I know we say never buy someone else's project, but who in the world would build their own VW TDI-powered C3 Corvette with a Toyota transmission? You? Or you? I didn't think so, but you'll all still have to decide if today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe project car should only be bought with someone else's money.
Despite hitting most of the high-point pins on the pinball table of hoonability - wagon, manual, AWD, gobs of horsepower, low-miles, being a Volvo, yesterday's 2006 V70R failed to sufficiently impress at its thirty-grand price. Perhaps that's because there seemed to be a number of viable alternatives that, while they may give up one or more of those attributes they do so while offering substantially lower prices. Whatever the reason, 87% of you thought the price was too damn high, or whatever it is that the New York rent guy memes.
Now, yesterday's car was as factory as you could come. In fact, knowing the Swedes I think even those cool carpet vacuum patterns in the back came as standard. Getting a factory car, no matter how rare its numbers, means that you have given up on your personal ethos of expressing your unique individuality in all aspects of your life.
Yeah, eff that, you need something that says, I'm not like the rest of you. I won't kowtow to your expectations, I won't submit to your ideal of what's XXL, and I'll be damned if I'll be constrained by your standards of weights and measurements. Like Bob Seger sang, I not just a number, dammit!
That is why you will want to buy this 1974 Chevy Corvette with a VW TDI engine poking out of its fiberglass hood and a Toyota truck 5-speed manual thrusting idiosyncratically from its center console. It also has one of the woodiest cup holders I have ever seen.
The ad describes the car as a one-of-a-kind project car and you can see the reasons why there might never be another. One piece of evidence is that a VW TDI four and a C3 Corvette are not things that generally go together. They are not chocolate and peanut butter, Rogan and Franco, nor titties and beer.
No, this car is more like that Michael J Fox movie where a stoic dog and fluffy cat have to trek across the continent in order to become reunited with their owner, who learns a valuable lesson about the proper way to abandon a pet. This is like that that dog and that cat thrown together by circumstance.
And yet just like in the movie, I bet it all works, even in spite of all the masking tape tenuously holding things together. In fact, that seems to be one of this car's greatest opportunities as it does seem to need some electrical work done, as well as completion of its dashboard, maybe some paint, and probably one of those air freshener trees.
The engine is out of an '02 Vee-dub, which pegs its horsepower somewhere around 115. That's not that far off the 195-horses that the stock 350 produced. I mean, it's still triple digits, right? The larger 454 did pump out 270-horses in '74, but it's best not to think of one of those having been sacrificed for this project.
Speaking of which, you won't need to sacrifice additional money for tires, as this Vette has fresh meats. That, along with the rest of the mods, apparently cost the builder $12,000. I'm guessing that included the purchase of the Corvette as well. The ad asked $4,000 now, or a trade for an enclosed trailer and guns, because why the hell not.
What's your take on that price for this wildly eclectic and extremely individualistic ride? Is that a price that could easily make it someone else's project? Or, is this TDI 'Vette too weird to ask that kind of cash?
You decide!
New London Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Brandon Frechette for the hookup!
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