This Vanagon does my favorite kind of bait-and-switch. At first glance, the unwavering white paint/black trim looks at best plain. White wall tires on steel wheels exaggerate its age, giving the overall impression of yet another old beater camper van. This impression matched with the $26,750 asking price furrowed my brow immediately, but elicited a rewarding closer look. Checking out the details on this High Top, you see that the plain white paint is actually a recent and well-done respray. Inside, we find a nearly perfect interior with a new wood-laminate floor to match the cabinets. All camping items work including the propane stove and heater, water pump with filter, refrigerator, and external ports. It has 184k miles but still returns 20+ mpg and appears to have received the maintenance and care to keep it going for another couple hundred thousand. The 6’7″ standing height means even my 6’5″ brother could be comfortable, though the fold out bed might not either of us very well. It’s an under-the-radar Adventurewagen that is perfectly eccentric as is.
Month: April 2016
I’m going to take a slightly different tack from Nate’s post yesterday on his equally immaculate Royal Red GTi. I owned an A1 GTi once. It was one of the worst automotive decisions I’ve ever made. Back in 1998, I bought a non-running, rusty and very tired black over blue 1984 example for $300. I had every intention of “restoring” it to back good condition, but I was 21 and a poor college student and it was 14. But it wasn’t the age (or the mileage, Indiana), it was how it had been treated in that 14 years. After all, my current Passat is 14 years old and while it’s not perfect, it’s pretty damn nice. Heck, my M3 is 13 years old and basically looks and drives new. No, age was much harder on the cars of the early 1980s; plastics weren’t as durable as they are now, nor was paint. Metal was more rust prone and the electronics were no where near as reliable even though there were so far fewer in the car. To back my GTi up, you could simply look through the crease in the bodywork between the taillights and the rear floor where there was no longer metal. Every single bushing was gone, and what was left vibrated like an unattended paint shaker at Home Depot set to high. The paint was ruined – the car had clearly been hit at some point, so the passenger door and fender were a different shade of black than the rest of the car, which could more be described as dark gray spread very thinly over light gray primer. One time it started itself, which was a bit scary. Another time, it refused to start because the starter had removed itself from the transmission, but only enough to jam the gear into the flywheel. Then one fateful night one a ride home from a late shift at work, the fuse box lit on fire, consuming the functionality of all electrics save the high beams. I had sunk a few thousand dollars into keeping that car running and improving it over the year and a half I drove it. Ultimately I sold it for parts – for $300.
I won’t over romanticize my life with a GTi. I was not sad to see it go. I don’t wish I had it back – in fact, it may be the only car I owned that I never long to sit in again. Indeed, I even have more connection to a few parts cars that I bought but never drove. But, I will say that it did provide me with some entertaining stories. And when it ran right (there were at least two times), it was really a joy to be behind the wheel. There were glimpses of its former glory; you could get in, start it up and immediately be driving at 11/10ths everywhere you went. 40 m.p.h. has only felt near as exhilarating on my bicycle. And the shape was beautiful in such a strange, boxy way. Like Nate, I certainly wouldn’t mind owning a GTi (again), but it would have to be one closer to perfect. It would have to be more like this Diamond Silver Metallic 1983, amazingly one of the two lower mileage near perfect time pieces that have popped up on eBay this week:
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1983 Volkswagen GTi on eBay
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Looking for something a little different in a classic car? A little over a year ago I took a look at this incredible survivor 1982 Audi Coupe in the rare shade of Surinam Red Metallic with Negro Tweed interior. Though the early Coupes lack a bit of the performance of the later Type 85 models like the 87.5 NG motored examples, the early Type 81 looks are a bit closer to the legendary Quattro but on a much friendlier budget. Back in February 2015, this car sold for an impressive $5,500. It appears to have changed little in the past 14 months and is now available in a no reserve auction with bidding currently well below $2,000. This is a really cool time piece from Audi’s early 1980s history that is quite affordable indeed but will help to set you apart from the crowd nonetheless.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1982 Audi Coupe on eBay
The below post originally appeared on our site February 23, 2015:
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For pure beauty of design it is very tough to find a better example of Porsche’s 911 than the 993 Carrera S. There is a way in which the design takes us back to the 911’s predecessor itself, the 356 Coupe, through its curvier nature. The lines are significantly more taut and of course the entire package is more refined, but the hereditary lines are clear. The C2S enhances the entire aesthetic package of the 993 by utilizing the wider rear of the Turbo, but unlike its sibling the C4S and the Turbo itself the rear-drive layout has been retained. It’s a best of both worlds design: the fullness of the rear silhouette packaged with the simplicity and the, preferred by many, dynamics of rear-wheel drive. It is no wonder then that these models have been so highly prized by collectors and 911 aficionados alike. They were the last of the air-cooled 911s and the last of the more upright greenhouse that has gradually diminished beginning with the 996. The example we see here appears in impeccable condition: an Arctic Silver Metallic 1998 Porsche 911 Carrera S, located in New York, with just 21,064 miles on it.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1998 Porsche 911 Carrera S on eBay
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When I met Lon, he was in Washington on his yearly pilgrimage to see friends and search for rust-free Mk1 Volkswagens. He lived in Iowa and had a farm filled with interesting VW breeding experiments. GTIs mated with trucks, diesels injected wherever possible, etc. He knew that our sweet little truck was getting more than a little rough around the edges – a cracked exhaust manifold was the final need that broke my dad’s patience – but he also looked at it with the same optimism and appreciation that I did. I was just a couple of months into having my driver’s license, and the passing on of my beloved Rabbitamino was hard to swallow. Lon seemed to be the right person to pass it on to, someone who would make it better and give it a new life in a way I wasn’t prepared to do. The pain of loss was dulled when he let me drive the Mk1 GTI he had already picked up on his trip – a low and tight little mongrel featuring a Quaife differential and a short-geared diesel 5-speed. Howling through the gears and hitting fourth before 40 mph, he offered to trade me the GTI and its trunk full of VW race parts for the truck and a little cash. 16 year old me was not in the driver’s seat for our family’s car choices, however, and my dad wanted another truck. We ended up with an incredible Toyota 4×4 that is still kicking ass and taking names, but that drive in (and missed chance at) Lon’s sweet GTI has always stuck with me.
Thus, the Mk1 GTI is still a bucket list car for me, but I’m thinking I need to either jump on one soon or cross my fingers and hope I win the lottery down the line. This beautiful Royal Red example has covered roughly 2k miles in the last 9 years after the owner bought it in Chicago and took it to New York to tuck away, drive on weekends, and take to shows. It’s not completely original – new snowflakes have been acquired by the owner over the years, and it has a stainless steel Techtonics exhaust – but it’s damn close. We’ve seen impeccable, fully restored GTIs, but original examples like this carry an extra air of gravity and provenance. Whatever the seller invested 9 years ago, I’m guessing it was a heck of a lot less than the nearly $10k the auction is reaching.