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If there’s one type of car that has a rabid following amongst enthusiasts it is wagons with a manual gearbox. The number of new cars available in this form is few. Good used examples are fast disappearing, with the folks who own and love them hanging on to them like the coin of the realm. The 2007 BMW 328xi Touring we featured early this month sold in short order to another enthusiast who contacted us directly seeking more information. Hopefully, we’ll soon have a recap of that story. In the meantime, if you missed the 2007 E91 Touring, here’s one of the last E91 Tourings for sale in Massachusetts sent to us by our reader Adam, painted in a lesser seen shade of Vermilion Red.
It seems there’s a never ending supply of good Mercedes-Benz W123s out there. I’ve met a good number of people who have owned or experienced these cars over time and all of them have walked away impressed. With modern manufacturing and bean counters, it’s doubtful we’ll ever see a car engineered to a point like this in the near future. The good thing is, however, that these cars’ durability have kept many on the road, clocking hundreds of thousands of miles each in the process. This 300TD for sale in Georgia has made a few long distance trips, having just broken 160,000 miles. Considering their reputation, the break in period for this final year W123 estate has just ended.
One of my favorite Volkswagens from the 1980s is one that you rarely see on the roads anymore. The Fox Wagon. This was an oddity in the US lineup for only a couple of years, a compact, two-door shooting brake of an estate car that was courtesy of Volkswagen of Brazil, where it was sold as the Gol. These were a bit of a reprisal of the idea of the “people’s car†for VW, a basic, no frills model offering German engineering at a discount. While the wagon was discontinued after the 1990 model year, the model range would get a refresh, carrying on with the two and four door sedan models through 1993. This 1988 Wagon for sale in Florida is a chance to sample an almost forgotten model in recent Volkswagen memory.
Mercedes-Benz has been one of the mainstays in diesel passenger car offerings in the United States. However, into the 1990s, the selection became a bit thin. If you wanted a diesel engine with estate carrying capacity towards the end of the W124 E class production, you were out of luck. In fact, Mercedes has not offered a diesel estate in the US since 1987, as 1988 saw the introduction of the 300TE to replace the 300TD. One intrepid Mercedes mechanic, though, has gone the extra mile to create what never was on this side of the Atlantic, with this 1994 E300 Diesel Estate.
Upon my urging, an old friend of mine in the Boston area purchased a BMW E91 Touring with a 6-speed manual gearbox after he learned his first child was on the way. His wife desperately wanted an SUV but in the end, the long roof 3er argument won. He had previously driven a 2001 325xi sedan with an automatic, and a 1992 325i sedan with a 5-speed manual and always missed the joy of rowing your own during his E46 ownership, especially when it came to the smooth gearboxes we’ve come to know from the boffins in Munich. If it’s 3 series driving quality you seek but need a bit more practicality in the mix, our reader Dave is offering his very mint 2007 328xi Touring with the Sport package and 6-speed manual gearbox. BMW isn’t offering three-pedal Tourings stateside, so now is your chance to get them while there’s still a few lower mileage examples out there.