The W140 S600, in my opinion, is one of those ‘best friend or worst nightmare’ kind of cars. A wonderful example is almost pure bliss…
4 CommentsMonth: September 2017
A few weeks ago I took a look at a pretty wild, and fairly famous, first-generation Volkswagen Scirocco. Replete with period details and a Callaway turbo kit, it was a hit for sure as it was when it was the signature car for New Dimensions.
While in some ways the mods took away from the beautiful simplicity of the Giugiaro design, it was still a trick car and brought strong bids, selling finally for nearly $15,000. That money is quite close to the 1981 Scirocco I looked at last year. Completely original and very pristine, it sold for over $17,000. Clearly, the market for these cars values both stock and well modified examples highly.
In light of that, today I have an interesting comparison to consider. First we’ll take a look at a fully original, very clean and proper survivor 1980 Scirocco, then we’ll gander towards a full-on show car powered by a R32 VR6 and a claimed 400 horsepower – about five times what it came with originally. Will the bids follow the historical trends?
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1980 Volkswagen Scirocco on eBay
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This is another of Porsche’s many available colors that I’ve never seen before. It’s called Pastel Beige, which I’m pretty sure is an oxymoron.
Marketing person #1: We’re struggling to sell some of these beige colored cars, what should we do?
Marketing person #2: Our pastel colors seem to be very popular, maybe produce additional…
Marketing person #1: Say no more.
The name aside, it’s actually a strangely attractive color that works well on the lines of the 3.2 Carrera. It reminds me a lot of Ivory and Chiffon White, both of which had been available on earlier 911s. Pastel Beige is certainly a color within that range. Paired with a Grey Beige interior, which in the pictures looks much more of a brown than grey, we end up with a natural combination and it kind of works. Pastel or not this isn’t an exciting color, but it is a pretty one and, of course, of almost equal importance it’s quite rare. Here it adorns a 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe, located in California, with just 16,045 miles on it.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe on eBay
2 Comments
As misunderstood and misused as they are, I love the G-Wagen. What started as a utilitarian military vehicle has now evolved into pieces of sheer…
5 Comments
There are a few select automotive tuners who can take an impressive package and refine it into an even better entity. That group includes legends such as AMG, Alpina and Ruf – all of which are staples of this segment.
Yet they are far from alone. Given the task of improving on what is generally considered to be one of the greatest sedans ever made is no small feat, but if there was one group up to it, it was Steve Dinan’s eponymous company in California.
While just about anyone can take a turbocharged engine and crank up the boost, slap a few stickers on it and call it done, the E39 M5 didn’t come with forced induction. On top of that, it was a motor which wasn’t exactly underdeveloped before it went into production. Nor were the brakes, suspension, or any other aspect of the third gen M5. But Dinan thought they could improve upon them, and with a tremendous amount of work, did.
Dinan went to town on the S62 from start to end. Out came the factory air boxes, air meters and velocity stacks, replaced by Dinan units of larger diameter and better flow qualities, along with larger throttle bodies bored out by the company. This necessitated reprogramming of the computer controls for the engine to match the new flow characteristics. To help the exhaust side of the motor, unique tubular headers were fit to a free-flowing, lightweight exhaust system. While this sounds a bit like old-school engineering, it was successful; the result was an additional 76 horsepower and 51 lb.ft of torque – basically, this was like adding a 1980 Rabbit’s worth of power to an already powerful car.
Dinan coupled the engine mods with a shorter final drive and higher rev-limiter to reach fantastic speeds. The S2 was capable of 0-60 runs around 4 seconds flat and, in unrestricted mode, geared out around 190 mph in 6th. These are still very impressive numbers today, some fifteen years after its introduction! Of course, special forged wheels from the company were added along with their signature suspension. The price was steep, at $36,000 in modifications alone – a further 50% premium on your premium sedan.
Today, you can pick up one of these super-saloons for less than what the price of the modifications cost originally making them one heck of a performance bargain, and I have two to consider for today’s Tuner Tuesday: