Yesterday's 1979 Cadillac Eldorado drank from the diesel teat, which was part of the reason that 83% of you downed the haterade in its condemnation. But enough about the hate, let's talk about some love- and if you love sourdough bread, foggy summer mornings, and the enduring legend of an island prison escape, then have we got the car for you!

This 1975 Chevy Caprice convertible would be an interesting car even if it were bone stock. Seventy five was the last year for the convertible Caprice, and only 8,349 drop tops left the factory that year. But this Caprice Classic is no ordinary Chevy- and its $14,000 asking price reflects this fact. No, the seller has pimped out this car, not in donktastic or low-ri-duhr fashion, but as a jaunty sky blue and white tribute to California's FOURTH largest city. What the color scheme has to do with San Francisco is a bit of a head scratcher, but the trunklid mural (and this last of the gargantuan Caprices has room for the entire cityscape) depicting the iconic structures of the city, including its bridge which is neither golden, nor possesses a gate. The only thing lacking on the car is to have oro en paz, fierro en guerra in script below the driver's window.

Not lacking, is what's under the hood of this 4,321-lb boulevarder. The seller claims an over-bored 460 with all the friction-reducing, power-adding mods you could think of, and topped by a cherry of a 670-cfm 4-barrel to feed those hungry, hungry hippos. A 400 THM and 373 Posi rear-end keep the power to the pavement, and the billet grill and HID headlamps will left everybody know you're coming through.

So, could you leave your heart in this $14,000 Caprice convertible? Or, does the price and the city homage styling make you want to move out of town?

You decide!

Left my heart in Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

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Well, that changes now, because we've got this spotless '67 RS convertible for you; it follows in the footsteps of this purple '69 coupe. I'd seen this car at the Park Street Car Show, but it was surrounded by a crowd of other early Camaros and didn't really jump out at me.

This car gets the Murilee Stamp-O-Approval™ because A) the original 327 is still there, B) the original Powerglide isn't still there (the owner ditched the Slip-N-Slide for a Tremec 5-speed, and I say good riddance to a transmission that sucks for any use other than drag racing and beer labels; if you purists think that's a crime, feel free to take a break from studying hose clamp date codes to scrawl a venomous tirade in the comments), C) it's not red or black, and D) it gets driven on the street. Not every day, obviously, and it doesn't sleep on the street, but I caught it while its owner was using it to run an errand to the hardware store. The same hardware store, incidentally, at which I photographed the 1937 London Cab.

The General was late to the party started by the Mustang (and Barracuda), but the snazzed-up crypto-Nova hit the showrooms running and sold like crazy. In 1967, you could get a base V8 Camaro convertible for $2,809 (the Rally Sport option package pushed the price up to $2,914), versus $2,806 for a '67 Mustang convertible with the base 289. Meanwhile, the '67 Plymouth Barracuda V8 convertible went for $2,860. The Chevy had the most powerful base engine (210 horsepower versus 200 for the Ford's 289 and 180 for the Plymouth's 273), but all three could have been stuffed with a monster big-block if the customer's wallet permitted.

Summer's over, and there's a crisp flavor to the air that may or may not be H1N1. And while the leaves are turning, and you're eyeing the winter stockpile of firewood for cottonmouths and black widows, there's still time to enjoy some top-down motoring. Perhaps a drive down a sun-dappled country road enjoying fall's fireworks as the trees turn vibrant reds, yellows and golds directly above your head would take away the stench of yesterday's Maverick Molotov which went down in a 77% Crack Pipe defeat.

And so, for your Friday enjoyment, we have a 1970 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia convertible presented car show style by a formally clad lady with some sort of weird tchotchke in her hand. What that is, and why she is emulating Vanna White goes unexplained, but she must have gone back to her day job - dancing around a sombrero at El Coyote - as she only appears in that one shot. The VW, on the other hand, gets the full paparazzi treatment with 35 pictures and two videos for your edification and auto-erotic pleasures. The videos demonstrate that the seller is eager to sing the praises of this car, and that he needs to take a video editing class.

Drop top Ghias share their basic platform with the Type 1 beetle, and maintain that car's strengths and weaknesses. Typically, the Ghias exhibit evidence of repair to the compound curve nose, which lacks the fortitude of Mike Tyson in low speed impacts. This one, however, looks to be in good shape, indicating a life spent at a reasonable following distance, or a skilled repair sometime in the past. The interior is not so pristine, although there's nothing too egregious going on in there. A pair of aftermarket seats, apparently chosen by Bud Tugley, have been fitted, as has a killer stereo with something called assplode speakers. While those might dim your ardor for the cockpit accoutrements, the manly-knobbed Hurst shifter will make it all better.

Lifting up the old girl's skirt and having a peek at her motor reveals. . . . a Vee Dub aircooled flat four. Not really anything noteworthy other than the question of displacement, as the seller doesn't know if it's a 1600 or 1776, although we should point out that both of those were very noteworthy years. Other than that, it looks pretty standard Volkswagen, and comes with a new clutch, which should provide some assurance in buying this car. Plus nothing engenders peace of mind while parked in a questionable neighborhood like a Valuecraft battery. No expense was spared in the preparation of this VW.

So, nice car, potentially free dancing lessons, and bikini contests at VW car shows, what's not to like? Well, there's that price- buried in the ad is the Buy-It-Now price asking $9,300. Now, super clean Ghias, especially drop tops, do go for lots more than that, but this one isn't in that league. Would you pay that $9,300 for a chance to dance with this Volkswagen? Or, is that a price that has two left feet?

You decide!

eBay or go here if the ad disappears.

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Rust seems to have taken a few bites out of the Pontiac, but it hasn't surrendered! Here's what Nuyear68 has to say about his finds:

Not necessarily an island that time forgot, but still a home for some neat DOTS candidates. Here's a 1965 Oldsmobile Starfire convertible. Pretty low production, it was the last Starfire ragtop, with the 1966 coupe being the end of its run until unceremoniously brought back as a dinky hatchback in the 80's (I think).
This one sports wheels from a 1972 Olds, and the neatest feature of this car is the side exhaust outlets at the rear of the fenders.
Must be an Olds guy who owns this, notice the nice Olds 98 Regency coupe in the driveway.
Rust hasn't forgotten this oldster I spotted here on Staten Island. It's a 1952 Pontiac - plain jane model with not too much trim, but a real neat chrome treatment up the deck and down the nose.

Specializing in convertible conversions, NCE will transform your hardtopped Camaro into a mullet flapping parade mobile in no time. And they'll do it now, so no pesky waiting until 2011 for your factory official soft top.

(Edmunds, Image via Patrick C Paternie)

Some might say that the Cadillac Allanté was the TC's true competition, since both cars involved a lot of very expensive shipping between Detroit and Italy. I couldn't find an Allanté on the island- though I'm sure there must be a couple here- and in any case the Reatta's sticker price of $26,700 was much closer to the TC's $35,500 cost than to the Allanté's $57,183 price tag.

The Reatta was based on the same platform as the Allanté, and it came with the same super-futuristic touch-screen computer interface as the Riviera. Sadly, Buick's core buyers tended to be- how shall I put this?- mature individuals who were still getting used to the idea of newfangledly stuff like transmissions that shift for you and weren't quite ready to add the Buick Electronic Control Center to their worldview.

So, the Reatta fared poorly in the marketplace. That was pretty sad, because by all accounts the Reatta featured orders-of-magnitude-better-than-most-GM-products build quality and pretty decent performance for its day (though not quite what it would have been, had GM had a transaxle capable of handling turbocharged power at the time). This super-rare '90 convertible is one of the few of its kind left on the street, it looks to be in pretty good shape, and it's for sale! The seller wants $5,575 for it. What do you think?

A big Buick proved your kryptonite yesterday, with a strong 72% of you getting a weak in the knees over Lana's Cruiser. Today, we're revisiting droptoptopia with a convertible K-car from the ram brand, that may just make you reevaluate your life plan.

Four door sedan, sport coupe, minivan, two-plus-two convertible, fauxerati; about the model Chrysler didn't offer on the K-car platform was anal probe - and that was despite how crappy many of them were.

This '85 600 is the mid-size Dodge of its time, although, while the four door possessed an extended wheelbase over its 400 progenitor, the convertible maintained the same 103 inches between the axles as the 400 for a somewhat stunted appearance.

But appearances may be deceiving, and there's no deceiving that this car is claimed to be a trophy winner. Looking at the few, grainy Craigslist shots, it's hard to tell what it is about this 600 that is particularly admirable. Perhaps it won for Best use of Faux Wire Wheel Covers or maybe it was Most Beige Interior. Another category where it could have been a contender is Most heavily oxidized engine block.

Speaking of that crusty cast iron 2.2 under the questionably aligned hood, you'll note that bolted to it isn't one of the gazillion turbos that Chrysler pooped out in the ‘80s, like so many Time Life CD collections. That means that the 3-speed slusher only has 94 bhp to sap before passing anything on to the spindly front tires. That'll keep torque steer at bay, but also a lot of the fun. And who doesn't want fun? Fun is why you buy a convertible. It's what you realize you have been missing when you reach a certain age. Fun is what you're looking for when you dump your menopausal spouse, and take up with the daughter of your golfing buddy, whose house you're not allowed in any more. You have to sneak around, and you can't eat at any of your favorite restaurants any longer, but driving the 600 makes that not matter. It's still fun, because you get to relive your youth in it- like making out in the back seat, even though the 600 is pretty damn narrow, and hell, you still have your Amex, so why not just go to a motel so you can watch Larry King afterwards, plus your back isn't what it used to be, and these cheesy flat seats aren't helping it any. And why is she looking for someplace to plug her cell phone - or whatever it - is into the radio so she can play you some new Emmy Em crap or whatever angry noise she listens too - she knows you've got two perfectly good Tony Bennett cassettes in the glovebox.

But then, you're driving the 600, and the top is down and she's there beside you, her long hair blowing in the wind, and caressing her sweet face. The sun is dappling through the trees above you and she's squeezing your thigh, pushing to go faster, and you're hoping she'll squeeze a little higher and are afraid to tell her that you can't go faster, that there's a shimmy above this speed that makes the whole car shake like a dog crapping a peach pit, but you can't bring yourself to explain it all to her, to end the charade in which she plays the lead role.

Her smile begins to fade, and she runs her hand through her hair, brushing it back and off of her face, and lets out a disappointed sigh. You realize that this may be the end, and decide, right then and there, with your hands griping the thin, plastic steering wheel, that you're ready for a new chapter in your life. The Dodge was the first page of it, an expression of your youth in white metal and beige vinyl, and now she would fill the remaining pages. She, with her freckled nose and carefree disregard for who sees her underwear when she bends over, would fill the empty spot in both your heart and your bed that had once been the possession of your wife, until she kicked you out of the house and hired that bug-eyed lawyer that wanted everything but the Dodge, seemingly feeling letting you keep it was some kind of further punishment.

And so you ask her to marry you, and she says yes, that you could try that for a while, and you do bury the pedal and the shimmy gets so bad that you break a hemorrhoid, so that when the big day comes you have to kind of limp down the aisle. Nobody from her family attends, and neither do your kids, but your ex-wife's lawyer is there, punching numbers into a small calculator, and counting place settings. Two weeks later, you get a letter from him demanding expanded alimony payments for your ex, based on your demonstrated ability by having served the rack of lamb at the reception rather than the vegan casserole your new bride had wanted.

Adding insult to injury, your honeymoon has to be cut short when the 600 gives up the ghost on the freeway while heading to the airport. Your new wife calls a friend who picks her up in his BMW, leaving you to deal with the tow truck. It takes you 3 hours to get the car to a shop that is willing to even look at it, and then take a taxi home. When you get there, the apartment is dark and your wife is no where to be found. Four hours later the BMW's headlights swing across the living room window and you wait for the sound of a car door slam. You're almost ready to bust open the front door when that sound finally comes, and your new bride comes inside smelling of cigarettes and absinthe. She says she's tired and, avoiding your eyes, heads up to bed. Your knees go weak, and you sit down hard on the stairs. Your hand falls to your side and comes up with a stack of paper- today's mail. There's another letter from the lawyer, one addressed to "Immature Asshat" in your daughter's handwriting, and the Amex bill, which feels particularly fat. You stare at it, and wonder, at what point, your life went so terribly wrong? And you, still in your narcissistic haze, zero in on the purchase of the Dodge. That was the start of your downward spiral into a fundamental depression. And so you tear open the Amex bill, and there, at the very top, like the initial waypoint on your roadmap of failure, is the $15,000 charge for the 600. You crumple the bill in your hands, and begin to sob uncontrollably. If only you could turn back the hands of time, and had known then what you know now.

Before you slide down this slippery slope, the Dodge needs your vote. Is $15,000 a Nice Price for this trophy-winning home wrecker? Or is that price more Crack Pipe than you'd need to smoke to let this story happen to you?

You decide!

Scranton Craigslist, or go here if the ad gets a divorce. Hat tip to B3Quattro!

Yesterday's E30 Touring was told to keep moving by a wagon-load of you, with 75% pulling the crack pipe lever. Today, we've got an example of American ingenuity to contemplate, and it has fewer cylinders, but more headroom than that beemer.

Pontiac introduced the new Y-body Tempest in 1961, as its entrant into the burgeoning compact car segment. Despite sharing a platform with the Buick Special and Oldsmobile F85, the Pontiac variant used a drivetrain arrangement that made it unique.

Envisioned by John Delorean, and dubbed Rope Drive, the front-engine/rear transaxle setup allowed for a flat floor, and served to quell the inherent vibration of the huge 4 cylinder engine, which also debuted in the Tempest that year. In order to achieve this, the Rope Drive worked like a speedometer cable. A curved torque tube mated the engine with the transaxle, and into that was mounted a one-piece flexible shaft, which followed the arc, and was centered by a mid-tube bearing. The torque tube negated the need for universal joints at either end, and the 3/4" driveshaft spun freely despite the 3" arc.

Rope drive, and the big-ass four-banger only lasted three years, but that was long enough for today's candidate – a 1962 Tempest Convertible Automatic – to be built. It sports the 115bhp 194.5cid slant-four engine (half the 389 V8) under its furrowed-brow hood, and back between the rear tires is a corvair-based TempesTorque 2-speed automatic. This is a car for cruising the boulevard, not stoplight hoonage. That's not to say it's lacking in the fun department. Its top, much like Pamela Anderson, will go down. And there's something special about 1960's American ragtops that makes them as appealing as the image of Pambo. . . well, you know.

The original price for the series 21 tempest drop-top was a two chickens in every pot-friendly $2,564, plus options. As the seller of this white over red convertible is a man of few words, we'll just have to speculate whether it has Wondertouch power brakes, or the ashtray illumination option. The ad does say that the car runs and shifts, but needs a new top. It also appears to be sporting a single whitewall tire there, so its got that going for it.

Those meager tidbits don't give you much to go on, and there aren't any interior shots for you to tell if it's full of rabid raccoons or douche-bag hipsters, but you've been confronted with harder tasks in the past than whether $3,500 is a fair asking for this odd-duck.

So what'll it be today, Nice Price for this petite Pontiac? Or does $3,500 make your hope dive despite the rope drive?

You decide!

San Francisco Craigslist, or go here, if the ad gets roped into something else.

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Normally, images would suffice, but nothing can replace the snarling shriek of the 5.2-liter V10 at full song.

There's no mistaking this particular prototype with the lesser 4.2-liter V8 model. We've heard rumor that Audi will exclusively offer the 525 HP, 390 lb-ft of torque, 5.2-liter V10 FSI in the Spyder, but we find it difficult to believe a V8 won't be offered at all. Equipped either way, the R8 Spyder will surely remove all stress and worry from your life with a quick kick to the go pedal. [via autowereld]

The W126 was first commissioned in 1984 from Swiss coachbuilder Caruna and proved a favorite with Princess Juliana, so much so that she'd nearly worn out the interior, necessitating the restoration. Caruna based the vehicle on the stock Mercedes 380 SEL, adding the quilted leather interior and replacing the steel roof with an electrically folding one that can open or close in just 25 seconds. Complementing the roof, the windows in all four doors fully retract, lending the car very clean lines. Sure beats an ugly biofuel Bentley in our books. [via Autoblog.nl]

The Camaro Convertible has never been fully threatened with extinction, like the Camaro Z28, but the particulars about the production time line have been a bit vague. Sadly, for fans, the Camaro Convertible's model year and calendar year will be one and the same. [Automotive News (subs req) via Edmunds Straightline]

Yes, this Cad should be tax-deductible, because it serves as a realtor's work vehicle. She bought it in rough shape and is still in the process of getting it fully restored, but it starts, stops, turns, and looks good doing it. It sure makes a better impression than, say, a Camry or Explorer. Hmmmm… my Sprite could be considered a "work vehicle" as well! I'm sure the IRS would be very understanding about that concept.


In 1967, a car buyer wishing to roll in top-down Cadillac style had to hand over $5,608 (around 36 grand in today's dollars) to the dealer man. For that price, you got power everything, cigarette lighters all over the place, and a super-smooth, 340-horsepower Cadillac 429. For about the same money, you could have purchased a brand-new Mercedes-Benz 250S, or a Jaguar XK-E roadster. Tough choice!

The 370Z Roadster will be hitting the stands at this week's New York Auto Show, but it's doing a little burlesque today to get everyone's interest piqued. The Roadster, along with the NISMO 370Z, are supposed to be unveiled later this evening to a phalanx of slobbering journalists, still stuffed from today's GM Segway PUMA feeding frenzy. We'll be bringing you complete details and images as soon as possible. [Carscoop]

The above photo was released to journalists along with an invite to the event this evening at 7:00 PM EST. Our thoughts so far? We think it looks like a low-resolution picture of a new Nissan 370Z without a top, but what do you think?

We'll have the first look at the new Roadster tonight, so keep your eyes on Jalopnik all night long!