Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Eagle is the second one claimed owned by its seller. His first did over 330K and thinks this one might do likewise. Let’s see if you believe that, and if his price makes it a Vision of loveliness.
I’m coming to the realization that, should you wish to offer a car for sale, and desire to make it appeal to the broadest audience possible, your best bet is not to start off with a Sawzall.
That’s apparently a lesson learned too late for the seller of yesterday’s custom 1985 BMW 318i “camper.” Its plastic surgery included the removal of bootlid and rear window and the conversion of the rear seat into what the seller described as a bed perfect for viewing meteor showers. Most of you took issue with the whole sky performance aspect, deeming the car more appropriately a “shit show.” That obviously impacted its valuation, and at $3,850 it fell in a substantial 88 percent Crack Pipe loss.
In the classic film Return of the Living Dead, medical supply company employees Frank and Freddy bemuse upon the origin of the skeletons in their shop. Frank goes one step further in posing the question “where do they get all the skeletons with perfect teeth?” He’s not wrong in the observation and you might miss the rest of the movie’s shenanigans whilst having to mull that one over.
I bring this up because we have a similar conundrum when it comes to the Eagle Visions that are on the market these days. That is: where are all these nice cars coming from?
Presented as exhibit A is this 1994 Eagle Vision TSi. I mean, just look at it. This is a 25-year old car. That’s old enough that if necessary it could legally rent itself.
Now, I’m not suggesting that cars in general age like store-bought sushi, as there are plenty of quarter-century old rides out there that are still keeping up with the Joneses. It’s just that an Eagle Vision is not the kind, nor the make of car you would expect to still be bringing it on this many years out of the factory.
This isn’t even the only nice Vision out there. If you peruse the classifieds you’ll find more than a few out there still looking good and aggressively priced. In that way, they are sort of the Marisa Tomei of the car world.
The Vision is also a car with a bit of history. It features cab-forward styling that derived from the Portofino show car from then Chrysler holding Lamborghini. That’s wrapped around Chrysler’s FWD LH platform.
Not only that, but a good bit of the LH chassis design was premised on that of the Eagle Premier, a car that started its life as the Renault 25. Chrysler inherited the Premier as part of their purchase of AMC/Jeep, and the LH cars shared a longitudinal drivetrain layout and some of the suspension geometry with their adopted forerunner.
This Eagle soars with the 3.5-litre EGJ SOHC V6 under its hood. The 24-valve iron block engine offered up 214 horsepower when spankin’ new, but perhaps less these days. Regardless, it’s brought to the table through an electronically controlled 42LE four-speed automatic transaxle. The seller says it offers 22 miles per gallon and that both the drivetrain and the car overall are completely and utterly problem-free.
Painted in Driftwood Satin Metallic, the bodywork looks amazing for its age. The top coat seems intact and there’s no sign of any road rot anywhere on the car. Even the headlights seem to have held up their end of the bargain as they look good as new.
The leather interior is likewise in amazing shape, with no tears and minimal crazing on the upholstery. Everything else in here is pretty plasticky, but it’s at least all intact and seemingly still the same color. A big boot completes the car’s major attractions. There’s a modest 65,000 miles on the clock and the car comes with a clean title.
As I noted at the outset, the seller here says this is his second Eagle which means he has double Vision. The first one, he claims, did over 300K, and he’s only selling this one so he can buy a truck. He also has a Talon so I guess he’s got a thing for the long-dead brand.
The asking price is only $2,600 but it begs the question, with so many cars on the market offered around that price, would it make sense to tie yourself to this Eagle? What do you think, is this a good deal at that asking? Or, at $2,600, do you just not see it happening?
You decide!
Seattle, WA Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to DR_MC for the hookup!
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