Not every car at the Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale auction this week is a Duesenberg selling for a cool gazillion to some mustache comber with a trophy wife. Check out these eight cars you may have missed, probably because you thought you were being trolled.
Lot #68: 1978 Volvo Bertone Custom Two-Door Coupe
Few collaborations were as bizarre as the tieup between Volvo and Italian design house, Bertone. It was an uncharacteristic moment of self-consciousness for the Swedes, and led to the 1978 Volvo Custom 262C Bertone coupe, which was just as bricklike as the 240, but had a chopped roof and an extra six pages in its payment book. This one's apparently gotten the box-flare treatment by a workshop full of Bring-A-Trailer-reading SEMA nerds: LS3-powered, painted in a Mustang color, and set up for autocrossing. It may never be worth more than the guys who fell in love with it on sight bid it up to this week. But there's no doubt that, despite a lighter wallet and a massive post-purchase hangover, someone is in for fun times between the cones.
Price: $19,800.00
Lot #90.1: 1991 Chevrolet Camaro RS "Star Trek" (also, at top)
It was a simpler time, back in 1991. It was all Star Trek: The Next Generation and FORTRAN 90 and SoundBlaster Pro and "All your base are belong to us," without the irony. Of course, it wasn't all great; those jerkwads with dads in the carting business got all the cool cars.
But some lucky bidder got his dweeby revenge this week, picking up this "Star Trek Camaro" for less than a day's fueling on his San Mateo-based Gulfstream V. The car has everything: a 305ci V8, stage 2 chip a never-been-used nitrous system and an ancient custom computer program that controls the doors and windows, hood, aircon, neon lighting and even, somehow, the shifting. It even has the same exact Logitech TrackMan the new owner's mom once put in his Christmas stocking. Yes, this day belongs to him. Tell Patrick Stewart to keep his freaking facepalms to himself.
Price: $13,750
Lot #81: 1972 Winnebago "Hot Rod RV"
I like this RV so much, I'd have bought it with a payday loan from the Albanian mafia. Sure, the rat rod "movement" rusted out five minutes after the first Bettie Page lookalike needed a booster shot for tetanus, but this slammed Winnie gets a pass. Look at how that "flying W" has reached aged-porterhouse perfection over 41 years parked in some highball-drinking codger's backyard. I'm guessing it's been fumigated for rapists, which should give the new owner piece of mind. The grizzled Mopar 318 apparently has been breathed on by desert rats, and while that cedar interior is a nice touch, the Applebees-ready distressed signage and theater seating needs to go. I'm filled with regret for not finding this sooner.
Price: $12,100.00
Lot #87: 2010 Qiye Custom Roadster
You're a Shriner with a thirst for wild abandon no fez could ever quench. You're the secret child Tony Stewart fathered with that rinse-blond server at Waffle House outside Pell City. You've never held a Guinness World Record but always wanted to. Actually, I don't know who you are at all, but you paid ten grand for a tiny car. It's like I don't even know you.
Price: $9,900
Lot #197: 1985 Chevrolet Camaro "Captain America"
The good news is, Captain America is awesome. The bad news is, this is an '85 Camaro — worth about six bucks — with around $113,000 in custom work, including labor. Even with its scissor doors, this Camaro is as likely to appreciate in value as Red Skull is to retire to Cleveland and become a wedding planner.
Price: $8,800
Lot#6: 1987 Toyota Custom Pickup
I really hate teal. I hated it 25 years ago, and hate it even more now. Teal reminds me of bad things, of rejection and public drunkedness and fumbling intercourse and having a ponytail. Those were not good days, those days when teal was considered a respectable color. Had this Toyota chop-top pickup not been painted teal, I'd pay triple the selling price for it, just to keep it away from someone who thought painting it teal would be a good idea. But it's teal, and now I'm curled up in a ball sobbing. Happy now, teal?
Price: $2,750
Lot #1: 1981 Cadillac Seville
Among owners of 33-year-old Cadillacs, the numbers 8-6-4 have caused more spinal tremors than Jeffrey Dahmer and the threat of the ebola virus combined. In this case the price is so low, it's almost worth buying just to take the engine apart and laugh at it. As any malaise-era engine nerd knows, V8-6-4 refers to an early cylinder-deactivation feature so ahead of the curve, it never actually worked, mostly because the electronic control modules that managed the system had less processing power than a Speak-And-Spell. And also, the engineers were drunk. Well sold.
Price: $1,100