Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
Do you get jealous of the brightly-colored Land Rover Defenders romping around the streets, looking all tough? Well, today we have a Geländewagen that looks ready for safari, enough so that it will probably be regularly mistaken for its British counterpart. With just 40k miles and a great diesel/manual combo, it’s a very nice off-road package. Bidding is hot on the no-reserve auction for this orange beast that will never be taken for a road-going G55 or G63.
The Type 44 Audi was an impressive advance for German automobiles, a huge leap forward for Audi in a new marketplace – but also nearly the cause of its demise. It was an aerodynamic, futuristic sedan when both BMW and Mercedes-Benz seemed to be producing cars stuck in the 1970s. It was the blueprint for most modern luxury sedans from not only German companies, but many of the advances were copied by the Japanese, Italians and Americans for their large sedans. Yet, by 1990 Audi nearly pulled out of the American market thanks to some creative journalism from 60 Minutes, who in their effort to prove Audi was at fault for some unintended acceleration cases nearly killed off the company entirely. In part as a result of their efforts, it’s become quite rare to find clean examples of them today – but it’s also because they were such good, long-lived and solidly built machines that few have lower miles today. While I recent featured a few 20V turbocharged examples in the 20V Turbo comparison, today we’ll look at a few of the lesser appreciated examples, starting with a clean 5000CS quattro Avant in Canada:
If the Porsche 928GTS we featured last week was a bit too rich for your blood but it’s a V8 Porsche you still lust after, have faith. There are still a few options out there on the market. Case in point this tidy 1986 928S for sale in Nevada. This is one of the last pre-facelift 928s, as 1987 would see a more rounded rear end. Under the hood is the 5.0 liter lump, good for 316 horsepower, making this a bit of a straddling year in the 928 production run.
In yesterday’s Audi project post, I wrote up two more-rare Audis with potential, though both would require some work and dedication to get to daily driver status. Today, I’ve got two more “project” cars – though, if anything, these two are considerably more rare these days than either of the two Audis. Both are all-wheel drive wagons from Volkswagen, but if you can quint and see a family resemblance, that’s about all that links them together. The first is the B2 Audi-derived Quantum Syncro – essentially, an Audi 4000 quattro with Volkswagen hubs, wheels and brakes and a unique rear suspension under the Quantum body. The Passat W8 also shared Audi A4 all-wheel drive components but essentially was a completely different offering, from the 6-speed manual transmission this model sports to the unique W8 motor stuffed into the discreet Passat Variant package. While there were considerably more Quantum Syncros produced than W8 6-speeds, finding one today can be quite hard – many succumbed to poor residual value, rust and neglect; though not complicated cars, the were more expensive to work on than the standard 4-cylinder models. The W8 is at the verge of falling into the same fate, with the exception of original production numbers – with only a handful of W8 Variants imported originally, both of these cars are serious unicorns these days. Which is your style?
In 1986 the big two door coupe from Mercedes, though flashier than its four door brethren, rarely would be seen in bright colors. Unlike some of the unique shades coming on the Benz cars today from the factory, particularly some of the special order Designo branded cars, the W126 cars rarely saw ultra bright eye catching colors. It is because most SECs you see are black, grey, dark blue, white and rarer red, that this canary yellow SEC really stands out. Obviously this isn’t a factory paint job, photos suggest this car was white, but that doesn’t diminish what a coat of bright paint does to the normally iconic, but subdued lines of the great SEC.
The color on this car was part of a makeover that also includes an extensive audio system. The system features Eclipse and Soundstream parts. It always amazes me at how, like cars themselves electronic equipment can provide a look that evokes a time period and the equipment in this car is no exception. The seller states the system was installed in the early 1990s, I would’ve pegged it at right about 1995. Flipping through some of my car audio magazines from that time and pricing some of the equipment there is no question the creator took the best that Eclipse and to offer and through it at the car. There is easily multiple thousands of dollars of parts alone from when they were new. It is too bad that the seller doesn’t show a build sheet with all the model numbers of the included parts, because certainly the speakers, which are hidden, are also upgraded. The seller says that all the equipment works as it should. The seller alludes to this being a display car, but doesn’t state whether it was for a manufacturer, car audio shop or what. If it was a display/demo car one would hope the install quality was high.