Saab 9-3 SportCombi Aero, BMW R1100RT-P, NovaBus RTS-06: The Dopest Vehicles I Found For Sale Online

Another week has passed and that means another week of sweet cars found online that I wish I could own. I like finding cheap used cars that can either be daily driven right away or daily driven after minor work. Over the past couple of years I've turned it into a bit of a skill.

I search as much of Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist as I can for interesting vehicles that don't cost a lot of money. They may be hilariously unreliable, unique, tuned or maybe something that stops me in my tracks. While I am based in the Midwest, I also see what I can find across the country. Sadly, prices for a few models are trending higher so it's getting really hard to find absurdly cheap cars, but I'm trying anyway.

Here are nine vehicles I've found that I'd drive or that I judge to be solidly Jalop in one way or another. I really have an itch to try to buy one or two of these, too!

Let's start this off pretty rad. The Conquest Technica calls back to the time when Chrysler was selling Mitsubishis as captive imports. Dodge, Chrysler and Plymouth each offered some sort of rebadged Mitsubishi. The Chrysler Conquest was also known as the Mitsubishi Starion.

This clean example sports a 2.6-liter turbocharged engine paired with an automatic transmission. It also has the Technica package, which means the car has digital gauges, voice alerts and those annoying automatic seatbelts from back in the day. The hood is reportedly pretty rare, too.

This time capsule is $4,350 in Simpsonville, South Carolina, from Facebook Marketplace.

BMW is known for touring motorcycles that can ride an incredible number of miles. The R1100RT-P is such a workhorse that the California Highway Patrol reportedly ran them up to 100,000 miles.

This one is claimed to be a former police model and has 50,000 miles on the odometer. It even has a set of police lights, but I wouldn't recommend running them. These were the favorite of many police forces here in America and Europe. If it's good enough for police duty, it should be a reliable ride for its next owner.

This clean motorcycle is $2,200 on Facebook Marketplace out of South Lyon, Michigan.

Miata lovers often say Miata Is Always The Answer. I've seen off-road Miatas. I've seen turbo Miatas. Miata owners love turning their cars into all sorts of weird things. The last time I saw a lifted Miata with a turbo it wasn't even legal to drive. Not that you'd want to drive it — that one was scary unsafe at any speed.

This turbo off-road build definitely doesn't look like it can hurt you sitting still. It comes lifted three inches with a snail placed right next to the engine. I also spot a hardtop with a roof rack, winch, some modified lights and properly chunky tires. The seller notes a Tein suspension.

The price for this is $9,000 on Craigslist in Salem, Oregon. This build is roughly twice the price of a cleanish Miata in my area. I suppose the question is whether a turbo and a lift makes this twice the Miata?

(H/T – Ben)

This is perhaps one of the strangest ways to get high fuel economy in the modern day. What you're looking at is a Mercury Lynx. Yes, it's a Mercury-badged Ford Escort. It also comes equipped with a five-speed manual transmission and a thrifty diesel engine.

The owner did recent maintenance and says the car comes with receipts for work done all the way back to the 1980s. That level of record-keeping for an economy car is impressive. I see some surface rust but it's remarkably clean for an old survivor that's knocking on the door of 40 years old. Clean up that rust and show up to Radwood in this beast for $1,700 in Clearwater, Florida, from Facebook Marketplace.

(H/T – Oppositelock)

The Honda Pacific Coast 800 is a motorcycle designed to making motorcycling as easy as possible: low maintenance, good weather protection and spaceship looks. I think it's a classic motorcycle, a classic that isn't yet appreciating in value.

I've been interested in these for a while, even more after writing about them. Now my Facebook Marketplace is filling up with these things. Search your local classifieds and I bet you'll find at least one cheap example. This clean example is on Facebook Marketplace in South Bend, Indiana, for $1,900.

For this week's enthusiast car I decided to find a Golf GTI that is both under $10,000 and under 100,000 miles. These are almost cars that can speak for themselves with how much fun and how practical they are. If you're willing to take a chance on higher mileage, you can find them for absolutely cheap prices, too. This particular GTI is pretty clean and is $5,500 on Facebook Marketplace in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.

For a slightly newer model, here's a 2010 with similar mileage in Chicago for $7,500. That one has a couple of tasteful mods and an extra set of wheels with snow tires.

If there's any bus I'd love more than my school bus it's an old Rapid Transit Series (RTS) bus. These were originally built by GMC's Truck and Coach Division back in the 1970s, with the design being handed down to different companies in subsequent decades. I can't get enough of the design of these.

This RTS-06 unit is looking absolutely gorgeous. The seller makes no mention of which engine and transmission combination is housed inside, but it looks clean and is up for a reasonable $6,000 on Facebook Marketplace in Fairfield, Ohio. Thank heavens it's priced the way it is; otherwise I and my significant other would be moving from a school bus project to a city bus project.

This is an unpopular opinion, but I love the Chrysler Crossfire. This sportscar sits on the Mercedes-Benz R170 platform and shares most of its parts with the second-generation Mercedes-Benz SLK. It's pretty much a Mercedes with Chrysler's intense styling. This particular one is the SRT-6, meaning it comes with a supercharged V6 making 330 horsepower before the tasteful mods under the hood. It has an ECU tune, a smaller supercharger pulley, larger throttle body and other minor mods.

Unfortunately, that power goes through an automatic transmission, but I still think it's an interesting car.

This one is also a good few thousand cheaper than others online, at $8,000, on Facebook Marketplace in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

To round out this list I have a Swedish wagon. The V6 turbocharged engine under the hood delivers decent power through a manual transmission. It's a stylish wagon you can have some serious fun in. I think the design of this has aged pretty well considering it's 13 years old.

This sleeper of a wagon can be had for $6,500 on Facebook Marketplace in Hudson, Wisconsin.

That's it for this week! Since I started this series I've watched how the pandemic has been changing local car prices. Vehicles that were an easy $1,000 before are becoming $2,000 or even $3,000 cars.

It's becoming harder to find what I'd say are truly awesome deals without getting behind the wheel of something that's one pothole from the scrapyard. Some gems are still out there, but they end up selling before I can even finish writing these.

Know of a weird car for sale on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist? Drop it down in the comments or in my email! If the car's still for sale, I may feature it on a future entry.