Another week means another entry into our series featuring the sweet cars I found for sale online. This time you’re getting a couple of imports, classics and two Lotus!
I now search for interesting vehicles anywhere and everywhere on the internet, not just Facebook and Craigslist, to make sure I find the best cars out there.
These vehicles may be hilariously unreliable, remarkably unusual, questionably tuned or just something that stops me in my tracks. We all know the used car market is all kinds of broken right now, but I try to find deals where they exist.
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Vintage trucks already have a charm that you may not find in something new. But a vintage truck with lots of chrome and a spare tire bolted to the side of the bed? You could stare at it all day.
This GMC 100 is a part of the truck maker’s Blue Chip Series, a line of trucks upmarket of Chevrolet’s Task Force Series. It’s said to be from California, which explains its overall good condition. There’s some paint fade here and there, but the truck makes up for it with a V8 under the hood, cream-colored wheels and whitewalls.
It’s $22,500 on Facebook Marketplace in Wyandanch, New York.
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The AMC Eagle’s existence is a weird one, because the handsome go-anywhere wagon came out of AMC stretching a platform while also finding a way around regulations. I’ll let our David Tracy explain:
The Eagle was a brilliant decision by AMC to essentially take a single vehicle architecture and stretch the crap out of it until it became something that the average person considered a vastly different machine. The base vehicle was the AMC Concord wagon, which had roots that stretched back to the early 1970s AMC Hornet.
The whole program, led by the late Roy Lunn, was all about getting the most out of one set of bones (that was AMC’s M.O.), and also about skirting regulations, as The Truth About Cars notes in its 2017 story.
Light trucks didn’t have to meet the tougher emissions and safety regulations cars had to back then. The result was one of the first unibody 4x4s, and damn is an Eagle good.
This one is said to have an exterior in 9.5/10 condition with an interior in 9/10 condition. Power comes from a 4.2-liter AMC straight six going to an automatic.
It’s $7,000 on Facebook Marketplace in Orting, Washington with 119,000 miles.
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We tend to think as hot hatches as cars like the Ford Focus RS or the Volkswagen Golf R, but you can get that hot hatch experience in scale form, too. That’s what you get behind the wheel of a Suzuki Alto Works.
This little guy hits all of the right notes with a hood scoop, not one but two wings, and a turbocharged engine. Under the hood is a 660cc F6A turbocharged inline three delivering the most ferocious 64 horses you’ll experience.
It’s $9,650 from the Import Guys in Ferndale, Washington with 89,000 miles.
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The Yamaha RD350 was so quick and just difficult enough to ride at speed that some called it a “widowmaker.” All this from a two stroke twin making only 39 HP. These bikes are popular, but it’s still possible to find them without paying too much money.
This one appears to be in good condition all around. The seller notes that this one came from South Africa, where it sat in a museum for a while. But even though it was a literal museum piece, the 24,700 miles on its odometer says it was also enjoyed.
It’s $6,599 by Throttle Company Vintage Motorcycles in Columbus, Ohio.
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It can be surprisingly difficult to find a Subaru BRZ without a mod list so long that it might as well be a completely different car. Here’s one that appears to have been left mostly untouched.
Its 2.0-liter boxer four puts 200 HP to the ground from the rear wheels with a manual transmission. These cars are a crowd favorite for being an affordable sports coupe.
It’s $15,470 on CarFax in Stone Mountain, Georgia with 126,515 miles.
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The Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia is a lovely practically hand-built coupe with a design that copies Chrysler’s homework. Seriously, as our Jason Torchinsky explains:
Chrysler and the Italian coachbuilder and design house Ghia had a partnership in the 1950s, the result of which was a number of collaborative show and concept cars. One of these, designed in 1952 by Exner and built by Ghia, was known as the D’Elegance.
[…]
Then came Volkswagen. VW had been mildly interested in a sportier version, of the Beetle, but hadn’t been impressed with the ideas their longtime convertible-building partner, Karmann, had come up with.
So, Karmann reached out to Ghia to see if they had any great ideas, and Ghia looked over to the corner of their workshop and saw the forlorn D’Elegance and said “Well, now that you mention it…”
The result is a sporty looking coupe with Beetle power. Yeah, you won’t win any races, but just look at it!
This one’s noted to have no major issues, just some rust in some areas. It’s $14,000 on Facebook Marketplace in Los Angeles, California.
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It seems no matter what happens in the world the Lotus Elise just never loses value. But with a 1.8-liter four making 190 HP and a manual pushing a body that weighs in at just under 2,000 pounds, you can see why. Combined with these looks, it’s a perfect mix of head-turning daily driver and track toy. Even the interior of an Elise is something else.
This example looks to be in overall good condition, but has problems here and there like a broken soft-top cable and a bad air-conditioner resistor pack. It’s $38,000 on Facebook Marketplace in Fullerton, California with 88,700 miles and is noted to have a clean title.
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The Volvo PV544 is a development of the PV444. The PV444 was Volvo’s first unibody car and featured a laminated windshield. It was launched during World War II as cheap transportation that was also cheap to operate and cement Volvo’s place in the world.
The PV544 improved on it with new trim, a single-piece windshield and an extra gear in the manual transmission. Under the hood is a 1.6-liter four making 66 HP.
This one is said to be in good shape, but the last time it ran was last year. Before that, it was in a storage unit for 30 years. It could make for a fun winter project getting this back on the road. It’s $5,000 on Facebook Marketplace in Buffalo, New York.
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I promised you two Lotus, and you’re getting them! Courtesy of Obscure Cars for Sale on Facebook, what you’re looking at here is a Lotus Elite. This car was meant to move Lotus upmarket. It features a shooting brake design with a glass hatch. The body shell is fiberglass and it rides on a steel backbone frame. It’s a weird car, but still a Lotus at heart.
You could drive this with some brake work and a valve job, but the seller recommends a full restoration. No matter what you choose, it’s $5,500 on Facebook Marketplace in San Diego, California.
That’s it for this week! Have you purchased a car from one of these posts? If so, I want to know.
If you know of a weird car for sale on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, drop it down in the comments or send it along in an email! If the car’s still for sale, we may feature it in a future post.
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