Ford COE, BMW R80G/S, Toyota Corolla AE86: The Dopest Cars I Found for Sale Online

Who doesn’t love patina? But a good patina is earned, not painted on. To get a true rusted look, you’ll need actual rust. It’s not a fast process, but enough years will make any car look absolutely perfect. This COE, for example, has certainly seen enough years.

According to the seller, this truck is almost fully functional. The engine runs, the gauges all function, even the dump bed functions properly. Swap the master cylinder, bleed the brakes, and you’ll have a new daily driver set to go. Just don’t repaint it.

The Velorex was a Czech three-wheeler, built to undercut the competition. After all, with all the cost reduction that comes with omitting the fourth wheel, those savings can be passed on to you. It even had leather bodywork, because who doesn’t dream of driving around in a handbag?

The Velorex was never sold here, so there’s likely some import paperwork from decades ago that you’ll need to ensure is included with the deal. Find that, though, and you’ll have the most unique car on the roads.

Land Cruisers are great. Pickups, at least older ones, are also great. Putting them together into one perfect vehicle? Baby, you’ve got a stew going.

This 75-series Cruiser pickup has everything a budding offroad enthusiast could want — diesel engine, winch, two gas tanks, and zero frame rot. The AC works, but the heat doesn’t, which doesn’t make any sense until you realize the car lives in LA. Throw a new heater core in if you want to take it north of Glendale.

In 2022, it’s easy to browse Craigslist and happen upon a reaction once reserved for only the most hotheaded of touge racers: “It’s a hachi-roku!?” Of course, when Keisuke Takahashi says it, the incredulity comes from such a pitiful car keeping up with his high-powered FD. When we say it, it’s because an AE86 actually survived until now without being drifted into a tree.

This AE86 isn’t the GTS, the closest America got to Takumi’s legendary 4A-GE. Instead, it’s the SR5, with its carbureted 4A-C sending out a mere 87 horses. But the mounts are there, the engine bay is ready for the Formula Atlantic motor of your dreams. Just pop one in.

The 1600 may be one of BMW’s prettiest vehicles to date. It also has a tiny, almost unnoticeable kidney grille. This is what we call “correlation not equaling causation,” because the big kidneys on the current M3 and M4 are fine. Fight me.

The new cars, however, don’t come in BMW’s perfect sixties beige. Today, we dismiss cars as “beige” for being too boring or dull, but this color is anything but. This 1600 will stand out of any modern parking-lot crowd, beige and all.

The seller of this 300ZX claims it’s a one-owner car, and they have the service history and window sticker to prove it. If that doesn’t do it for you, though, check out the car’s absolutely mint exterior. If that isn’t the doing of a caring first owner, I don’t know what is.

The Z31 cars aren’t as beloved as the Diablo-headlight Z32, but they deserve their own place in history. These cars, with their angular eighties styling, are undoubtedly cool. Just look at those turbine wheels! Give a Z31 a shot, it’ll treat you well. Probably.

For some reason, unknowable to me, I’ve been on an ADV kick recently. I, and my approximately three miles of motorcycling experience, have decided I need myself a Triumph Tiger or BMW GS to go conquer highways and singletrack. This has been my single-minded obsession for days, and it will not cease until I drop an Africa Twin on my leg.

You, however, can make smarter decisions than me. You can buy yourself the original ADV bike, a motorcycle reviled in its time for its jack-of-all-trades design. You can get yourself this R80G/S, and tour over gelände and straße to your heart’s content.

But maybe you’re not big on trails. You want to stick to the streets, or even to the strip. Maybe you just want a bright yellow coupe with a giant blower out the hood and a 454 cubic inch V8 underneath it. Is that more your speed?

If so, this Corvette is right up your alley. The selling dealer doesn’t specify a horsepower figure or quarter-mile time for the ‘Vette, but we can reasonably assume they’re sufficient and quick enough respectively. Just make sure that you can still see traffic around that intake.

Okay, I’ll admit, this isn’t the cleanest Sambar in history. It’s got some rust, and some signs of the wear and tear brought on by years of use. But you know what that all adds? That’s right. Character.

This Sambar will dutifully shuttle you and whatever you’re hauling to the ends of the earth, or at least as close as it can get you. It will never complain, never moan, never be anything but loyal and accommodating. Look at those eyes, you’ll find no villainy there. Even at its age, with the light fading as rust creeps up its chassis, it still waits to serve.

If you think about it, this is the origin story for the Chevy HHR panel van. A low-slung wagon, two doors, no rear-side windows, manufactured by Chevrolet — the DNA’s all there. But this Sedan Delivery, in its seventy years on this earth, could probably teach the young HHR a thing or two.

For one thing, it could teach the young cub about air ride suspension. This Chevy can sit at a perfectly suitable ride height, or drop to the ground with a touch of a button. Perfect for loading in your cargo, or just hard parking at the Starbucks while you watch the Vee Cue Boys do donuts.

Haven’t you heard? All the cool kids are putting liveries on their front-engined Porsches now. I have a poster of a liveried 944 sitting directly above my computer as I type this. If you don’t have an old, under-appreciated Porsche with a tribute vinyl scheme in the garage, you’re missing out.

So, to avoid the FOMO, you need to pick up this Martini-clad 944 in Florida. No, I’m not sure what’s going on with the plastic bolt-on fender flares either. Or the hood scoop. Or the vents. Look, you take what you can get in Florida.

Did you know the Deux Chevaux didn’t actually have two horsepower? You probably did, as it was famously based on taxes or steam or something, but did you know that two horses also don’t have two horsepower? A regular horse maxes out at just under 15 horsepower, which means a 602cc 2CV does actually have approximately the power of two horses. The more you know.

If you’re in the market for a car named Two Horsepower that does not in fact have two horsepower, but may have two horses power (the seller doesn’t specify which engine this particular car has), look no further than this 2CV in Connecticut. It’s even blue, as all French cars of a certain age should be. I will not elaborate on that.

If you want a name that’s much more straightforward, however, you can check out this Yamaha RD350. It’s apparently been named “Goldhead,” which is apt — look at the engine. You see the head, at the top? It’s gold. Take a lesson, Citroen.

The RD350 is a two-stroke parallel twin, and this one was rebuilt in the late aughts to turn it into the café racer you see today. Sure, the exhaust looks a little homemade, but there’s only so much blue smoke you want pouring out the back of your bike.

You could argue that, as a replica, this Bugatti Type 35B doesn’t qualify for the “Steve’s Age Or Older” criteria of today’s Dopest Cars. You would be wrong, though — the replica was built back in 1980, and still lives with its original owner. Take that, imaginary reader pushing back on my arbitrary slideshow criteria.

The Bunotti is powered by a 1500cc air-cooled Volkswagen engine, meaning it’s likely just slightly slower than the badge would suggest. But, that’s the advantage to classic (or classic-looking) cars — no one’s going to try to race you at stop lights.

Well, at least not in most classic cars. With this one, you may still get some challenges to the Stoplight GP. Sure, it may be old enough for classic plates, but there’s no hiding that hood vent and intercooler — or the rally heritage that built them.

This Evo IV never came to the U.S. in its day, but the inexorable passage of time has granted it a 25-year exemption. Finally, Americans can be graced with fog lights that are bigger than the headlights they assist. We truly want for nothin.