it there!
In the late 70's, one of my neighbors, kind of a snooty, stuck up lady, had a later-style Gran Torino coupe, perhaps a 1975-76. Big, fat thing with fender skirts that made it look even plumper. Once the recession really started hitting full-force and gasoline started getting scarce and expensive, she swapped it for, of all things, a 1971 Coupe DeVille! I guess big behemoths like that were dirt cheap once fuel prices shot up, sort of like big SUVs today. But, if what I've heard about those Torinos is true, then that Caddy probably wasn't any thirstier than the Ford!
One Sunday morning my Dad, brother and I are on our way to church. My Dad notices his car parked crooked and then walks around to the other side and hear him yell, "Oh no! OH NO!" The left rear corner of the car is crushed almost to the rear window. Later on he found out that the guy who owned a deli several blocks away hit it with a red 1971 Pontiac LeMans the previous night. Dad did get the car fixed, but it was never quite the same and he shortly dumped it for a 1972 Ford LTD Country Squire.
Water pump failed twice
Starter failed
Brake rotors warped
Tailgate power window failed twice
Dashboard cracked
A/C failed
Antenna broke
Rusted with a fiendish vengeance
Soft plugs blew
Ouch this is going to hurt!
I paid $3700 for my car seven years ago then spent another $3k to bring maintenance up to date, replace wheels and tires with 16" Dunlop Sports, Momo wood steering wheel, new factory floor mats, and misc small stuff. I am the second owner and have all receipts since new but I have never been tempted to add up the receipts. My heart would probably give out.
I didn't realize an '84 was a 745. What years was it the 740?
'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
me: i don't have a book, but i can ask someone to give me a number.
mom: good, my friend has a 1989 ls400 with 190,000 miles on it. (i think the first model was 1990, could have bought it in 1989.).
me: that is a tough one. there is no 'book' on a car like that. it has too many miles and is judged on a case by case basis.
mom: how can she find out what is it worth?
me: um, maybe she can take it to carmax and see what they will give her for it.
mom: it hasn't been driven in 4 years and nothing happens when you try to start it.
me: a new battery would be a good place to start.
mom: she said something about finding a dead mouse.
me: i think it is toast.
being the optimist, if it can be started, maybe it is worth something as a write off as a tax donation. i don't think it is 'The Hemi in the Barn'.
Judging from comparables, you can find really clean ones with under 150K miles for between $3,500---$5,000. And I mean NICE cars, ready to roll.
Chronic issues on these cars are steering racks and disintegrating leather interior.
I pulled the fridge out, and found a nest of them in the condensation tray, dead. I'm guessing that tray would fill up with water, rejuvenating the smell, and then would go away when it dried out. But since it kept filling back up, the dead mice never had a chance to totally dry out. Pretty nasty experience.
I had a mouse problem in my garage last winter. I think I ended up catching 7-8 mice and even a vole or two (looks like a mouse but cuter, but supposedly more viscious). It was getting so bad that one morning I started up my New Yorker, and as I was backing out of the garage, one of them jumped out from that gap under the hood and tried to climb up the windshield! Every time I started the LeMans, I'd hear a plop, as one would jump off the back of it, and I found a few mouse turds on the plastic spacer between the bumper and the body.
I found the hole where they were getting in and caulked it up. Haven't had any problems yet this winter, although I'm a bit surprised because I'm sure there's other places the could find to get in.
"in other words she fly's on the freeway 140mph no problem"...yeah, I'd pay to see that
The Jaguar is, of course, hopeless (even when new). The seller seems seriously deluded. I loved the comment about "dual gas tanks for long trips" --LOL! (actually there was no room for one large tank, so they put in saddle tanks on either side in order to coat both sides of the road equally with leaking gasoline). Sure, it'll do 140 mph if you fired it out of the turret of the USS MIssouri.
I always wondered why they did that dual tank thing. Makes sense now. I guess the car was too low-slung to get a gas tank underneath the trunk floor without making it hopelessly shallow, so they just tucked two small ones in along the sides of the trunk. Those cars have an independent rear suspension, right? If that's the case, I guess they could have had a tank under the back seat that straddles the driveshaft, like they do with newer RWD cars. But again, those cars were so low-slung, and the back seats were kinda small, that perhaps that wouldn't have worked, either.
How fast would one of those things realistically go? I guess I just keep thinking that if I could get a 1991 Civic up to 115, a Jag should be a lot quicker. Of course, there's a BIG difference between going 115 downhill, and getting up to 140!
Alot of work done but still too much to go
Probably too much of a rust bucket when seen in person
What's the deal with the dashboard? This looks decent for the price but can't imagine that the Daytona Digital dash enhances the value
Maybe take the boat off the hood and take another pic
good story for a basket case car
Too much money for 130k on the car
btw: not a running $500 car in sight around here
Rust in a VW structural part of the floorpan?--- lotsa luck. Nice seats, but where's the piano that fell on them? Rusty VWs (or Porsches) of that era are scary. If they are rusted where the pillers attach to the frame, you can just throw them away.
El Camino SS -- he's asking a bit much for a car with so-so paintwork. $14K should buy you a fairly clean El Camino. These are Chevelle coupes poor sister.
Mazda 6 with salvage---well if he's asking $7,500, then the "minor damage" that totalled the car must have been estimated at----? That's a pretty large scratch.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.