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Month: November 2014

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Wednesday Wheels Roundup

Yesterday, Adam at Fast In Fast Out posted an article covering some of the best vintage racing wheels. I love wheels, and it was fun to see Adam’s article – plus, it also got me thinking about another wheel roundup. Adam asked in his article what was missing – so I found a few that I thought where absent from the lineup but are always fun to see. There’s a set of mega-rare and mega-expensive Campagnolo racing wheels for early BMWs; boy, do they look impressive though! Then there were some great Audi S6 Speedline-made “Avus” wheels. Later models were made by Ronal, but the originals came from the Italian manufacturer. Speaking of, there are a set of the infamous and often-sought Pirelli P-slots for Volkswagens below. Then there is a wild set of Gotti wheels – in some cases, these were raced on factory Porsches as an alternative to BBSs. Check out the width on those rear tires!!! Rota has made some replica wheels recently of some great designs; these both copy the BBS race wheels but also mimic some MSW and OZ designs as well – and boy, are they affordable! Then there are a great set of Ronal R9s that mimic the ATS-made “Penta” AMG wheels; the ATSs are usually more valuable but harder to find. And finally, another set of Speedlines – this time a Techart set for Porsches that just look incredible (and, oddly tasteful for Techart designs). Which is your favorite?

CLICK FOR DETAILS: Campagnolo BMW 13×7, 4×100 Wheels on eBay

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1987 Volkswagen Scirocco

There always seem to be cases of survivors that pop up when you least expect it; cars that you just never see and think you’ll likely never see again. Yet, on a fairly regular basis we find excellent condition Sciroccos and Porsche 924s. What is it about these two models that set them apart? Compare the number of mint condition Sciroccos that you find to mint condition Mk.2 GTis, for example. I can’t really even think of the last time we saw a great condition 85-89 GTi, but Sciroccos? I bet we’ve seen 10 excellent examples in the past year. It’s the same thing with 924s; there always seems to be one “survivor” car floating around. The other thing that seems to link these packages are that the asking prices always seem to be a bit…well, ambitious. But if survivor Porsche 924s always seem to be a bit overpriced with no market to support them, we’ve seen a few Sciroccos change hands above the $10,000 mark recently. That’s some serious change for the Karmann coupe, and usually reserved for the later 16V models – although there was one virtually new 1983 Wolfsburg edition that broke into 5 figures. Today we have another excellent condition Scirocco – will this one be a market stunner too?

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1987 Volkswagen Scirocco on eBay

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1989 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe

I get a little irrationally giddy when a ’89 Carrera pops up on auction with no reserve. Granted, the seller in the example here set the starting bid high enough to functionally serve as a de facto reserve, but still it is always nice to have a chance to see how the values for these cars play out without wondering whether a sky high reserve will impede a sale. The value of a G50-equipped Carrera has risen substantially over the past year and while we’ve seen those numbers plateau slightly over the past couple months, we are still at a point where everyone wants to capitalize upon a good market. That tends to leave driver-quality cars in a precarious position where it is difficult to determine the proper value. These are either undervalued due to a lower investment status or overvalued as prices for the whole range shoot up. But if a well-maintained example can be found, as this Guards Red 1989 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe appears to be, then a wider range of buyer should be satisfied.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1989 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe on eBay

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1982 Mercedes-Benz 240D

We feature a lot of low mileage cars here at GCFSB, but one particular car that comes up in the rotation a lot for which mileage doesn’t seem to matter is the venerable W123 Mercedes-Benz. There’s been a few I’ve seen that have over 200,000 miles yet still appear as if they’ve rolled off the showroom floor. A testament, then, to good engineering and quality materials. This 1982 240D won’t get you there fast, but you could have fooled me that it has covered upwards of 150,000 miles. This particular example is from the southern US, has all its service records and has been regularly garaged.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1982 Mercedes-Benz 240D on eBay

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1987 BMW 535is

When I was a young driver, I was lucky enough to have a few mid 1980s BMWs in the family. My father had collected an assortment of some of the best; a 1982 633CSi, a 1985 635CSi, a 1988 M5 and a 1988 735i 5-speed. Of course, driving each of these cars, I felt in some measure invincible. Considering I had learned to drive on a 1984 Toyota pickup, these leather-lined inline-6 monsters might as well have been Ferrari Enzos. And as if an invitation to dip into that speed, the later 6 and 7 had factory hard-wired radar detectors. Not only was I at the wheel of a car capable of Saturn V levels of thrust, but it was also invisible. My cloaking device engaged, I’d speed down the roads; in hindsight, the who scene was probably similar to the pinnacle of the storyline in The Hunt For Red October as a torpedo closed in on the submarine. I’d stomp on the binders as soon as those beeps registered what was surely an entire squad of police setting up a roadblock for me. Oddly, they all seemed to occur around stores with automatic doors. Even more oddly, there never seemed to be any police there. And especially vexing was the total lack of response when you would drive past an actual police car. At first, I assumed they just had their systems off. I mean, why would BMW install a system in their car that didn’t work? But as the number of actual police speed that the radar detector picked up remained shocking close to zero, I began to be suspicious that this system had actually been installed merely to annoy me. I still get a chuckle every time I see them in older BMWs, such as this 1987 535is:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1987 BMW 535is on eBay

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