Happy Friday, friends. Has this week been as long for you as it has for me? Sometimes it just feels like every conceivable event is happening at the same time, always, forever. Life is just hectic like that.
Luckily for you, there’s a place to relax here. A quiet corner of the bar where you can nurse your drink at your own speed, relax to your heart’s content — and, of course, browse your way through the internet’s Dopest Cars.
I am so, so curious about the damage on this 5-series. The front bumper and driver’s fender are absolutely wrecked, but nothing else on the car is. The rest of the body is worn, sure, but nothing is like those two panels up front.
Even those two panels aren’t like each other! The bumper has paint flaking off left and right, while the fender appears to have been buffed to a matte finish. What is happening with this car? Or, perhaps more accurately, what happened to it?
If a classic car needs anything else to earn adoration, I’ve yet to learn what it is. This 220D is opulent, sure, but it’s bright and cheerful in a way that modern angry-luxe cars just can’t match. It’s also on bags, because there’s nothing more luxurious than dragging your subframe in the Wegmans parking lot.
I’ll be honest with you all: I have no earthly idea what’s going on here. The cut off roof, the massive door bars on what’s clearly a homemade cage, the way absolutely none of the body panels fit together. Even the uncropped screenshot, here, contributes to the all-round “what in God’s name is happening” vibe.
Other photos in the listing — all also screenshots, all with only three percent battery life remaining — show the car in various states of modification with no explanation given as to why. Sometimes it has a roof, sometimes the lights are blocked off, sometimes it has a motor. What was this built for?
This Beetle entirely lacks a listing description. The only things that shows up are the location (West Virginia), the transmission (manual), the fuel (gasoline) and the color (green.) I, for one, knew that last one already just by looking at the photos.
This car is so green, it’s got to be one of the greenest cars ever made. The white fenders and side skirts, somehow, actually add to the green-ness of the whole situation. This isn’t just some factory green Beetle, it’s a Beetle that’s been made green. The white accents are telling you not to forget that.
Fun fact: It’s illegal to mount a front plate to a Fiat 500 Abarth. Every owner has to keep their front plate haphazardly thrown on the dash in front of the passenger seat, so that it may become a projectile in the event of a collision. These are just the rules of Abarth ownership. They make you sign them when you buy the car.
This Abarth, however, is probably worth the Oddjob-style decapitation risk. A new turbo, new intercoolers, new clutch, new water pump — there’s nothing left to go wrong. Trust me. It’s all been fixed. Nothing else can go wrong. That’s how this works.
The GSX250R is, by all objective metrics, a bike you should probably not purchase. They’re the least nimble in the class, the slowest, and have the most dated motors. Entry-level sportbikes are competitive right now, and the baby GSX just... isn’t. Yet, people buy them, because they’re absolutely gorgeous.
Even I, knowing all this, came close to picking up a GSX250R years ago. They’ve just got great lines, a well-designed headlight — in all, enough style to make you forget that your zero to 60 time is on par with a first-generation Miata.
Two (2) of them.
The Saab 9-2X Aero is a weird car. A Saab-badged Subaru created through General Motors meddling, these cars were never destined for longevity. That’s really a shame, because they’re just WRXes with nicer interiors and — to the heretics who dislike the hawkeye front end — better looks.
The 9-2X is Subaru weirdness made upscale, built for buyers who wanted European luxury without sacrificing their weird car cred. Now, of course, those buyers all just get Volvos.
Let’s play a game. It’s a fun one, called “Was this car used for drifting?” I’ll give you the full text of this ad description, and you tell me if this is a former drift practice car. Ready?
New exhaust, rear brakes, rotors, and calipers, new e brake cables, new rear tires, new injectors, coil packs, plugs, new throttle body, new valve cover gaskets, new intake gaskets and more
I, for one, am seeing a lot of rear here. New rear brakes, even down to the calipers. New ebrake cables, run to the rear. New rear tires. I dunno, folks, I think I’m on team drift car here.
This is a 1997 4Runner with what appears to be a solid frame. Sure, the body has some rust, but it’s not that much for the age. Oh, and did I mention it’s a manual?
I shouldn’t have even listed this here. I should’ve just bought this truck without giving any of you any warning, and kept it as my own. Now, you’re all my competition. Uh, actually, just stop looking at this slide. You didn’t see anything. Move along.
This seller has an approach to pricing that I deeply respect: “price is 4500 if it to high sorry but that’s what it takes.” A grammatical nightmare, sure, but this F-250 is the seller’s farm truck. Its price isn’t based on the market, the Blue Book, or the Bring A Trailer sales, it’s based on what the Ford is worth to its owner.
I think that’s fantastic. Markets, blue books, none of them really describe the practical nature of owning a vehicle. In the same way that formulas never get enthusiast cars quite right, they also struggle with vehicles of purpose — whose value is based not on year-over-year depreciation from new, but on what service they can provide their owner.
I have a hot take for you all: Retro-ish modern bikes look better than modern bikes doing the pure retro thing. Triumph has more or less overhauled its lineup to mark this divide, with Bonnevilles being truly traditional and Speed Twins being more modern in their shape, and I have to say my heart rests with the latter.
The twins just look lighter, nimbler, more fun to flick around. A Bonneville, laden with steel and heritage, looks like it’ll lumber along a highway in perfect comfort — but it’s also not a cruiser, meant to do just that. For a city bike, to dodge through traffic in, I’d rather have the Speed Twin. Or, as it was once called, the Street Twin.
I understand that this is an odd thing to say about a used car that’s pictured rusting on a trailer with flat tires, but: Is this Yugo kind of weirdly clean? The paint is bright and largely immaculate, the seats are dirty — perhaps even moldy, it’s tough to tell — but unripped and seemingly unworn.
The seller claims this Yugo sat in a garage for two decades, but they also claim 62,000 miles before that — surely this cheap car couldn’t have driven all those and still looked this new, right? Was this restored at some point? I’m so curious.
Folks, we’ve found it: The last reasonably-priced NA Miata. This NA6 looks lovingly cared for — even the engine bay has clearly been cleaned — and it even includes spare parts should something go wrong down the road. All that for under ten grand.
Is the Miata market leveling out? Are we done seeing NAs for 13, 14, 15 grand in this kind of shape? I hope so. When my old ’93 comes back on the market, I need to be able to afford it.
Oh, you thought you were getting through a full Dopest without a kei truck? Think again. The kei trucks will continue until I am forced to stop, either by their outright ban in the U.S. or by Andy removing my fingers so I can no longer talk about how great these little trucks are. He’s got some kind of grudge against them, I swear.
Someday, I want to own one of these with a motorcycle in the back. That’s sort of the whole plan, to be able to drive around and carry as-yet-unregistered new-to-me bikes in the back. This is my mental image of what life would be like if I robbed the Kwik-E-Mart.
What were these early-aughts 600cc sportbikes made of? It seems like every single one on Marketplace is battered beyond recognition, scraped and dented by a litany of first-time riders all hoping to learn sick whoolies before they know what a clutch is. And yet, here they are, all running.
Look at this dented, odd-fitting exhaust. Look at the aftermarket fairings, devoid of any factory stickers, which have still managed to get all screwed up. And yet, here the bike is, running and ready to go for $3,600. Do they make airplane black boxes out of old R6es and Gixxers?