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Category: Motorsports Monday

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Motorsports Monday: 1984 Porsche 911 Carrera

Motorsports Monday: 1984 Porsche 911 Carrera

Published March 9, 2015 by Carter

In my opinion, there is no better livery ever than the various iterations of Martini Racing colors. It was hugely exciting when the colors were reintroduced on the 2014 Williams F1 cars; one of the most storied and celebrated color combinations, the Martini colors have graced everything from Formula 1 to Rally Cars and everything in between. Yet wherever they turn up, they always seem to fit just right. Even the Martini edition 924, which was really nothing more than an appearance package, somehow looks so much better than the standard 924 because of the white background with red stripes. My favorite rendering of the Martini colors is probably the Elford/Larrousse 917LH from 1971 Le Mans. With a silver background and the Martini colors cascading elegantly over the sinuous curves of the long tail 917. However, number 21 wasn’t the winner of the 1971 Le Mans; instead, it was the sister 917K driven by Helmet Marko of recent Red Bull fame and Gijs van Lennep (the name rolls of the tongue) in the magnesium framed short tail that won. That car was Martini sponsored too, but a white background with the red and blue stripes falling over the fenders – mimicked by today’s 911 Carrera:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1984 Porsche 911 Carrera on eBay

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Motorsports Monday: 1985 Volkswagen Golf 2.0 16V – REVISIT

Published March 2, 2015 by Carter

I’ve been watching this Volkswagen Golf 16V come and go off eBay; non-running, it’s ask was likely too high despite the very cool nature of the car and neat build. Unsurprisingly, it’s continued to drop in price each listing. Now from the original $9,000 asking price when it was offered first in December of last year, it’s down to $7,800 Buy It Now. While that’s a substantial drop in price, I think this one still has a way to go before it’ll be snatched up. It’s a cool bit of Volkswagen history, but in non-running, non-original configuration it’s a hard sale and just a pile of rare assembled bits. I’d guess at $6,000 this car would find a larger audience. What would you pay?

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1985 Volkswagen Golf on eBay

The below post originally appeared on our site December 22, 2014:

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Motorsports Monday: 2008 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup

Published February 23, 2015 by Rob

There are few marques in the automotive industry whose name is as synonymous with road racing as that of Porsche. While Porsche’s reputation has been built largely through their racing success it also comes through their continued desire to make available to their customers lightened or more powerful variants of their road cars. Or in the case of the car we see here, a 2008 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, a full on racer. The homologation requirements of many of the road-racing series that Porsche competes in do make this somewhat of a necessity, but that still doesn’t change the fact that for a (considerable) sum of money interested buyers can live out their dreams to take part in semi-professional racing behind the wheel one of the most renowned road-racing machines in its class.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2008 Porsche 911GT3 Cup on eBay

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Motorsports Monday: 1988 BMW M3

Published February 16, 2015 by Carter

Remember 2007? I know, it doesn’t seem that long ago, right? Yet, back in 2007 you could take a pretty nice E30 M3 and turn it into a race car, and no one would scream at you, call you bad names, or think you insane. That’s because back in 2007, though many appreciated the E30 M3 it wasn’t the superstar of the German car market that it is today. As a result, it was still reasonably common to see E30 M3s turn up at the track, and properly built they were still the match for many newer cars. A friend of mine moved from a 2002 to a M3 in the early 2000s; after an engine rebuild, he needed break-in miles on the motor, so at a Lime Rock Park event he tossed me the keys. Out on track, it took me approximately 3 turns to instantly feel comfortable. The poise and balance of the E30 was amazing, and though I couldn’t use the upper range of the S14 and had to lug around one gear up from where the car should have run I was able to run down many E36 and E46 M3s without much difficulty. Coming off track, the owner was all smiles and laughing – “Imagine if those other M3 guys knew you were running a gear up!” he laughed. Today, E30 M3 racers may be one of the cheapest ways to get the M3 feeling – but while even the most nicely prepared ones were at most $20,000 – $25,000 only a few years ago the market surge has reached even non-street legal cars:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1988 BMW M3 on eBay

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Motorsports Monday: 1997 Audi A4 1.8T quattro

Published February 16, 2015 by Carter

This past weekend, thanks in no small part to the atrocious weather pattern that seems to be sitting over my head in New England, I missed an opportunity to head to Warner Lake in New York and do some ice driving. While my participation in these events has generally involved instructing students and having a lot of sideways fun, the Audi events I attend are usually run in conjunction with a ice racing organization. If you think Audi quattros are top dog, then you need to see the heavily modified sprint cars on studs running around the ice. They put anything you could drive on the road to shame. But presuming you actually did want to drive there, older Audis are still pretty attractive options to have an ice racing car. First off, they’re good on the ice – especially the older generation cars with less electronic interference. Secondly, they’re generally pretty cheap and mostly reliable. Along with older Subarus, they seem to make up the brunt of cars that head to the ice. Of course, finding a decent older Audi quattro these days isn’t always easy. One possible solution is to look towards the glut of cheap A4s that litter these shores.

I was recently having a discussion about this with my cousin. We both owned 4000 quattros as our first cars, and both are nostalgic about having one, but coming by a decent one can be difficult and the reality is that they’re pretty slow out of the box. The A4, in comparison, isn’t much quicker out of the gates thanks to a heavier chassis; but unlike the B2 they’re plentiful, parts are easy to come by, and select one with the 1.8T motor and you can turn the wick up quite a bit. Plus, near us there’s an A4 for sale every day of the week for less than $2,000 – most of them in pretty reasonable shape, amazingly. But instead of building an ice race car yourself, maybe it’s easier to just buy one that someone else has already built:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1997 Audi A4 1.8T quattro on eBay

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