Black Friday may be the biggest shopping day of the year, but today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Z3 might prove that not everything’s a deal. Let’s see if this Fauxbra’s price makes it worth coming out of your post-Thanksgiving food coma.
Is there anything more tragic than the death of Saturn, GM’s onetime import fighter brand? It wasn’t even a noble death either, the marque’s final products being nothing more than slightly rebranded Opels and an origami-folded version of the Pontiac Solstice.
At one time Saturn made interesting little cars that had things like dent-resistant plastic body panels and, as exemplified by Wednesday’s 2005 Saturn Ion Quad Coupé Redline, suicide rear doors. That Redline also packed a decent corral’s worth of ponies under its hood and had real-deal Recaros in its cabin. All that and a $4,500 price spelled good deal in most of your minds, and the car won a memory-respecting 65 percent Nice Price win.
Okay, today is Black Friday which means a feeding frenzy of shopping that kicks off the holiday season’s orgy of consumer spending. It’s an annual tradition. Seeing as you’re here reading this and not out getting questionable deals on things you don’t need, spending money you don’t have, then I’d say you are not one who stands on that tradition.
Should that actually be the case, it’s also possible that you won’t be offended by this 2005 BMW Z3 1.9 that’s been re-bodied to look like a Shelby Cobra 427. The rest of you can just sit there with your mouths agape and your blood pressure slowly rising.
Who did this? That’s hard to say as the ad gives us no details as to the car’s origin or intention. Why did someone make a Z3 Cobra? Again, the seller is silent as to the motive. There is, of course, the general consideration that the AC Cobra is a better-looking car than BMW’s somewhat lugubrious Z3 and, to be perfectly honest, in execution, this car doesn’t look all that wrong.
The ad says the car was imported from Europe and there’s your first clue as to the who and why—those crazy Europeans do all kinds of crazy stuff that Americans can’t wrap their brains around. Just consider their healthcare, for instance, it’s FREE! What a world.
Other pertinent facts shared in the ad include the driveline which is still BMW’s 1.9-litre M44 four and five-speed stick. That means 138 horsepower and 133 lb-ft of torque, both available well up the rev band in un-Cobra-like fashion. It’s said to offer low miles, although exactly how low goes un-detailed. There’s also a new convertible top and “tyres,” as well as a clean Florida title.
The custom bodywork looks clean and doesn’t clash too egregiously with the modern wheels and those rubber band “tyres.”
How much to own this odd melding of anglo-germanic tropes? The asking price is $28,000 which… well, is a lot of money. That may be why the car has been sitting on Craigslist for some time now. Well, that and the fact that it’s obviously an escapee from the Island of Misfit Toys.
What do you think, should anyone pay $28,000 for the honor of owning this oddball Bimmer-obra? Or, is that price just as crazy as is the car?
You decide!
Miami, FL Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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