Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
Every once in a while, a car pops up that I’d just love to know more of the history of. Case in point; today’s 2000 BMW 323i. This was the second year for E46 in the US, and frankly the very early E46 323i models were pretty plain. But that’s not the case today, and this one was special ordered from BMW Individual in Dakar Yellow. From there, it gets a bit stranger, because the ticking of special options didn’t seem to continue….
Following up on the low-option GT4 and the high-option but low desirability 924, here’s one that’s firmly in No Man’s Land: a 1998 Volkswagen Golf GL.
In roughly 1999, a local-to-me European car business turned up with something quite unusual. It was a pastel blue 1984 Volkswagen Rabbit. There was nothing particularly special about it; it was a base model with steel wheels. It wasn’t unusually optioned. It wasn’t a GTI. In fact, there was only one really remarkable thing about it – it had only 5,000 miles on the odometer from its single owner, and was in close-to-new shape.
The story went that the original owner had suffered a heart attack when the car was quite new. The widow had left the car in the garage, untouched by all but dust, until finally an estate sale liberated the single oil change bunny. The condition was certainly astounding, but to me the asking price at that time was, too. The seller was looking for $5,000.
It was pretty cool that the car was like a new fifteen year old car, but then cars had come a long way since 1984 in 1999, and the collector market on the Rabbit hadn’t really taken off. In 1999, $5,000 would have bought you a very nice 2.0 16V GTI, after all.
Fast forward to today.
It’s been over twenty years since today’s equivalent to my parable was new in the dealership. Like my memory, it’s a very basic Golf in very good condition with very low mileage. Similar to my story, cars have come a very long way in the past twenty years, and a quick jaunt in this buzzy, basic, and slow Golf will quickly remind you of that. So has the market on a clean, low mileage base Golf taken off yet, or is this doomed to a similar fate as my Rabbit – to sit and wait for just the right nostalgic buyer? Because that clean Rabbit today? Well, it’d probably sell for $20,000 on the right day. This Golf, though?
Everyone wants options. Not the options in terms of life, I’m talking about optional equipment for cars. “Fully loaded!” “Every option!” I’m sure you’ve seen those phrases throw around a million times when looking at cars when the reality of it is it’s configured like the majority of them for sale. Naturally, Porsche takes this to another level by offering a boat load of options that you didn’t even know were possible and then ever went a step further by offering their special customers whatever they wanted, as long as they paid an eye-watering amount of money.
But what if you ordered a car with no options? Crazy. Who would go into a Porsche dealer and specifically order a car with nothing? Just standard equipment and that’s it. Well, that seems to be what happened with this new 718 Cayman GT4.
I don’t believe a lot of people necessarily think about the R230 Mercedes-Benz SL-Class generation. Outside of the SL55 AND SL65 AMG cars, they cars are rather forgettable in the world of modern convertibles. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t anything particularly bad about them, but they were rather soft. The design was conservative with subdued lines and long curves, and the inside was much of the same. Mercedes isn’t dumb here, this is what their SL buyers want. Because of the long production run and a bunch of variants, there isn’t a giant demand for them over 10 years later. Whats that mean? Cheap cheap cheap.
Increasingly as some of our childhood (or, adulthood) heroes get priced out of sensibility for weekend warrior on a budget status, there are still some bastions of hope for the shoestring enthusiast. One of the best must undoubtedly be the underrated Porsche 924. As Sciroccos, GTIs, 944 Turbos, Quattros and the like take off in value, here lies a plethora of well-cared for, well-built and fun-to-drive cars that have good parts accessibility, reasonable repair costs and surprising amounts of practicality. Sure, it’s ‘just’ a 924, and Porschephiles will probably poo-poo your choice. So, too, will most of the rest of the automotive world. Their loss is your gain. Try as they might, outside of some very special 924 Carreras, these models that helped to keep Porsche afloat in the 1970s and 1980s still haven’t caught on with collectors.
So here’s a late ‘early’ 924; the clean design that kept the lights on at Porsche. Certainly it’s worth a look?
