Our love of the T3 Vanagon Syncro has taken up significant blog space here, but sightings of T4s – called Eurovans, Transporters, or Caravelles – with Syncro are exceedingly rare. The only one I’d seen before this was an Executive Package Caravelle boasting private jet-like seating and lots of leather. Today’s T4 Transporter occupies the other end of the spectrum, with a stripped rear interior and metal separation wall behind the two front seats. Judging by the seller’s offer to install a refrigeration unit in the back for $7k, I’m going to guess that at some point it was used for cold transport. The lack of amenities are made up for by options never available in the US: panel sides, 4WD, and diesel power. I don’t need any “REEFER” capabilities (as the seller refers to it) installed, but I see a lot of potential for a go-anywhere camper with great privacy!
Tag: 1990
The perfect counterpoint to Volkswagen’s GLi 16V like the one we featured earlier has to be the BMW 320is. Ostensibly, these two cars were aimed at close to the same market although the BMW was a fair chunk of change more expensive than the Jetta. But both were sports sedans, both came only as manuals, both had BBS wheels, grippy Recaro seats and sport suspension, and critically both featured a 2 liter 16V motor. But it’s there where the similarities end, because while Volkswagen rung 134 horsepower out of the 9A, BMW squeezed a seemingly unbelievable (for the time) 192 horsepower out of the lower displacement S14. For some time, the 100 hp/liter mark was considered about as good as naturally aspirated motors got and the 320is was hauntingly close with 192 ponies from 1,990 CCs – proportionately, more powerful than the larger 2.3 and 2.5 variants. We’ve previously covered this model a few times and so won’t go into lengthy detail about the history (plus, some of it is included in the listing), but if you wanted to understand why you’d pay more for one of these BMWs in the late 80s, that engineering feat alone was a good indication. As the E30 market has been red hot and importation becomes possible for more of these cars, we keep seeing them pop up:
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1990 BMW 320is on eBay
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When is the last time you saw a Volkswagen Passat B3 on the road? I honestly can’t remember myself. With the B3, Volkswagen decided to finally use the Passat moniker in the US market, after a run of Dashers and Quantums. Those cars were always the outliers in the mid-sized sedan race and so it went with the B3 Passat. During a period when the Honda Accord was the king in this segment in the US, the Passat was a car for those who wanted something off the beaten path but maybe weren’t ready to move into an Audi, BMW or Mercedes. It’s front end sans grille harkened back to the days of their air-cooled products but the rest of the styling was a bit of an evolution of the B2 Passat with a bit of streamlining for the 1990s. This Passat GT for sale in Hannover, Germany was a model we didn’t see in the US. It’s 1.8 liter engine won’t set the world on fire, but the Sebring alloy wheels and two tone red/black livery is eye catching.
Click for details:Â 1990 Volkswagen Passat GT on Mobile.de
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Look closely and you might mistake these two Mercedes-Benz 190Es and you might mistake them for any other run of the mill W201. Dig a little deeper and you’ll notice they are sitting just a little bit lower on their haunches and a small badge on the lower front fender: Sportline. This was an option that added a tauter suspension and differing interior trim to the usual baby Benz package. While the 190E 2.3-16, 2.5-16 and Evo models carried the performance torch for the W201 lineup, the Sportline option gave buyers the ability to have something just a bit different than your run of the mill Mercedes sedan. First up, we have a 1990 190E 2.6 Sportline for sale south of Munich, Germany with just 53,000 miles on the clock.
Click for details:Â 1990 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.6 Sportline on Mobile.de
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What if one car could really do it all? What would it look like? It’s always amused me that these civilized off-roaders we see rambling about these days are referred to as Sport Utility Vehicles. With a higher center of gravity, sport isn’t really what comes to mind. A sports car really won’t be a good solution for the school run, given limited seating capacity and luggage space. Sure, a sedan is a good all-around vehicle, but they often lack soul and don’t have as versatile a cargo bay as a vehicle with a lift gate. So what about a wagon then? And one with four-wheel drive. And a 5-speed manual gearbox. And a smooth, torquey inline-6 under the hood? Too good to be true? BMW got the formula right with the E30 Touring, like this 325ix Touring we see here for sale in Essen, Germany.