Yahoo Autos Toyota Celica GT-Four, Chevrolet Chevelle, Mazda RX-7: The Dopest Cars I Found for Sale Online
Welcome, friends, to the weekend. We’re out of the worst of winter, approaching the best of bike season — I’ve already shed the heated gear for recent two-wheeled escapades.
But maybe March is another season for you: Wrenching season, cruising season, getting-your-track-days-scheduled season. Allow me to help.
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Today, we’ve got 15 of the most interesting cars and bikes to ever grace the faces of Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Fifteen vehicles to be your chariot through warming weather, to get the sun on your face and wind in your hair through those temperate spring months. Fifteen of the internet’s Dopest Cars.
1991 Mercedes-Benz 190E - $9,500
The 190E is an interesting car. Ask a baby boomer and they’ll tell you it’s terrible — a cheap, budget model, meant for people who wanted a three-pointed star on their car but couldn’t really afford one. It didn’t live up to the Benz image, and it carried an air of trying too hard.
Ask a millennial, though, and they’ll tell you it’s a smaller, lighter sedan that maintains the classic Benz styling. They’ll point to the Cosworth Evo, and say that the 190E has racing heritage — and that it’s not a car to be ignored. Which side of the argument do you fall on?
2003 Lexus IS300 - $11,000
Back in my youth, the halcyon summer of 2018, I came very close to buying an IS300. It was white, with an unpainted bodykit in conveniently white primer that dangled precariously from its sheet metal. It had a turbocharger of unknown make strapped to its 2JZ engine, and it made some amount of power from a street-tuned ECU. It would have been a terrible, terrible mistake, but it also might have been the most fun car I could’ve gotten for six grand. And that was the asking price!
Now, unfortunately, our enthusiast cars cost a bit more. But at least this IS300 is in better condition, with all of its wheels and tires appearing to even match each other. That’s rare for these! Buy this IS, with its fancy-watch dash, and go drift it at some local track. It’ll be good for your soul.
1997 Honda Civic - $3,999
I know, I know, this is a regular old Civic. Normally I’ll put an Si or Type R in here, but this is just an HX — boring, bog standard, banal. But is that such a bad thing? A great-looking, lightly updated Civic that still gets late-nineties econobox fuel economy? I say no.
In fact, I say that this would make a fantastic commuter. We no longer really get non-sport coupes in the U.S., with the push to ever bigger vehicles. This is a good size, a good car, and a good buy.
2005 Subaru Outback XT - $9,900
But what if you don’t care about fuel economy? What if you want to pile passengers into your station wagon, head up to the ski hill, and then pin them back in their seats with a shocking amount of torque and horsepower? My friend, this is the vehicle for you — the fourth-generation Subaru Legacy/Outback turbo.
I owned one of these, though in Legacy trim rather than Outback, and I can tell you not a single person expected it to make the power it did. Even tuners and mechanics would hop in the car and be shocked at the power-to-mod ratio. My local tuner even once sent a friend of mine to Rochester with an OBD cable, hellbent on reading the tune from its ECU. I still have that tune, if anyone wants it.
1995 Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205 - $16,900
Here’s one you don’t see every day: A Japanese homologation-special Celica, imported to the States and — according to the listing — lovingly maintained. Plenty of Silvias and Skylines make their way stateside because they’re cheap, and once they arrive on our shored they’re beaten and abused within an inch of their lives — not so with this Celica.
The all-wheel-drive rally Celica is only lightly modified, with the kinds of aftermarket parts you don’t mind seeing on cars of this age — a new radiator, an air intake, and exhaust. There’s even a modern head unit inside, one that can likely pick up American radio frequencies.
1979 Honda CB400T - $1,800
Fun fact: The BMW may have been the first bike that I could reliably ride around, but my true first bike was one of these: A Honda CB400T. Mine was even this deep red color, beneath the layers of grime and rattle-can patina that it adorned from prior owners. This bike, however, looks to be in much better shape than mine.
Yet, somehow, it isn’t much more expensive. My bike cost half of what this does, but this is still under two grand — and has fresh carburetors that won’t need the gallons of Seafoam that my bike drank. Get those twin Mikunis in synch, and get riding. They’re fun little bikes, I promise.
2007 Mazda RX-8 - $8,000
This RX-8 really requires you to click through to the listing in the slide header to get a good look at the exterior, due to complicated and meaningful reasons. Yes, this is a slammed Mazda rotary like so many others. No, it doesn’t “run” under its “own power.” But it does have a rust-free, gorgeous shell. What could you do with that?
You could swap in a 13B-REW from an FD. You could shove a GR Corolla’s three-cylinder under the hood. Hell, even a K24 might fit, with a bit of Sawzall-aided convincing. The possibilities are endless, as long as you’ve got the drive to take on a wrenching project.
