Good morning! We’ve reached the end of what has been for me a long, weird, and tiring week. I saw my little brother get married, wandered around my old Portland stomping grounds for a bit, had an arduous ordeal getting back home thanks to airline shenanigans, saw a fantastic concert, and drove home from that through a pouring rainstorm.
I also haven’t, until just now, looked at the results from the week’s votes. It all came out fairly close to what I expected, with one exception. So now it’s time for an American Idol–style results show, which I guess makes me Brian Dunkelman. (I’m nowhere near good-looking enough to be that other guy.) We’ll go over the results, I’ll give you my picks, and then you can vote on your favorite from the week.
Also, I need your opinions on something: I have another vacation coming up in November. I can either front-load a bunch of Showdowns like this, or I can try to sweet-talk some of the other Autopian writers into doing guest spots. We’ve done it both ways in the past; let me know in the comments which way you prefer.
And with that, here are your week’s winners.
1984 Chevrolet Corvette – $1,000
When you think of $1-2,000 cars, a Corvette might not be the last car you think of, but it’s pretty far down the list. Despite its garden-variety V8 and Chevrolet badges, the Corvette has always been the stuff of legends, the Paul Bunyan of American cars, and as such, is nearly always over-valued. That’s why it was refreshing for me to find two running Corvettes for cheap. Of course, they’re not the Corvettes anybody really wants, but that’s not my problem. This ratty, title-less C4 beat out a nasty C3 with an interior like a superfund site.
Honestly, this result surprised me. I expected the lack of a title on the ’84 to be its downfall. But it sounds like the C3’s reputation and condition were just too much to overcome, and most of you would rather do battle with the DMV than whatever might be living inside the ’79. Having driven both a C3 and a C4, both with automatics, I feel like this is the right choice. The difference in driving dynamics between the two is just night-and-day, which isn’t surprising when you consider that the C3’s basic chassis design dates all the way back to the C2 in 1963. It was really something then, but it wore out its welcome by the late 70s. Given the choice, you want the C4, title or not.
1992 Jeep Comanche – $2,000
On Tuesday, I gave you the choice between two non-running 80s classics – yes, I know this is a ’92 model year, but its design is firmly rooted in the 80s – and I had no delusions that the Dodge Daytona was going to win. But they come up for sale so seldom these days that when I found one, I just had to feature it. The mysteriously-inoperative Comanche pickup won this round easily.
Personally, I have no real interest in the Comanche, but I can see why someone would. Though, I guess I don’t have much interest in a Daytona either, despite having owned a Laser in the past. I had an opportunity to buy a non-running Daytona Turbo Z several years ago for next to nothing – $300 if I remember right – and passed it up, because it was an automatic. Had it been a manual, it would have been a lot more tempting. If I didn’t go for that one, I’m not going for this non-turbo example for two grand. Given the choice, I’d fix the Comanche and sell it.
1974 Volvo 164E – $1,000
Sometimes the cars I find don’t really go with anything else, but they’re too compelling to ignore. Such was the case with Wednesday’s contenders. A rough old Volvo sedan and a bizarrely-modified Pontiac Fiero are not two cars anyone is going to cross-shop, and yet, here we are. The Volvo needed a lot done to it, and the Fiero needed a lot of things undone. The vote was closer than I thought; I expected that silly Fiero to turn off more people, but the Volvo did win.
I have always really liked Fieros, but I don’t think I’d touch that Fiero with a ten-foot pole. It has seen too much, gone too far down the road to… wherever the hell it was going. The Volvo needs a lot of work, but it looks like a good opportunity to learn some cool skills – and rid the world of one more BW35 automatic transmission in the process. Put me on Team Volvo as well.
1987 Dodge Ram 250 – $2,950
Yesterday I showed you two old fleet trucks wearing one of my all-time favorite truck colors: Forest Service Green. The old Dodge pickup is a far more traditional USFS vehicle, a base-model stickshift pickup, but the Chevy Tahoe is a much nicer vehicle in which to spend time. There was a lot of back and forth in the comments about this one, and several of you were clamoring for a “both” option. But I couldn’t do that if I wanted to do a four-way shootout today. So, in the closest vote of the week, the Dodge won.
Obviously, I like both of these, but the funny part is, I don’t really have any use for either of them. The Dodge is functionally equivalent to my own Forest Service truck, and the Tahoe is basically just an older version of my wife’s Yukon, which isn’t Forest Service Green, but it is a very nice shade of dark metallic blue. I guess if I were going to go for one of these, it would be the Dodge, since the extra weight-carrying capacity would come in handy.
So, there are the week’s four finalists, as chosen by you, my faithful readers. Now, you must choose once again, and decide which one is the week’s winner. I’ll see you back here next week for more fun with cheap cars, and as always, thank you for reading!
Vette Kart!
Give yourself a shot at real vacation from work, guest writers for this feature while you’re out. Be interesting to see various takes from various locations, especially outside the USA.
If I had time for a project i would 100% buy the vette. $1k for such a capable rolling chassis. low budget race car waiting to be absolutely thrown around a track without a care in the world. who needs a title for that.
The Volvo and Corvette are rough, and as cool as the Comanche is, the case for it is completely undermined by the honest-as-the-day-is-long Dodge.
Give yourself a real vacation and have other contributors each take a day.
Would love to see Adrian’s take on some derelict British cars.
Laurence could give us some wonders from down under.
Thomas could let us explore the great white North.
Mercedes could roundup some weird imports.
SWG could find some hidden treasures and instead of a both option for the vote there would be a “I already bought them both”.
I vote guest writer(s) to give Mark a real vacation this time!
Seconded!
Aye!
Dodge. Pretty much through the process of elimination.
I get really good vibes off of the Dodge. In spite of all the dents it looks like it’s being taken care of in its post-fleet life. It deserves a good home.
Comanche for me as aside from the engine, the rest of the vehicle looks solid.
I’ve always like those trucks. I’d LS swap it.
I would look at what’s keeping it from running before deciding on any swaps. I kind of like the idea of keeping a basic truck like this original.
I’d love to see some of the other staff members write some of these. Mercedes will show off a bunch of trains, Jason will only find cars with wacky taillights, David will show rusty Jeeps that he’ll probably end up buying himself, and who knows what Adrian will come up with.
Oh, and Dodge all the way. How can you pass up that majestic green color?
An old, simple truck in decent shape is hard to beat at that price.
Either way works for vacation. Though I lean towards the other writers to see what they lead towards. Some of them we know already. Rusted Holy Grail Jeeps, Odd low powered cars, everything under the sun…. 🙂
I’ll offer up a guest host option, where eight (lucky?) Autopian staffers/contributors each get to pick one car for the contest. Pair them up randomly for Monday thru Thursday, with the daily winners all making it to the Friday showdown.
The ultimate winner gets possession of the traveling ShitBox trophy, to display proudly until your next week long vacation.
I’m just gonna ride my bike. They’re all crusty beaters.
I’m still here for the Volvo.
Because who doesn’t love a nice smooth inline 6?
And interior replacement upholstery, carpets, door seals, etc. are readily available.
Only one of my four choices from this week made it through to the Hollywood round (the Comanche), so it gets my vote today as well.
Dodge, 100%. One of the options could have been a plastic Barbie car, but if it was painted forest service green it would automatically get my vote.
The Dodge – because everything else needs something (a lot of something in some cases). The Dodge needs nothing. It’s kinda perfect the way it is, and I’d use it accordingly.
Everything about it seems a genuine decent deal.
Functional, seems to be all there (plus some boxes for storing things), decent price, and it runs.
I would have gone with the Comanche if it, you know, actually ran. The Dodge is overkill for the kind of truck stuff I can see myself doing. But I can hop into that jolly green giant and get some shit done today as opposed to having a project that I need to complete before I can take care of my other projects. Big-ass Dodge FTW!
The Volvo is going to require more work than I can realistically put in. A cheap Corvette is always tempting, but I’d rather spend more and get one in better condition.
this was my exact thought, if the commanche was running that would have been my pick (having owned one!), but the running dodge is the better play.
Man! It’s a vacation week!! Don’t exhaust yourself leading up to it. Let management figure it out.
Do your best when you’re not on vacation and then do your best to relax when you are.
And it might be a bit fun to see what other people struggle with for a week.
That said, you are very good at what you do and everyone else on the staff will probably hate doing it. They may even appreciate you more.
Don’t “exhaust” yourself?
You’d think there was a Polaris in the running.
Going Comanche. Give it a turbodiesel swap and paint it Forest Service Green.
Go with the guest writer format for Showdown. Always fun to see what different folks consider shit boxes.
I have a thought in the back of my mind of building a budget Sledgehammer Corvette. In 1988 Callaway set a top speed faster than a Bugatti Veyron using a boosted c4 Corvette. Today LS engines are cheap and can easily handle the power and boost levels the Sledgehammer ran, c4 Corvettes can be had cheap. I’d be interested to see how fast you could go for very little cash.
Make other Autopians do the showdown! Have theme days! Griffin has to do 2 seat grand tourers, one of which cannot be a Corvette. DT has to find two not rusty Jeeps! Mercedes has find two, I dunno, houseboats? Hardigree has to find a super practical car and a comparably priced impractical car. Then on Friday, it’s a smorgasbord of member/reader submissions! The weirder, the better, but nothing over $3k!
Oh, and I voted for the green Dodge!
Ditto, it would be fun to see what the other writers come up with!
Ooh, we should make David find two Jeeps that are so rusty even he thinks they cannot be saved. Maybe there’s a Jeep that went down with a ship during WWII that has nothing but the windshield left after an 80 year saltwater bath.
Pfft. You may as well ask Ms Mercedes find an overly complicated VW she doesn’t want.
This is probably easier than getting him to find non-rusty ones, since, as even he seems aware following his move to California, he clearly doesn’t know what “non-rusty” actually means.
The fsg Dodge is a lead pipe cinch today. It runs, and it’s awesome. I picked the Tahoe yesterday, but I wanted a both button.
No preference on whether you front load them, or get someone else to write them while you’re gone. This week’s format was totally fine, but sometimes it’s nice to see the other writer’s take on this series.
Maybe have Adrian give us some Shitbox Showdowns from across the pond. I’d love to read his take on putting a Ssangyong Rodius up against…well…anything.
ooo I like this!
Shitbox ’round the World please! If not next week maybe as a theme week sometime? Feature a city in Brazil, India, Kenya, or Romania. Maybe feature some places with known car cultures.