As for this car's model year, I've chosen 1960 pretty much totally arbitrarily; the TR3A was made from 1957 through 1962. This might not even be a TR3A, since Triumph put the TR4 engine/transmission in the TR3A and called it the TR4B in 1962. If you're a Triumph expert and you're reading this, take a break from grappling with The Prince Of Darkness and let us know how we might identify the year of this car from the photographs below.


If this car is a TR3A with the original engine, then we're looking at a 2,016-pound car with 100 horsepower; the TR3B had a slightly larger engine with an extra five horsepower (and many fewer expensive crunching noises from the newfangled synchro-equipped transmission). List price for the roadster was $2,675 in 1960, or $32 more than a 1960 Edsel two-door. Which would you choose?

Only one of these cars is located in Weed, California, but when you get a chance to use an Of Mice And Men reference in a headline, you take it. This particular Bad Thing in Weed (go here if the ad disappears) is a project car with "basket case" right in the title… followed by a price that must be a typo, right? Right? Come on now, when a nicely restored TR3A goes for a princely 15-20 grand, $3,000 is a steal! This one has been sitting for at least 30 years, casting a pall over the seller's visions of a happy retirement, but don't think it's hopeless- hey, "Most parts are complete" according to the seller, who helpfully adds that "those that are missing like the windshield are available from other collectors." It's a California car, but it's clearly been sitting outside for decades, which means there will be rust in the areas rainwater collects. But damn, it would be a blast to have a TR3 to call your own, especially if you upgraded from the original 100-horse engine to something Japanese with lots of cams and boost.

Wouldn't it be great to have an example of the last car Battista 'Pinin' Farina designed? Yes, the Alfa Romeo Spider Duetto, a car so heartbreakingly beautiful that you've always assumed you could never afford one. But wait! What about this 1969 Alfa Romeo Spider (go here if the ad disappears), priced at a totally reasonable $3,450? The seller's statement "Parts in the trunk!" pretty much sums it up, though some weaker souls might find the statement "some rust here and there, mostly on trunk, hood, lower doors, and some underneath, and inside floor pans" disquieting, but how bad could it be? More importantly, what kind of insane engine could you fit in it? Don't try any funny stuff with the seller, though, because he or she has included the very effective "Scammers Stay Away" magic spell in the listing (we especially like the clever circumventing of CL's anti-keyword-spam rules via the use of the word "not" followed by a bunch of other car makes in the title).

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.