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Tuner Tuesday: A Tale of Twin Tornados – 1990 Volkswagen Corrado Magnum Wagons

We live in a world of soundbites and short attention spans. Some days it seems like a bit of a coup to remember just what you had for breakfast or where you left the keys last night – never mind to go back a week, a month, a year, or a decade. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a history teacher when I’m not doing this, and I’ve found it increasingly difficult to keep the attention of my students through the 1.5 hour lectures and if it’s a night class, forget it. The proliferation of the internet – the promise of limitless and immediate information – instead seems to be a flood which has washed away the interest, the researching, the enthusiasm for finding something new. But I came across something very interesting when looking for more information about an interesting duo of Corrados that our reader Jesse sent in. It was an internet thread on a forum – nothing special there. What was special was the timeline that thread covered and the subject matter. It started with the announcement of the purchase of the two prototype Corrado Magnum wagons in February, 2007. What followed was 15 pages of comments that spanned an amazing 9 years in what must be one of the longest threads out there documenting the owner trying to get these two unique G60 Corrados to the U.S.. If you want a snapshot of the development of the internet fora in one spot, look at the comments here. In typical VW Vortex style, there are insults tossed, claims the cars don’t exist, that the seller is a liar, threats to steal the cars and that they’re ugly. But there’s also adoration for the buyer who endured an arduous 7 years of storage in the Netherlands before finally getting the clearance to bring the forlorn Volkswagen prototypes to the U.S.. Back to my original point, though – after all that, you’d assume that they’d be locked away by the new owner, never to be seen again save an occasional show, yet here they both are for sale today, along with a few other neat and unique Corrados from the same collection:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1990 Volkswagen Corrado Magnum at LuxSport

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Motorsports Monday: 1986 Porsche 930

It’s hard to fathom any Porsche 930 as “reasonably priced” these days, but after the $500,000 SLS AMG GT3 from earlier this 1986 Porsche 930 seems positively a cheap way to consider track time. What interests me about this car is something the seller mentions in the listing; this is an original Turbo, and still retains the original motor casing and transmission to prove it. Rob’s recent modified 1984 911 “Turbo” model and Nate’s odd M30 turbo M5 from yesterday prove that turbocharged motors popping up in unexpected packages isn’t particularly uncommon, but original 930s rarely turn up in race car form:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1986 Porsche 930 on eBay

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Motorsports Monday: 2013 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3

While I try to vary the posts up a bit, there’s no denying that my regular “Motorsports Monday” posts are dominated by Porsche and BMW. Occasionally, I search far and wide and manage to include an Audi into the mix, but our readership undoubtedly doesn’t associate this column with Mercedes-Benz products. On top of that, the name of this particular car which is bucking that trend also isn’t unusually associated with the three-pointed star – “GT3”. So synonymous with Porsche is that combination of letters and a single number that one could overlook that it dictates the rules for an entire class of cars in the FIA. Since I like rather unusual candidates anyway, I was excited to see one of the very limited production C197 SLS GT3s come up for sale on eBay this week:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2013 Mercedes-Benz AMG SLS GT3 on eBay

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1973 Porsche 911T Coupe Sportomatic

I have a couple reasons for wanting to feature this 911: 1) the exterior color is Gemini Blue Metallic, one of the better early blues that Porsche offered and definitely one of my favorites. 2) It’s a Sportomatic, the quirky clutch-less manual-automatic transmission Porsche experimented with in the early years of the 911. A Sportomatic is pretty rare to come across, though this is one of the times where rarity doesn’t always mean increased desirability. Still, for those with an interest in Porsche’s engineering history, either as part of a collection or simply for one’s own curiosity, this one comes from about as late in long-hood design as we can find and should make for a nice example. It is equipped with the MFI 2.4 liter flat-six that was standard in the 911E and 911S – though with less power – but only available in the first half of ’73 for the 911T. That it comes in such a wonderful color makes it just that much more appealing. So here we have a Gemini Blue Metallic 1973 Porsche 911T Coupe, located in Oregon, with 109,802 miles on it and the 4-speed Sportomatic transmission.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1973 Porsche 911T Coupe Sportomatic on eBay

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1988 BMW M5 M30 Turbo Swap

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Typically the legendary S38B35 is an engine that gets swapped into other BMWs, now out of them, but today we’re playing opposite day with this No-Effs-Given E28 M5. A little while back it received a turbocharged M30 transplant which is a pretty common setup for E28s – just usually done on more pedestrian models than the extremely rare M. A unique aspect to this auction is that the S38 comes with it, so you have the opportunity to ride the turbo monster as long as you please while retaining the prospect of putting the numbers-matching engine back in eventually. Even so, any hopes of originality are long gone after they spray coated the floor rooting out some rust, replaced the wheel and shift knob with anachronistic wooden parts, and spray painted the homebrew center console to accommodate auxiliary gauges. The one thing that I actually do think is original, contrary to the seller’s claim, is the black interior. With all seats, door cards, and interior trim in black, and miles instead of km, I think this may well be one of the 31 US M5s with black interiors (more than 2 the seller thinks they made, but still an extreme rarity).

This M5 has been hacked and sprayed to the point that it will forever be valued more like an E28 rather than the second-rarest M car. It looks pretty darn good from the outside, albeit modified with later wheels and yellow lenses, and the S38 alone could recoup a serious chunk of the purchase price. It’s already into 5-digits with a long time left on the auction and looks like this basket case M5 with its heart in a box will still pull decent money.

Click for details: 1988 BMW M5 on eBay

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