Chrysler Conquest, Chevrolet Chevelle, Austin Healey Sprite: The Dopest Cars I Found For Sale Online

The seller of this Conquest claims it was built up in the early aughts, and I don’t think I’ve ever believed anything more. The ad is all in capital letters, the car apparently cost $12,000 to buy and $60,000 to build, and the gauges are set into a carbon fiber cluster. It’s a time capsule.

As someone who grew up in those halcyon years, I understand why they’ve had such a resurgence in popular culture. Namely, they ruled, and the cars and fashion kicked ass and will continue to forever.

Say you want that Conquest, with its novelty oversized wheels and ill-fitting shift boot, but you also have stuff to cart around — dogs, antique shop finds, a surfeit of clowns. How are you supposed to be fast and/or furious with such needs?

Well, you buy a hatch. A hot hatch, specifically. In fact, you buy this hot hatch, because it’s a Mazdaspeed3 in a great color with a fancy intake. Sure, the paint isn’t perfect, but the big smile is.

Or, I guess you could go for a different classically red car. Sure, you lose out on all that fun front-wheel-drive character, but I guess there’s something to be said for getting some wind in your hair. Oh, and for the whole “Porsche” aspect of it all.

I’m partial to the 993 myself, but I do love the interiors of these older 911s. They’re just so simple, so unadorned, so clearly not meant to draw your attention. You’re driving, focus on the road. It’s all you want to think about anyway.

I swear I didn’t intentionally do a whole red thing here. Folks in Miami just like their reds, I guess — enough so to color-match their coolers to their cars. They also appear big into Corona, much like a certain family man who’d likely appreciate that Conquest from the first slide. Oh yeah, it’s all coming together.

The whole Brand of this VW Bus is genuinely kind of hilarious. The surfboard is the most blatant, but then you notice the coolers. And the cowboy hat. And the bright red back-day accoutrement in the back, laid over tartan carpet. It’s all so clearly meant to give off an impossibly cool surfer vibe, yet the interior is all wrapped in plastic like your grandmother’s couch. It’s a bus meant to be seen, not used.

Whereas this BMW is all about use. None of the original run of F800s are particularly beautiful, but these pre-facelift models definitely got the short end of the “looks” stick relative to the later bikes. No, I’m not just saying that because mine is from the facelift years.

What these bikes lack in form, though, they make up in function. They run forever, can haul plenty of cargo, and don’t much care what you’re riding on, over, or through. They really just do everything.

Normally, when a freshly restored car goes up for sale, you start asking questions. Why go through all the work just to sell it unless you think you can turn a real profit? How much margin is baked into that list price? Here, though, circumstances dictate a better deal: This Laredo is an estate sale listing.

The Jeep lives in a “retirement community,” where its owner apparently no longer shares that verb. The ad says clearly, in capital letters, why the CJ is going up for sale so soon after such major work. Macabre, maybe, but financially sound.

The pop-up headlights on the C3 Corvette have long been used as a sign of the car’s poor aging. They start to move slowly, they lose their synchronization, and suddenly the whole car just starts to look tired. This owner appears to have fixed that issue with a fixed-light conversion, and oh my god jesus christ put it back put it back put it back.

This is worse. This is so much worse. No matter how slow or inconvenient the headlights get on C3s as their odometers tick onward, surely it’s better than this. Look through the photos on the Craiglist ad and tell me this is an improvement over the standard C3. I await your comments.

Ah, a palate cleanser. I needed that. From those recessed rectangles to these big, wide, open eyes. Kei trucks are always great, but the Carry’s friendly face makes it one of the best among a strong crowd. Thank you, Suzuki Carry. I feel held by you, you feel like home to me.

Oddly, despite this truck’s working history, its damage seems inverse from the standard Work Truck Patina — the exterior is largely fine, while the interior is ripped up and missing fabric. This appears to be explained by the seller, who claims the truck was used to move wildlife animals around. There’s even a shot of a monkey in the driver’s seat for proof.

Ah, the Aermacchi-era Harley-Davidsons. Back in the days when Harley would slap its brand on an Italian two-stroke in hopes of capturing a more budget-minded buyer. These bikes were cheap, mechanically simple, and great-looking. What modern H-D has all three?

No, these days are long gone for Harley. Sure, there are those small-displacement bikes the company sells abroad, but word is that they’re only coming here as training bikes — never to be sold to individual buyers. Sounds to me like leaving money on the table, since the bikes are already federalized, but what do I know? Not like I have a marketing degree or anything.

This Miata ad is an interesting one. Three photos, all clearly taken in a rush, show a car that’s imperfect but largely intact. The make and model on Craigslist simply claim “1995 1995,” and the odometer field displays an almost certainly untrue 20,002 on the clock. Surely, at this price, the car is just junk in ways that are unmentioned, right?

Perhaps, but perhaps not. Any knowledgeable seller, even one trying to unload a garbage car quick, would mention the selling points here. This is an M Edition, a limited-production color with a wood Nardi steering wheel and matched shift knob — these command at least a few extra bucks. No, there’s more to this story than just a bad car. The only to find out how much more, though, is to buy it.

This seller seems to have an interesting idea of Miami. This Chevelle is listed on Miami craigslist, it appears under the Miami subdomain for the site, yet its actual mapped location is in Houston. No, not Houston, Florida.

Perhaps, then, this ad is a sort of statement. Maybe Miami isn’t a place, but a state of mind — the feeling of being bathed in neon, idling past beaches and palm trees as a V8 rumbles along beneath your hood. Maybe, behind the wheel of a Chevelle, it’s always Miami.

This Fiat, however, brings us back to pure Florida. Not just in location — seemingly the last gasps of civilization before the roads east from Miami are entirely consumed by the Everglades — but in vibes. This is a Fiat 500 Abarth in one of the most famous Porsche liveries of all time, and the ad gives no indication that it’s a bit. That’s Florida, baby.

Sure, yes, there were Rothmans Fiats in rally. This, however, is not the Fiat 131 Rothmans paint job. This is very distinctly the Porsche version of Rothmans’ blue-and-white colors, and I am fascinated by its presence on this car. It has all these Michelin stickers, yet its tires are Atlas. I want to know everything.

What Sprite-to-Coke ratio from the Subway soda fountain turns a drink from “Sprite with a little Coke” to something else entirely? When is a new drink formed, an evolution that can no longer accurately be called Sprite? If you take a Sprite and give it a racing seat, a fixed rollcage, and redo the body, is it still an Austin Healey?

What about when you pull out the dashboard, and throw a set of aftermarket gauges all across the center? When you attach a go-kart steering wheel? When you plumb the engine bay with more AN fittings than an a mechanic’s hangar? Is this still a Sprite, or is there so much Coke that it’s become something truly better?

We started this list with an early-aughts cover car, but here we have something different: The cars of the actual, real-life early aughts. Double-drilled wheels, clear turn signals, dark tint, Altezza tails, and a steering wheel that looks part Momo and part Logitech. The seat bolsters are shot, sure, but the air freshener matches the paint — that’s gotta count for something, right?

This CRX clearly didn’t get the $60,000 investment that the Chrysler did, yet I posit that this is no less of a build. Do you think imported lights are cheap? Those giant wheels, with their thin tires, still cost someone a paycheck when they were installed. This CRX has been worked on, been cared for, been personalized and modified. That’s a build.

The Stella, from Genuine Scooter Co, always gets me for a second. It looks so close to a Vespa, its colors and chrome so nearly-there, that ever ad I see comes inches from being added to Dopest as a steep discount on a real Vespa. Normally I stay my hand, preferring the real deal, but today I asked myself: Why does it matter?

If these scooters fool me with their faux-Italian styling, surely they’ll fool anyone else. The wasp-woman aesthetic is there, and that’s what really counts, right? Why not throw the local folks a bone for once — give Chicago’s own scooter company a shot?