Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
Back before Thanksgiving, a slightly crusty 200 20V quattro Avant popped up in the Northeast:
It sold for relatively short money, though it also clearly needed a fair amount of work. But, as I said, these are fan favorite cars – so when another turns up in short order, it’s still worth taking a look. Today’s Lago Blue Metallic example has black sport seats, the correct BBS wheels, and European headlights thrown in, too boot!
Back in April I took a look at a post-LCI E39 540i Sport with the desirable 6-speed manual:
Today’s earlier example looks great in hard-to-find Anthracite Metallic with the multi-piece BBS Style 19s. While it’s not a spring chicken, there looks to be a reasonable amount of value in this car. Let’s take a look:
Just when I thought I’ve seen it all! What we are looking at is a 1977 Mercedes-Benz 300D that somehow was transformed into a strangely proportioned coupe. According to the seller, the body was modified by removing the rear doors, moving fuel tank and fuel door two feet forward, and extended the trunk lid two feet. Try to wrap your head around that. On top of that, this car already exists and Mercedes made of ton of them! Unless this car was modified right in 1977 when it came out, it made no sense why someone would do this. But here it is, in all its mis-proportioned glory. Just to make it even stranger, it is powered by a 1983 OM617 Turbodiesel engine. Let’s take a look:
Crazy though it may sound, this E36 – priced at $24,000 – may actually be a reasonable deal. Wind the clock back a few years, and that statement was inconceivable; E36s were relegated to the bargain basement of BMW M pricing. That’s not the case anymore, though, as pricing has been trending sharply upwards – recently a few non-Lightweight examples have crested $60,000 sales after fees. Hard to believe? Well, perhaps more a sign of the trends, but finding a neat and clean E36 is certainly no longer as easy as it once was, and early examples are – amazingly – able to be registered as antiques in more than a few states.
So here we are, with a very shouty Dakar Yellow ’94. And if you know E36 M3s, you know that a pre-’95 model year automatically means one important thing – European specification. Well, at least it should mean that. Let’s take a look:
Back in October, I took a look at a refreshed and S8-tributed D2 A8L.
Truth told, by love of the D2 focuses mostly on the S8, but I have a weird crush on early models in general. First off there was the wacky 3.7 front-drive model that only lived for two model years and amazingly had less power than the smaller displacement 1990 V8 quattro with the 3.6. It seems as though barely any of those sold new between 1997 and 1999, and it’s hard to believe any survive today. Of course, it was also an early pre-facelift S8 that appeared in Ronin, as well – another reason to love them. Just 2,481 A8s were sold in the US in 1999, broken up between the 3.7 and the model we’re looking at today: and standard A8 4.2 quattro. It is perhaps one of the best examples left in the wild – and it’s just a good reminder of how handsome and understated the original design was.
