Buick Super, Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, Volkswagen Polo Harlequin: The Dopest Cars I Found For Sale Online

I’ve said it before, but I love a concise ad. Build sheets for heavily modified cars make sense, but we don’t need a mile-by-mile analysis of your time with the vehicle. Just give us the important bits, and let us go on our merry ways — but be sure to actually give us the important bits.

This Goldwing is an example of a letter that’s a little too short. “Get on and go” is a great tagline, or an intro to an ad, but it can’t be the only thing you say when trying to sell your bike. There’s no word about the condition, the maintenance schedule, upcoming repairs. Go girl, give us nothing.

You may call this Accord cringe, with its pink badges and broken devil heart tsurikawa. It’s lowered, cambered, and somehow manages to have Altezza-style lights in the rear and the front, all sitting below stickers that take up an inordinate amount of window real estate.

I, however, think it’s cringe in the best way. As someone who aspires to own the default geo.baz sadgirl Miata, this Accord appeals to me. It gets me, and I get it. Maybe you get it too.

If the Goldwing’s ad copy was still too long for you, try this Buick Super — not a word in the description. Luckily, the car seems to largely speak for itself. It runs, it looks great (if a little road-worn), and the interior looks entirely daily driveable.

I would still prefer something in the description, if only to answer my single burning question about the car: Is the Michelangelo toy in the back seat included? Can I use this Buick to take Mikey out for pizza? Inquiring minds need to know.

I’m always torn on DC2-generation Integra faces. On the one hand, the American version feels classic to me — it’s the four-eyed visage I’ve known for my entire life. The Japanese version, however, is probably objectively more normal.

But is normal good? Is it better to be blandly anonymous than to stand out oddly? If only there were some sort of dystopian YA novel that could help me settle this internal debate.

So you like the shape of the Grand National, but you’re not really into the Darth Vader colorway. That’s okay. How do you feel about brown? Just the brownest, malaisiest car you ever did see? Is that good for you?

If so, this Regal is your answer. Not only is it Grand National-shaped and deeply, deeply brown, it also hides a 350 V8 under that hood. You should also probably rescue it from its current owner, who has apparently driven it “at speed” on its “dry rotted” tires. That can’t be safe for anyone involved.

How big should a car be? This is a question scientists have long tried to solve, with varying levels of success. Rather than a single answer, the ideal form appears to vary with trends and consumer tastes. In the ‘60s, for example, tastes trended big.

Look at this thing. Open up the ad, scroll through the pictures, and really look at it. I am convinced this Vista Cruiser is approximately the size of Rhode Island. When the B-52s sang about a Chrysler that seats about twenty, the only thing they got wrong was the brand. This Olds can fit twenty, easy.

Remember when Miatas were cheap? My old ‘93 that I had, long before I worked here, cost a whopping $5,000 — in great shape with under 80,000 miles. Now, it seems you can’t even come close to that. Take this ‘91 as an example.

A Miata with a straight body for $2,500 is a good start. That’s rare. But the you notice the interior, and that automatic shifter sticking up from the center console. After that, you see the description, which says the little Miat will need a tow. Can NAs start being cheap again?

This Mercedes also needs a tow, but its problems seem better sorted. The owner claims it’ll run on a direct fuel feed to the engine, but that it won’t fire up from its own tank — claiming a fuel pump problem. An issue you can identify is an issue you can fix.

Sure, it’s not in the best cosmetic shape, but that adds to this Merc’s character. Pick it up, get it running, but don’t you dare straighten that hood ornament. It should stay bent like that until it inevitably falls off from a pothole impact.

On the other side of the old German car condition equation, you have this 318. It’s largely in great shape, despite some admitted-but-not-pictured rust, except for one simple little issue: There’s no sunroof.

Now, you might read this and think “How is that an issue?” Well, the BMW is supposed to have a sunroof. As in, there’s a hole in the roof ready to accept one, there just isn’t any glass to put in it. In the Northeast, in winter, it’s generally nice to have a full roof on your car.

Hear me out. This is a new-ish Kawasaki. It is, among other colors, yellow and black. It’s got a 900cc engine, and any four-cylinder motorcycle can accurately be described as whining. Do you see where I’m going with this?

This Z900RS is not Jenny’s bike, but it could be a modern Jenny’s motorcycle. If that isn’t enough of a selling point for you, well, give All Hail West Texas another listen. Then Jenny From Thebes, just to be sure.

I love bald-faced lies in car ads. This one claims “NO RUST,” and goes on to show close-up photos of rust. Sure, it’s on the surface rather than a penetrating rot, but that’s why “rust” and “rot” are different words. This Dodge is just objectively not rust-free.

That’s not a bad thing, though. Rust without rot veers into the category of patina, and that’s always appreciated here on Dopest. You should buy this Six, and return it to daily-driver duty.

An Acty in this beautiful blue will end up in Dopest. Clean and simple, like a law of nature. This particular Acty, however, gets some bonus points for its mods: coils, LED headlights, underglow, and those sick-as-hell wheels that kind of almost fit under the car. Rule of cool, baby.

Like the Accord, I’m often a fan of mods that would otherwise be called dumb or cringe. Let people have fun with their vehicles. We’ve all only got so much time on this planet, and you want me to not spend those years liking underglow?

The Elite is, in objective performance terms, not the greatest car Lotus ever built. I think we can all agree on that. What it is, however, is one of the weirdest cars that Lotus ever built. I do most of my driving on roads, not race tracks, so I think there’s value in that.

How many shooting brakes do you see with pop up headlights? Approximately none, that’s how many. Is it worth six grand to keep one more of those on the road, bringing smiles and confused looks to every passerby you pass by? Well, that’s up to you.

Based on the headline of this blog, I wouldn’t blame you for rushing to the comments to correct me. “It can’t be a Polo harlequin,” you might say, “we didn’t get the Polo in the States. You must mean a Golf.” Well, I didn’t get it wrong, because I’m perfect and infallible and have never gotten anything wrong in my life. I’m also God’s favorite princess and the most interesting girl in the world.

Anyway, yes, this is a genuine Polo Harlequin. It may not “be in perfect shape” or “move under its own power,” but who needs that when you’ve got looks like this? You should probably fix it, though. After you go back and edit that comment into an apology.

More vehicles need to come with teal wheels. In fact, I’m calling on all automakers to start only manufacturing teal wheels. You can go aftermarket to get bronze or white, sure, but everything should come from the factory looking exactly like this. The world would be a better place.

Until automaker around the world acquiesce to my entirely reasonable demand, however, the Yamaha MT line is still your best bet for perfectly-colored wheels. Grab this one before I do.