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

210delray

Is that because you lose the cushioning effect of the proper size tires by having to use those silly rubber bands instead?

With wheels that huge, that car wouldn't survive a week in the mean streets of Manhattan (not even counting the likelihood of theft or a rollover around a corner or entrance ramp).

andre1969

Is that because you lose the cushioning effect of the proper size tires by having to use those silly rubber bands instead?

that's probably part of it, but I wonder if those heavy rims might actually exacerbate the twisting forces exerted on the car, such as when you hit a bump or pothole or something with just one side of the car?

Mr_Shiftright

yes chassis flex---even on FACTORY large wheels.

fintail

Gee, I have no idea why the British auto industry died

This survived better than most

I wouldn't pay 12 cents for this

This is actually worth less than scrap value

Granny had an aerodynamic looking car

andre1969

I kinda like that '83 Grand Marquis. Nice color, the black-over-silver, with red interior. I think I'd have to do something about those little wheels though. I think that sucker's sporting the stock, base-level 14" rims! Funny though, how on a car like this, put 15" rims on it and it looks okay. But try putting something as small as a 15" on most modern cars, and they look goofy. :confuse:

oregonboy

Geez, fin !!! You are really scraping the bottom of the barrel there!

hpmctorque

No mileage disclosure on the Mercury (if it's low mileage, why not say what it is?) and Neon. That alone would disqualify these two fro me. Fortunately my tongue isn't hanging out for either one.

On the Continental, again we don't know the mileage on the car, just the replacement motor, so you know it has to be miled up. Also, if it needs an oil change, why not just do it before putting it up for sale. Makes me wonder about the maintenance, or, rather, the lack of it. Okay, I can understand why the seller might choose to not fix the head liner, but the oil? Come on!

Regarding the Austin Marina, it's what you don't see - the dismal reliability - that, among other things, explains the demise of the British car industry. The design of that car is about average for the period, but the execution is below average, even for that sorry period. I sure hope we won't say similar things about our domestic manufacturers one day. That would really be sad.

fintail

The Mercury ad gives the mileage (something like 26K I think) and so did the Lincoln, albeit worded poorly. Not that the mileage makes me want to run to either car...just poor ads.

Luckily the big 2.5 haven't got quite as bad as BL...and I don't think they will. But today I think perception will mean more than reality.

fintail

Here ya go, lemko

Oh yeah, no ebay dog pound tomorrow as I'll be away for most of the day. Should return next week at its regularly scheduled time.

texases

Sad-Shack Scirocco 55mpg? Sure.... Course, it doesn't run, fuel system is in parts, interior a mess, and you gotta love the 'one of a kind' bodywork, especially the 'lovers' in the hood :sick:

Fun track car
Hmm... 5 bids, only up to $780...could be fun, but no heat/a-c. Much nicer than previous.

Super Scirocco
How about 500hp? Yours for $15,500!

Show pickup
Imagine this has a high reserve. Those were pretty tight inside, IIRC.

edit - no gen1 GTIs to be found

andre1969

Yeah, they really worded that Mercury ad awkwardly...
"miles: 029487 (amazingly ORIGINAL MILES!!) "

For some reason, my eye passed right over it. Since it was a dealer, I guess the 029487 just registered with me as a stock number or something.

I think of the downsized Big Three cars of that generation, the Fords are my least favorite. There's just something that's too upright and boxy about them. Even in 2-door form, that thing seems more like a sedan than a coupe to me. I also don't find them to be hugely roomy inside, either. GM's B/C and Mopar's R-bodies feel like they have more legroom to me, and the Fords just seemed to have huge transmission humps. I mean, they're roomy enough to be adequate, but I'd just say they feel the tightest of the three.

On the plus side, for the most part, Ford built them pretty well back then. My 1985 Consumer Guide rates the Crown Vic and Grand Marquis it tested very high for fit and finish, paint quality, etc. Actually as good as the best of the Japanese and European cars that were in that issue, which I find a bit surprising.

lemmer

This CLK grabs my interest. I don't know much about them. I assume it has the typical MB pros and cons.

lemmer

I adored my Mk I Scirocco, but in hindsight they were pretty awful cars. Mine left me stranded with alarming regularity. In addition to having Fiat like mechanicals, my floorboards rusted completely through even though it was an Alabama car for its entire life.

jlflemmons

Many years ago I mentored a bunch of high school kids. Even though we didn't have kids at the time, we always had kids showing up for meals, or help on something or other.

One of the boys had a Scirocco that he was so proud of, though it was a typical VW of the era, ie unreliable. He pulls up in the drive one day and calls out, I think my car is on fire. Very calm, considering the beast was indeed on fire.

Turned out Bosch had used a 20A fuse in a circuit whose wiring was only good for about 10-12 amps. The wiring harness protected the fuse. :lemon:

Mr_Shiftright

It's rather amazing the time, effort and money people put into these projects with no hope of recovering even .25 cents on the dollar.

The VW pickup truck is interesting--so much good stuff and yet the basics of the car have been neglected. The locks don't work, there is no instrument panel life whatsoever, body has a dent, CV boots are torn, etc. How can you spend so much on an engine and then drive the truck with no instrument panel activity whatsoever?

Weird :confuse:

lemmer

My wiring harness caught on fire one time. I forgot about that. I was a little short on cash so I followed each burnt wire one by one replacing each wire with blue speaker wire. The genius of a 17 year old kid. In my defense, my repair was free and kept me on the road.

texases

I must have been extremely lucky - neither my Scirocco nor my GTI ever left me stranded. Even when the lower control arm almost let go on my Scirocco, I was able to get home. Course, that was my fault - I had slid into a curb on glare ice a few weeks before, and I didn't bother to look for damage.

Mr_Shiftright

I find that the big problem with most older VWs of this type is neglect. Unlike a toyota corolla, which seems to thrive on abuse, a VW needs someone's head under the hood every few weeks.

lemmer

I forgot about my bent control arm. They must have made those out of used tins cans held together with used with baling twine.

Mr_Shiftright

As we used to say about Fiats --- "manifesting all the structural rigidity of an Italian TV dinner tray".

lemmer

How did the Germans get their reputation for engineering anyway? VW and Porsche lived on a simple rear engined air cooled design forever. When Porsche switched the 911 to water, the engined ended up leaking worse than an MG. When VW went water cooled, the lack or reliablity almost killed the company over time. Mercedes did have a lot of "firsts" with the S class, but it seems like the Germans had their rep long before the early days of airbags and ABS.

Mr_Shiftright

I think because their products perform so well, which is different than reliability. They are still the best driving cars in the world overall.

texases

"manifesting all the structural rigidity of an Italian TV dinner tray".

I learned more about that when I tried to sell the Scirocco - went to a used car lot. First thing he does, pops the hood, sees flaking paint around the strut tower bolts on the side I hit. "No sale, that thing's been hit." :sick:

lemmer

Did you have trouble with the front fenders that were permanently super glued to the car? Pretty much rules out cheap junkyard replacements.

texases

"Did you have trouble with the front fenders that were permanently super glued to the car?"

Luckily, no, never bent one, and in Dallas, no rust.

lemmer

Mine rusted through the floorboards because of apparently unfixable windshield leaks (that were apparently very common). Another one of my free fixes actually. I scraped away most of the rust, painted with some kind of rust proofer my dad had in the garage and then "repaired" the hole and "reinforced" the remainder of the floor with some sort of fiberglass boat repair kit. The only problem was that the front seat wouldn't stay in place. In hindsight, that was conceivably a safety issue.

fintail

I think assembly quality and finishes had a lot to do with it too. Beetles were fairly primitive, but were assembled to the highest standards. The MB of the period were assembled like jewels compared to nearly every other car. Precision fit and finish feels like good engineering. And as Shifty said, they just drive right.

fintail

Yep, no huge issues other than random electrical bugs. I'd want to make sure the transmission has been serviced every 50K or so...otherwise the powertrains are very solid.

fintail

They do seem like a two door sedan rather than a coupe. I guess the Caprice coupe was pretty much the same in that way, in my eyes at least.

My 1981 Consumer Guide says nice things about Ford assembly quality too.

texases

"How can you spend so much on an engine and then drive the truck with no instrument panel activity whatsoever? "

Some of that may be the 'catalog/bolt on' mentality: "There were a bunch of 'neat' things in the catalog, bolted them on, but don't both me with messy stuff like maintenance."

jrosasmc

How's the deal with the Dart going as of late? Were you able to negotiate something with the gentleman who was interested in obtaining it?

I also wanted to ask you a Mopar-related question of which I have limited knowledge about- what do you know about the early '90s FWD Fifth Avenues and Imperials? I've got a Mopar-loving friend who is interested in purchasing one for his fleet, although it doesn't matter if it's a 5th Ave or Imperial. He just likes the cars because they're smooth-riding and represent the last of the 'stretched' K-car derivatives. I myself am fearful of getting one because of the infamous 4-speed Ultradrive transmission, the bad points of which you know about.

fintail

Semi-literate spelling, unusual beast

Summer car

Detail it and flip it on ebay

Good for calendar-timed speed runs

"invest"

Mr_Shiftright

You missed your chance for a great joke, to link to the Corvair and then "detail it and flip it on eBay".

The '68 Mercury convert might be a decent deal if it's clean. Might even be a little bit 'o profit in the car.

73 Diesel Benz -- seems fair enough. And diesel is only $5.15 a gallon where I live.

73 Hurst Olds -- might be a good deal if he hasn't screwed it up too much.

explorerx4

when i had my scirocco 's', i decided to put some speakers in the doors.
to cut out the holes, i went through seven layers of material!

andre1969

I had to laugh about the comment where the seller of the '73 Hurst said that the buyer who was 6'6" couldn't fit in it. My first thought was...it must have those swivel bucket seats. And sure enough, once I read into the ad, it had 'em!

They're kind of a nifty feature, but I just don't find them comfortable. And even though my '76 LeMans is essentially the same car underneath as this Cutlass, mine had a power bench seat that has a wide range of motion. It can adjust into some pretty obscene positions. That's probably the only reason that I'm so comfortable in it, at a mere 6'3". With the nonpower bench seat they're not as comfy but still adequate for me, but I just don't find those swivel buckets comfortable at all. It seems like they don't slide back as far as the bench, but even worse, the bottom cushion seems shorter. And they just seem more thinly padded.

andre1969

How's the deal with the Dart going as of late? Were you able to negotiate something with the gentleman who was interested in obtaining it?

Well, there was a young guy who had stopped by a couple months ago, but I think my honesty about the car scared him off. I never heard back from him. Last Saturday, an older guy saw me out in the yard and stopped by. I showed it to him, was brutally honest about it, but he still seemed interested. We exchanged phone numbers, but I haven't heard back from him. If he's not interested, and I get the ambition, I might try listing it on Craigslist and then if there are no takers, just call the junkyard to come get it at the end of the year. I did at least pull it off the grass and put it on the driveway, so maybe it won't deteriorate as fast.

As for those 5th Aves and Imperials, I don't know much, but in general with that Ultradrive transmission, they started off crappy from year one, but got better (or at least less crappy) with every passing year. So my advice would be, if your friend is searching one out, to get the newest one possible. I think 1993 was the last year for those things?

I think the transmission was the only really bad area on those cars. The 3.3 and 3.8 V-6 engines were pretty much bulletproof, and fairly torquey. I'd say avoid the Mitsubishi 3.0, but I think it was only offered in the cheaper Dynasty and New Yorker. The 5th Ave/Imperial probably stayed with the 3.3/3.8.

I've also heard that with the transmissions, if you use Type +4, which is also called 9196 I think, instead of Type +3, or 7176, the transmissions tend to work better. Supposedly one major problem was that the owners manuals had a misprint calling for the wrong fluid, and that would make them shift rougher, and could cause premature failure.

All in all, those things aren't bad cars. They're comfortable, cushy, and the backseat legroom is limousine-like. I think I prefer the 5th Ave to the Imperial...I just don't care for the pretentiousness of the Imperial's cowcatcher grille, and I like the vertical taillights better than the horizontal theme on the Imperial.

qbrozen

ok. i gotta know.
what the hell does "KITSAP" mean on that corvair listing?

jlflemmons

I don't know if he is mis-quoting Motor Trend, or if someone at Motor Trend was spending too much time with the carb cleaner, but the '73 was NOT the last of the super cars. That 455 was de-tuned and low compression, covered with vacuum servos, and a pain in the butt to keep in tune. Still used points and condenser, although the suspension wasn't bad.

Anyone who really knows Olds will tell you the last of the super Olds was the 1970 W30 442. They didn't make many, and a good one nowadays is going to run serious money.

"The Oldsmobile Cutlass (including the Hurst/Olds and 442) changed body styles to the "Colonnade" body style, which was used until 1977. The Hurst Olds was based on the semi-fastback Cutlass S coupe and featured an interior with swiveling Strato bucket seats separated by a console with Hurst Dual-Gate shifter for the Turbo Hydra-matic transmission. The sole engine offering was a 455 cubic-inch Rocket V8 with four-barrel carburetor and dual exhausts rated at 250 horsepower. The '73 model was the first Hurst Olds to be offered in two color schemes-black/gold or white/gold."

The 1970 W30 442 put out a "published" 385HP, but every one that was dyno'ed was around 425HP. Published torque was 500ftlbs, but were actually well above that. I got to drive a brand new '70 W30, and can tell you first hand that it was an unforgetable experience. You could never ever punch that monster from a standing start. It would just sit there melting the tires off the rims. I don't think I remembered to breathe until it hit third gear.

Oh, the sound that baby made at full throttle ... :shades:

michaellno

Kitsap, Washington - town west of Seattle

gsemike

Challenger resto mod This car looks terrific but with no pedigree, I don't know what to make of this valuation

It depends on what work it needs Crying shame that the original engine is long gone

Too much money for a timebomb

Nice old Vette

Another Vette What would the 454 have been rated at in 1974

Not a bad driver By 76, were these cars still fun?

andre1969

In 1974 the Corvette 454 had 270 hp, which is what it was rated in '72 and '73. Incidentally, '74 was also the last year for a 454 Vette. In '75 there were two 350's, with 165 hp standard and 205 optional.

I wonder if many people complained about the lack of a '454 in later years? In '75 you could get a Chevelle, Monte Carlo, or full-size Chevy with a 235 hp 454, and in its last year for cars, 1976, it had 225. That last year it was just offered in the big cars though.

Mr_Shiftright

70 Challenger--- the man is dreaming---beyond dreaming. The "resto-mods" are now taking SERIOUS hits in value, drastic price cuts. I'd guess the car might be worth $50K--$55K. Surely not $90,000 unless Steve McQueen owned it.

69 Vette- I always associate that body style with someone who can't quite pay his rent or who owns a big violent dog. Just me.

1991 M5 -- well it does look like a nice car, but gee, all those miles. I guess a full check up and service records would decide if it's worth it or not. Mostly it's tough to find someone to work on old Ms. Most indy shops don't seem to like 'em.

fintail

It's the name of a county and the name of a peninsula. I don't know of any towns out there with that name. It's home to Bremerton where the Naval installation is, along with Hood Canal and not a lot else. My family used to have a little summer house on Hood Canal...sold long before the real estate market exploded, of course.

lemmer

I have a real trade on the table, not a hypothetical for once.

What I would give up:
1) '98 BMW 323iC convertible, 5 speed, black exterior and top with tan leather.
78K miles, overall in very good, almost excellent shape.
2) '86 Porsche 944, 5 speed red exterior with black leather.
142K miles, very good mechanically, a/c dead, slightly below average cosmetically.

What I would get:
'98 Porsche Boxster, 5 speed, silver exterior with red leather.
97K miles, overall I would say average or slightly above conditon.

The guy wants to trade straight up and will not add any $.
Your opinions solicited.

texases

Well, ignoring $$ (I don't know what they're worth) and practicality (you must have other available 4 seaters, or you wouldn't be asking), I'll just take it as: Which would you rather have as your fun car(s)?

For me, I've always liked to have a 944 like yours, and have liked my BILs 323iC convert, so I'd take door A. But if you've had enough time with them, door B might be interesting. I'd just want to make sure the Boxster (not an S, right?) has enough ooph for you.

lemmer

I am ready for a change, so one or both cars will probably go sometime in the near future. The BMW is my daily driver, and a prefer not to have a convertible as my daily driver. I also am not big on the color scheme. I really like the 944, but if I fixed the a/c, did some minor body/paint touchup, recovered the front seats, etc. I would be in deeper than just selling this one and buying a nicer one.

I don't have another 4 seater available right now and I have to have one that will hold one booster seat and one car seat. If I made this trade, I would be lucky to get the wife to agree to spending another $5K cash on a second car.

I will own a Boxster at some point. With Boxsters I've noticed that paying a little more gets you a much nicer car. 97/98s seem to be overpriced for what you get as compared to an '00 S.

qbrozen

Hmmmm... tough call without doing any research. I'd say if the BMW had similar miles to the Boxster, it makes sense. But with nearly 100k miles on the Boxster, I think you are asking for trouble. You know the bimmer will go 200k with little work ... but do you think the Boxster would?

did you drive the Boxster? Those '98 base models are borderline, IMHO. Meaning borderline fun.

Heck, if you are talking about doing this AND spending $5k on a 2nd car, why not just take these 2 and the $5k and get one better car overall? Like... I dunno .... M3?

lemmer

I think I can get $10 for the BMW and $3 or so for the 944 giving me a total of $13K. This doesn't mean I can spend $18K on another car, probably just $15K. Don't ask me to explain, but I understand how it would work in my wife's mind.

$15K would get a high mileage RX-8, a lower mileage E36 M3, maybe a decent 330 coupe. Not sure what else would be really fun to drive and have four seats.

In all honesty, I drove my neighbor's '97 Boxster and his '99 Miata and I think the Miata was probably more fun.

Mr_Shiftright

Money-wise the deal is fair, just about right, but if the Boxster isn't an S you'd be just as happy in a Miata with fewer years and fewer miles on it I think. You're right, the 944 is a money-pit so I'd get rid of that no matter what else you do.

lemmer

Wonder if I could swing an E36 M3 and a '99 Miata for $15K. That might be a real idea. Anybody else got some ideas what to do with the $15K (any suggestions will work, just as long as it includes one car car with a fixed roof and 4 seats).