Perhaps one of our Japanese-speaking readers might give us a translation of the dialogue delivered by the two men in their bizarre silver-and-white striped suits and their sentient Sprinter Caribbean companion. Compare this fine ad to the lame-o Official Car Of Santa Claus ad that we got in North America!

Disappointingly, the Clunkmaster couldn't use any of the parts on this 160,000-mile Toyota, but I'm sure some lucky junkyard scavenger will pick it clean before The Crusher consumes it as part of a Tercel-Starlet tiny Toyota appetizer.

Of course, we all know now that you pretty much need AWD to negotiate your typical shopping mall parking lot, so maybe Chrysler made a mistake by killing off the Eagle soon after gobbling up AMC in 1987. Could Chrysler have beat Subaru at its own game, had they only kept developing the Eagle?

You see the occasional 70s or 80s Alfa Spider in the self-service yards these days, but Alfettas and GTVs are about as common as junked Porsche 928s. This one seems about 95% complete, so let's hope its parts get rescued and live on in other Alfas… before The Crusher uses it as an appetizer for its main course of Lincoln Town Cars.

This is the fuel-injected 158-horsepower Alfa V6. Hmmm... there's room for a turbocharged-beyond-reason Buick V6 in this engine compartment!






I thought about buying this pretty Veglia clock for the next Junkyard Boogaloo Boombox, but the hands-setting mechanism was broken.

These ads may not be quite as punishingly 80s as the legendary Cocaine Factory Duster commercial, but they're up there with the rest of the 80s Car Ad contenders. Check out the special scooter, designed to fit in the back of the City!

Sure enough, it was a Quattro; not only that, it's a genuine 1983 ur-Quattro with carbon-fiber bodywork cast from original molds brought over from Germany, 500 horsepower under the hood, the full STaSIS brake and suspension treatment… and license plates! When I found out that the STaSIS guys not only knew about the car but had helped hop it up for William Perkins, one of their expert race consultants, let's just say I was eager to learn more.


The car is maintained at McGee Motorsports Group's shop at the track, and talk about a freakin' candy store- you'll definitely see some more of McGee's stuff here in the near future; in fact, if you're a regular at the Monterey Historics, you've already seen quite a few of their cars. Yes, that's a genuine NASCAR '63 Mercury Monterey in the photo, and it's got a 427, a Rat Fink-grade gearshift, and a driver's seat that appears to be made by the Barcalounger Corporation.


My LeMons teammate and 4-time DOTS honoree WhatWouldJesseDo, who was helping me with photographic duties that day, managed to talk his way into the passenger seat of the ur-Quattro for a few Ferrari-whuppin' laps around Infineon. His verdict: "Hell yes!" OK, now let's look at some photos:

The BMW E23 745i was quite a machine, with the 252 horses churned out by its turbocharged/intercooled 3.2 or 3.4 liter I6 representing a very impressive figure for its era, but they weren't sold in North America. BMW shoppers had to make do with the naturally-aspirated 733i and 735i over here… that is, unless a buyer was willing to brave the wilds of the gray-market import jungle and bring one over from Europe. Many were willing, surprisingly enough, and you can get one for yourself if you're willing to do a little digging… and a lot of wrenching. If you're in a penny-pinching mood, you can find a cheapo 733 and a trashed 745 and join the two in unholy matrimony, like the seller of this '83 745i/'78 733i combo (go here if the ad disappears) was attempting to do before he or she ran out of time and money. The 745i was allegedly running when parked in March (the year isn't specified, but we'll be charitable and assume the seller means 2008 and not 1995), and it "still needs some love, but what 4dr 600hp classic luxury sedan doesnt." Hey, this must be one of those rare 600 horsepower E23s that BMW offered to its really special customers back then! There's no price given, but given the impossible somewhat challenging nature of this project and the tough economic times, we figure you'll be able to pick up both cars for the price of a 15-year-old Nissan Sentra.

Turbocharging is fun and all, but a big V8 directing mountain-moving torque loads through all four wheels is even better, yes? Yes! The early Audi V8 was a real monster, with 276 horses harnessed to the Quattro all-wheel-drive system in dauntingly complicated perfect harmony… but you couldn't buy one in North America! What is it with those damn Germans, keeping all the good stuff for themselves? Not to worry, though, because some Americans were willing to tread ink in the paperwork lagoon long enough to get themselves a shiny new V8 Quattro back in the early 90s, and- can you believe it?- now they've become fairly affordable. Think we're joking? Then take a gander at this here '91 Audi V8 Quattro (go here if the ad disappears) for the '92 Mazda 323-esque price of just $1,295. That's right, you can buy this car for a tiny fraction of the customs fees its original owner handed to the feds to get the car into the country in the first place! Isn't depreciation a wonderful thing? It seems to be in perfect condition, too… oh, wait, there's that bit about "Tiny oil leak, airbag and antilock lights are on." Well, how hard can a gusher out the rear main seal valve cover gasket leak be to fix, eh? And those warning lights- they're almost certainly just symptoms of total and catastrophic ECU failure minor glitches in the wiring; you'll have 'em sorted out years minutes after you tow drive your new white elephant daily driver home!

This car is registered as a 1983 model, according to the California Smog Check Database, but the trunklid badge identifies it as a 633CS… which wasn't built that year. In fact, as far as I can tell there was never any such model as the 633SC. Junkyard trunk lid and/or emblem swap? E24 experts, what do you think?


Whatever it is, this car has a five-speed, looks pretty good, and drives every day.

2,033 pounds. That's right, this car barely weighed one ton, and it would haul four passengers and plenty of cargo. With only 69 horsepower, lots of wind noise, and no cupholders, a car with the same specs as the '83 Civic wagon would be laughed out of the showrooms by car buyers today... but you'd get into the 40 MPG range on the highway with it. The price: $6,349 ($13,948 in 2008 dollars).


I don't understand why lovers of vintage Japanese cars seem lukewarm at best on the early Civics- why, I didn't see a single example at the Motoring J Style show. Is it the front-wheel-drive?

Give it a coat of camouflage paint, install a water-cooled Vickers machine gun on a crude mount in the bed, and fill all available space with jungle/desert/mountain/urban fighters and maybe some looted livestock, and you'll see the Hilux in its natural element. It also looks good with a nice shiny paint job, parked in the battle-free East End of Alameda. In fact, this may be the cleanest 25-year-old Toyota truck I've ever seen; most others around here have seen 800,000 miles of hard use hauling plumbing supplies and drywall.


When you've got a Warlord Duty 22R under the hood, the hundreds of thousands of miles just fly right by. There's a much rougher '83 parked a few blocks from this truck, so residents of this neighborhood have the opportunity to see before-and-after examples of this legendary truck.

These days, the demand for the "four-door Supra" is so high that it's tough trying to find one cheap enough to serve as the basis for a project that's going to involve a lot of cutting and pasting. That doesn't mean it can't be done, of course- for example, check out this '83 Toyota Cressida, which has most of its parts and is priced at an amazing 350 bucks. The seller included "motor runs" in the "pros" section of the ad, but then we get the line "it's not getting any fuel to the injectors" in the "cons" section. Contradiction? Hey, it's a $350 Cressida! It's got some dents, it has no papers, and it's an automatic... but you'll fix all those things with a quick application of some 1JZGTE power. When you're done with that, you can install a manual transmission (and have fun getting the clutch pedal assembly for a LHD car), and when you're done with that you can work on the luxury features that "do not operate."


The Datsun 810/Nissan Maxima was quite a car, with specs quite similar to the Cressida but more of that funky Nissan flavor we loved so much back in the day. It's pretty much the "four-door 280Z," but that appeal means that most of the usable early-80s examples have been drifted or otherwise hooned into oblivion by now. We couldn't find one quite as cheap as that super-steal Cressida, but this '82 Nissan Maxima can be yours for only $1,200... or less ("any reasonable offer will be concidered"). Don't worry about the photos showing snow on the car, since we're sure it looks just as good now as it did when the photos were taken. The car has "Lots of new parts to include," which we assume means that they're sitting in boxes in the trunk (and possibly they're not so much new as new to this car), and "all in all this car wont stop running." You'll be all "no problemo, dude" about the rust, mostly because you'll be so busy installing this SR20DET/5-speed combo that you won't have time to think about anything other than your eternally bleeding knuckles and ever-shrinking bank account!

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You want a genuine right-hand-drive, straight-from-Japan R33 Skyline GT-R, don't you? Of course you do! A 250-horse twin-turbocharged 2.6 six (which is eager to be boosted up to ridiculous power numbers using off-the-shelf components and well-known tuning tricks), all-wheel-drive, and JDM-only prestige that will leave jaws dropping in your wake. You could take your rapidly-eroding dollars and attempt to put together enough yen to get one shipped over from Japan... or you could buy this 1996 Skyline GT-R (go here if the ad disappears) right here in California! No, you're not allowed to buy it just for the RB25DETT engine (although we'd certainly approve of a Honey Bee B210 with such a powerplant)- you need to fix this car! We don't know how much the seller wants for it, but you can tell by his tone ("Don't waste my time. Serious buyers only!") that he or she means business. It's only got 10,000 kilometers on the clock, so the question is: was it hooned to death and wrecked in Japan, or was it hooned to death and wrecked over here? You'll have plenty of time to contemplate that question as you deal with layer after layer of state and federal bureaucrats, all of whom will disapprove strongly of the idea of you registering your Skyline for street use in North America, and all of whom will treat the car's sketchy lien-sale paperwork as being moderately radioactive. Oh yeah, the seller can't say whether it runs or not! Thanks to Jonee for the tip.

The last time we saw a Lagonda in this series, it stomped an Alfa Romeo Giulietta into a heap of rusty scrap metal in the poll. We thought maybe we'd save this '83 Lagonda to do battle with a Citroën, but then figured the horror of registering the Skyline, coupled with undeniable coolness, likely puts it on the same level as the Aston Martin. The best thing about this Lagonda is that it has the full-on electronic dash, which makes ordinary Lucas Electrics look downright bulletproof. And you know how much its price tag was in 1983? $150,000, which seems utter lunacy even before you convert it to the 2008 inflation-adjusted figure of $323,529. This car's auction has no reserve and is currently bid up to just $4,000; we may be looking at the ultimate in car-value depreciation here... which is bad news for the seller, but great news for you! Now, those of you who don't know Malaise Era British cars may be scoffing at the idea of this beautiful, fully-functional Aston Martin as a "project" car, but we guarantee it was a Hell Project the moment it left the assembly line (if not before then). You'll be lucky to get it up your driveway and soon-to-be sulfurous garage under its own power (four carburetors on a British DOHC smog V8- cue evil laughter). Thanks to UDMan for yet another great tip!

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I found this rack-equipped 4X4 parked on the same block as the '53 Packard Cavalier and just around the corner from the '74 Plymouth Satellite Sundance Edition; perhaps the presence of those two stellar DOTS heroes blinded me to the presence of this fine work truck for all these months.


Check out these fine Late Malaise tape stripes! It's true that the 22R engine in this truck might not have been the mighty bass-boat-haulin' powerhouse that truck buyers require today for their luxurious bloatmobiles, but the Toyota R's reliability was pure Warlord Grade bulletproof.


It takes very little imagination to picture an entire platoon of AK-wielding troops hanging off that rack as this truck bounces down a dirt road in (insert name of lawless Thirld World hotspt here). For now, however, this truck will continue to earn its keep hauling plumbing supplies to Bay Area job sites.

The Sentra nameplate replaced the 210 in North America; both were rebadged versions of the Sunny. Except for the SE-R, it's pretty easy to forget the Sentra has ever existed. That's partly because they've long been hidden in the vast shadow cast by the Corolla and Civic... and partly because they're such generic little transportation appliances.


This one is a pretty solid daily driver; these things are so nearly invisible that it's easy to forget you're looking at a car that's pushing a quarter-century in age. The '87 Civic 4WD wagon lives on the same block and seems much more of its time. Come to think of it, what ever happened to small station wagons? Cup holders, that's what happened! Cup Holder Bloat!


These plastic hubcaps sure are 80s, though!

Note: Since we've got two apiece '74 Porsche 911s and '77 Toyota Celicas, I'm choosing one apiece (yes, we have two '78 Colts, but one is a sedan and the other is a wagon). Now on with the Malaise!